5 days ago
Is it time to talk impeachment? Given Trump's actions, it may be overdue.
In the few months since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, he has issued so many executive orders and pronouncements on domestic and foreign policy that he may have overwhelmed our intellectual and emotional energy to fully appreciate their impact.
Whether or not you approve of the direction he wants to take the country, he took office after being duly elected. Many of his initiatives are within his authority. Generally speaking, Trump has the right to indulge his ideological obsessions and advance policies that benefit the economic class that 'brung him to the dance.' But, what of those executive orders that exceed the limited authority proscribed for the presidency — powers meant to be shared with other branches of government, or those that defy Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution?
Say goodbye to democracy — and our freedoms — if we ignore James Madison's warning in the Federalist Papers No. 47 that "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump took the Presidential Oath of Office to 'faithfully execute the Office of President' and 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Yet just three months later, when asked if he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement that every person in the United States is entitled to due process, Trump told NBC's Kristen Welker that he's not so sure. 'I don't know. I'm not a lawyer.'
The Constitution states that 'no person' shall be 'deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' It says 'person,' not 'citizen.' Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court has held that everyone in this country have certain basic rights. When Welker reminded the president of this constitutionally guaranteed right, Trump complained that this only slows him down: 'I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it.'
This helps explain why democracy requires an independent judiciary — to check the actions of the executive (from local police to presidents) to ensure that government allegations of wrongdoing are accurate and mistakes are not made.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the recent high-profile example, is Salvadoran, married to an American citizen with three American-born children who has lived in U.S. since 2011. He was granted protected status by an immigration judge in 2019. Nevertheless he was detained by ICE in March and deported to El Salvador without a hearing.
The Trump administration originally acknowledged that he was mistakenly deported, and a federal judge ordered that he be returned to the U.S. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld this directive. As of this writing the Trump administration has done nothing to facilitate his return. The President even quipped that he could do so, but he will not. The government now asserts that Abrego Garcia's deportation wasn't a mistake, claiming he is a member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, but declines to provide evidence supporting the claim.
As if to emphasize contempt for constitutional rights, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller recently said that the Trump administration was considering suspending Habeas Corpus to block an immigrant's right to challenge their detention before being deported. There are other examples of presidential defiance of the law, such as the illegal impoundment of congressionally authorized appropriations and constitutional freedoms.
So, it is time to insert the 'I' word (impeachment) into civic conversations. I am not naïve: impeachment is neither imminent nor likely — for now. The disgrace of this period, as future historians will note, is that whether the President has intimidated Congress into silence or they applaud his overly expansive use of power, the legislative branch has abandoned its oversight responsibility. For now, Congress is content to look the other way.
Nevertheless, we must begin to insert 'impeachable offenses' into civic conversations. If we don't, we will be complicit in accepting that the aberrant behavior of this President is the new normal for the evaluation of future presidents.
Howard L. Simon served as executive director of the ACLU of Florida from 1997-2018. He resides in Gainesville and is president of Clean Okeechobee Waters Foundation, Inc.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Talk of impeachment hasn't come up. How long can that last? | Opinion
