Academia, Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics

American University Professor Calls For Trump Impeachment Over The Coronavirus Response

Professor Chris Edelson, assistant professor of government at American University, has penned an opinion column calling for President Trump to resign or be impeachment for his handling of the coronavirus crisis. It is just the latest in a long line of such impeachment theories that reflect a fundamental misconception of the function and standard for the removal of an American President.

Edelson has concluded that it is now “essential” to force Trump’s resignation or removal “[a]t each stage, he has lied, he has created confusion, he has made reckless predictions, and he has, once and for all, demonstrated his manifest unfitness to serve.”    Edelson offers a series of a conclusory statements to support this conclusion like “it is so plainly the right thing to do” or it is clear that “Donald Trump cannot do his job.” Thus, “[i]n a functioning system, elected officials from both major political parties would call for the president’s resignation, and he would be forced to leave office or face impeachment and removal through the constitutional process.”

Such an impeachment would be facially abusive and baseless. Impeachment is not means to remove a president who you are dissatisfied with the performance of a president. As I have previously written, critics have largely misrepresented the standard as a type of no-confidence vote. The Edelson column reflects the continued disregard of the history and text of the impeachment provisions to avoid precisely what he has suggested.

However, Edelson’s call for impeachment or removal is nothing new. Not only did he support past impeachment calls, but, just a couple months into the Trump presidency, he was advocating a Rube-Golberg-like process to force a new vote on the presidency before the Trump family was actually all living at the White House. In that column, Edelson simply declared that “after just two months, there is no question that the Donald Trump presidency is an unmitigated disaster.” So here is what he suggested:

“Here’s how it could work: Each chamber of Congress, the House and the Senate, would have to vote by a two-thirds majority to hold a special election. three-quarters of state legislatures would have to ratify the amendment. The amendment would call for a one time special election, allowing qualified political parties (the Republicans and Democrats, and other parties who can meet a threshold to qualify for the ballot) one month to choose a nominee and then one month for a general election, to be held on a national holiday. The amendment would make clear this is a one-time event. After the election is held, we would revert to pre-existing constitutional procedures, for example, with a presidential election held every four years. The amendment could also provide for a national unity government to occupy the executive branch while the short election campaign goes on.”

As wacky as that proposal may seem, it still thrills many readers. Removal has become a rallying point for rage and it does not matter that the subject of impeachment has changed from opposing NFL kneelers to disproven Russian collusion to Charlottesville to the Coronavirus. The premise is the same: we must remove Trump as an existential threat. Another premise is that we need a “new constitution” which Edelson often demands because the constitutional standard and process did not allow for the removal of Trump.

Edelson and others have called for the type of impulse impeachments that the Framers feared in drafting the Constitution. This is the thrust of his call for removal that has remained consistent from two months after the election to the present day: “In calling for Trump’s resignation we are refusing to accept the assumption that Trump exists outside of normal rules. We know he isn’t up to the job.”  Thus, the “new constitution” that Edelson has demanded would allow for such cathartic measures whenever a majority opposed a president because he “isn’t up to the job.” Imagine if Republicans had that unfettered option with Obama. Would Edelson be praising the power of removal in that case? Edelson and his supporters believe that nation would be more stable and stronger with the ability to remove presidents on such a fluid, facile standard.

Edelson is also a Fellow at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and holds a B.A. from Brandeis University and a J.D. Harvard Law School.

265 thoughts on “American University Professor Calls For Trump Impeachment Over The Coronavirus Response”

  1. Perhaps now people will understand the madness of Democrat open border policies.

  3. EDELSON and others like Edelson have severe TRUMPsyndrome, they hate him and whatever he does they oppose, he could cure cancer and they would oppose and hate.

    Actually, Trump is doing a very good job, he closed borders, while the DEM’s and the Press cry out for open borders. While the Dem’s wasted time on impeachment Trump was taking action on COVID-19 closed borders with China. Perhaps the DEM’s should have worked on COVID-19 vs impeachment?

    Lets face it TRUMP HATERS are blinded and hate while the rest of us look to try to improve this country.

    When Trump gets reelected, the Trump haters are going to get nuttier?????????????

  4. A realization that may come from this corona virus shut down of schools and college classes, etc, is that college is a scam and is now a collossal waste of money. Choose wisely. Don’t waste your money on college and professors like this idiot who shovel crap into young minds.

  5. We agree that impeachment is not the correct remedy for Trump’s complete failure at leadership so far on the coronavirus crisis, not to mention his earlier dismantling of the permanent pandemic crisis team which included an NSC position. This is an amendment 25 case, but with a zombie Senate majority and cabinet heads, a non-starter. Discussing it is a waste of time, which brings up why JT is writiing another “Look, a squirrel!” column. Most of his columns are of that flavor these days, for those keeping score, and no wonder. This distracts from a serious discussion of Trump’s ego driven missteps which have been harmful to our health, and even with the crisis assuming warp speed, includes as recently as Friday – day before yesterday – his downplaying the threat, because ……… he lies half the time and is motivated solely by trying to embellish his own fragile ego and is a sociopath, completely lacking empathy for the suffering of others, including his fellow Americans. That, not some obscure professor at an obscure University with an enrollment of maybe 2,000 is what Americans should be considering, and act appropriately in November.

    1. Agreed, Book. 25 light at first, shuffle him to Mar a Lago. But he won’t cooperate, then it will not really be a choice. Seems drastic, but I think Trump’s mental health puts us there.

      1. However you’re right, the 25th, which clearly fits here, is a non starter in the McConnell Senate.

        Many surveys of late with the fabled ‘Obama to Trump’ voters…, apparently the rate of those voters sticking with Trump are 7 out of 11. So Trump retains 2/3’s of the vote total with that group who gave him a popular vote loss, making the most likely scenario is that he suffers a bigger vote loss this time.

        All comes down to turnout. It can’t be low like in ’16. Otherwise it puts it on those 3 states that gave Trump the TKO last time.

        First step, get the guy in the hat out of the oval office.

  7. So Professor Nobody shows his uneducated donkey and begs the question… What is he trying for tenure or running for office? Stupid is as Stupid does in the Stupid Party. Ad Machina to these machine parts.

    1. I should have remembered a classroom full of a grad student and a bunch of parrots. Wow! That’s really important. Not. Machine parts never are.
      Ad Machina

  9. Well, agreed Trump’s woeful response to Covid 19 is not worth impeachment.

    Don’t agree Russian collusion was “disproven”. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t ‘proven — and besides, from the Russian side, there was no need to collude. They clearly had, and have, Trump wrapped. He hasn’t proven himself worthy of the higher levels of compromising tactics. He’s easy.

    What will happen, what is indeed happening as we speak, is Trump will be faded off to Mar a Lago. Fauci will be the spokesperson. Trump will wear a stupid baseball cap and implode because he won’t be able to do rallies for two months.

    Really Professor? This is what you see worthy of focusing on about the Covid 19 response???

    1. Trump’s response being ‘woeful’ is just stupid. There is nothing he has done, and nothing he has not done that would affect a pandemic of a flu that is actually not all that dangerous.

      Russian Collusion was not only disproven, it was proven to be a conspiracy of lies conducted by FBI agents, who hid the exculpatory evidence, mislead the courts and doctored FBI 302 statements.

      What will happen is that sick hate-filled ignorant babbling know-nothings like yourself will be babbling until 2024 because Trump, the President who gave us 3 times the rise in Average Household Income in 3 years that Obama + Bush delivered in 16 years is going to crush the senile old dishonest chinese-colluding, ukrainian-colluding thief that is now the leader of the Democrat party.

    2. Don’t agree Russian collusion was “disproven”. It wasn’t.

      Collusion truther Gainesville subscribes to a thesis the FBI gave up on three years ago and the Weissman lawfare collective gave up on in the fall of 2018.

      2. Life on the planet Jupiter hasn’t been dis proven either, but it would take one heck of an imagination to think there might be life there.

        1. True. Making it clear that, in the context of t he Mueller report, in addition of the language explicitly stating so, that the claim that Trump’s Russian collusion was *not* disproven.

    3. Anon frustrated that the President has done such an exemplary job attacks Jonathan Turley again and again.

      Turley is trying to teach you how to think. He failed.

        1. There is such a thing as independent thought but you don’t have it. You post independent drivel copied from left wing hit pieces and you don’t even do it accurately.

            1. Good to know if you have tantrums. II thought you handled your tantrums by posting drivel copied from left wing sites or maybe you just talk to yourself to confirm your existence.

    4. Wow. You think russians have influence over the president? Where is your proof for this. Where is your proof that trump’s response to the corona virus was “woeful”? He implemented trave bans on chinese nationals 40 days before the corona virus became a pandemic. He has removed obama era regulations that blovk speedy development of tests and identified our dependence on china for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Thats just a few of the things he’s done. I think you’d be upset with the man if he cured cancer.

    5. Is that you Arlen Specter? Using Scottish law again? “Not proven”.
      It was sad then, and still is.

    6. Why would Trump ever need any help from Putin or Russia? This meme has never held any water “intellectually or made any sense whatsoever. After years of multiple investigations from every angle from die-hard anti-Trump zealots that had to publically and begrudgingly state that NO ONE in the Trump orbit was ever found to have colluded with ANY foreign entities whatsoever.Simply put “That dog ain’t going to hunt” meme. So when I hear this tripe now from anyone you are instantly discounted as a “Bitter Clinger”and a denier of facts and should be simply ignored. One thing is abundantly clear to all rational thinking people is,Trump was never Putin’s puppet. Case Closed!

      1. Most likely reason why Trump colluded with the Russians and why, unlike with our long time allies, he always bends over for Putin, is money. He has hidden his financial records, including taxes, but we know banks won’t lend to him anymore and Don, Jr said they could always borrow in Russia.

        The Mueller report specifically limited itself to findings of a criminal conspiracy, not collusion, which is not illegal, though against our national interest, i.e., non-criminal treason. It is false to state that the report cleared Trump of collusion – JT has repeated this canard, an unexplainable falsehood from someone who is supposedly a legal expert. On the criminal conspiracy, the report specifically did not clear Trump or the campaign of this charge but found only that it could not prove or establish the charge. The report noted the hiding of information, including resistance to interviews from both the President and his sons.

        1. Those interested in Trump’s dependence on Russian money might like:

          https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/

          “…In 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy with $1.8 billion dollars of debt.

          But Trump eventually made a comeback, and according to several sources with knowledge of Trump’s business, foreign money played a large role in reviving his fortunes, in particular investment by wealthy people from Russia and the former Soviet republics. This conclusion is buttressed by a growing body of evidence amassed by news organizations, as well as what is reportedly being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York. It is a conclusion that even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has appeared to confirm, saying in 2008—after the Trump Organization was prospering again—that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

          Trump’s former longtime architect, Alan Lapidus, echoed this view in an interview with FP this month. Lapidus said that based on what he knew from the internal workings of the organization, in the aftermath of Trump’s earlier financial troubles “he could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything. It was all coming out of Russia. His involvement with Russia was deeper than he’s acknowledged.”…”

        2. GIVE IT UP DUDE, Not only is that patient dead, Rigor mortis has devoured the corpse..Yet you are still giving it mouth to mouth. Pathetic.

          1. Actually it’s just the truth. Like it or not. I think we’re all cognizant that this, in the current Senate, won’t get Trump removed, but the truth is the truth.

  10. Nothing more accurately indicates that a person is a total moron than their having the title “professor.”

  11. We are all so weary of this. I could honestly give a toss that anyone hates Trump at this point. No single person or group could’ve done anything any differently. Except for the media! I wholeheartedly blame them for stoking the fires of panic, and that is so much worse than the pandemic itself. To use any of this as anything but the impetus for temperance and solution is likely the crassest thing I’ve ever witnessed.

  12. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a product of our ‘ivy league’ edyucashunall system. This product is currently handing down his ‘larning’ to another generation of American youth, teaching (wait for it) American Government at American University. (smh)

  13. I have heard the Dem talking point, existential threat, about Trump over and over and over on all kinds of wacky crap.

    “Existential threat” is the new “weapons of mass destruction.” Something scary-sounding that is total bullsh*t.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  14. Professor Chris Edelson,You should commit suicide in front of your classes. So they may learn of your ignorance.

  15. As ever, graduate schools turn out cranks. The faculty turning out cranks then hire the cranks they’ve trained and retain them.

    This bum isn’t a marginal figure. He has a handsome position at a private research university. Private research universities, swank private colleges, Public Ivies, and other state flagships account for roughly 20% of the professoriate in this country. That’s where graduate students considering an academic career aim to be. Also, political science isn’t a patronage program for privileged political interests. It’s an authentic academic discipline. It’s got it’s problems, but it’s not in a state of decay in the manner of sociology or cultural anthropology.

    In our own time, it’s a reasonable wager that the number of cranks on arts-and-sciences faculties exceeds the number of common-and-garden Republicans. Over about three generations, academe has decayed into a rancid clerisy completely divorced from the country’s cultural rhythms, highly pretentious, and disdainful of the rest of us, fancying themselves visitors from a superior neighborhood. What’s to do?

    In the 1920s, the cultural disjunction between the intelligentsia and the rest of us was less pronounced and the purveyors of tertiary schooling less consequential. Now, we rely on them to sort the labor market, and tertiary schooling is hoovering up the majority of each birth cohort (v. roughly 10% of each in 1928). The answer to the problem the professor presents is vengeance. Abolish tenure, put institutions under the government of boards elected by alumni resident in-state, and restructure degree and certificate programs so that they are (1) briefer and (2) contain no distribution requirements and (3) are only in disciplines explicitly recognized by the state legislature and delineated in a glossary. A 75% reduction in the number of arts-and-sciences faculty coast-to-coast would be condign punishment for the people who have made of academe what it is today.

  16. “Professor Chris Edelson”
    📚
    Doesn’t know the definition of “Impeachment”
    📚
    Well…that’s encouraging for one who educates our Children

    1. There was a time when a law degree from Harvard meant something. I suspect that this learned professor unfortunately reflects the output today of most of the ivy league schools. I would never recommend that someone wanting to be a real lawyer go to any of them. BTW, sorry about Italy.

  20. One note Sally’s.

    They keep coming back to this one remedy and the liberal media keeps buying these rehashed articles.

    Plus in a time of national panic, they keep trying to undermine partisanship and national unity.

    Pretty pathetic specimens.

    1. monumentcolorado

      Please tell us what you mean by “liberal media.”

      1. That the media is only on the liberal side… are you a dummy or an idiot. Dummy’s can learn, not idiots. Quit looking down and try looking up instead . Quit asking questions that you know.

      2. BM

        Media that caters to non-thinking emotional readers – otherwise described as sufferers of TDS.

        These outlets produce Trump porn – emotional diatribes of no value.

        The readers of the liberal media are like monkeys masturbating – excited, frenetic, all consumed, and disturbing in a disgusting way.

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