Triple Option Impeachment: Goodbye Trump, Vance, and MAGA Mike
Hello President Grassley & Vice President Who?
Ever since Al Green said last month that he will bring “double” Articles of Impeachment for Trump and Vance together, I’ve been asking myself why not include Mike Johnson as well. I'm not alone in this:
That would make 91 year old Sen. Chuck Grassley President. Would that be tolerable? Ironically, Chuck just ranted that he is going to personally make sure that every single one of the many who have mercilessly pursued Trump with impeachment, will be held to account for history.
All told, I would accept Grassley at this point, looking at the options. If not Grassley, how far down the list would we have to go to find an acceptable candidate?
Marco Rubio is no better than Grassley in my eyes. But impeachment of Grassley and Rubio to get to the unknown Bessent seems unrealistic. I’m left with Grassley.
Frankly, I think a triple option is unrealistic. I also think a double is as well, because it would mean Mike Johnson is President. He is miles over his head as Speaker.
Whack-a-President
Activist Jessica Denson, whom I have applauded for swimming upstream with her insistence on removal as soon as possible, is open to what we might call the “Whack-a-President” path. Trump has popped up and defied the Constitution, so we whack him with the gavel of Justice and Vance pops up, hopefully chastened by the conviction of Trump. If not, you whack Vance and his VP pops up, twice chastened by the two who came before him or her.
This is the path suggested by veteran Presidential watchdog John Bonifaz. In the Chop Wood, Carry Water show I linked to above, John eloquently describes (4:00-7:03) why he makes his life’s work chronicling Constitutional transgressions and pushing for immediate impeachment without considering election cycle strategies:
“We have a Constitution or we don’t.” Allowing egregious violations of the Constitution nullifies the impeachment clause in the Constitution, and without impeachment, the rest of the Constitution is nullified.
“We normalize Presidential commission of High Crimes and Misdemeanors when we refuse to impeach.” In other words: without impeachment, a President’s illegal use of High Crimes and Misdemeanors to obtain policy ends is sanctioned by Congress.
Therefore, members of Congress who take the same oath as the President; who have the power to impeach; and yet allow a President to commit High Crimes and Misdemeanors without impeaching are themselves guilty of violating their oath as well.
Seventy-nine Members [that voted against tabling Green’s most recent articles of impeachment] recognized that oath [to protect the Constitution]…and frankly, every other member of Congress who did not abide by that oath needs to be held accountable for it, and needs to be pushed to follow up and co-sponsor Congressman Green’s articles or if they don’t like that article, introduce their own.
[…]
What they can’t do is stay on the sidelines in the face of this march to tyranny. They have to stand up and abide by their oaths.
It goes without saying that Al Green is in the camp of “Whack-a-President,” because he has unabashedly sought impeachment votes on principle, even if he knows his articles have no chance to even make it to the floor of the House for debate. [Edit after publication: it will be interesting if he still holds with “double” impeachment, and putting Mike Johnson in the Oval Office.]
What’s Next? Green is Mulling it Over
As I said above, Al Green has not presented the “double impeachment” articles as he promised in the month of June. Last Friday, he rattled the saber of impeachment at a press conference. His reason for the event was to announce that he will fight, with lawsuits and if need be impeachment, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s acquiescence to a written demand from Trump’s Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet Dhillon, to redistrict four of their Congressional Districts because they are unconstitutional, race-based “coalition districts” that over-represent minorities.
Dhillion’s demand for redistricting was apparently the Administration’s counter-attack against voting rights groups who alleged gerrymandering to reduce minority representation in some Texas Congressional districts. Dhillion ignored those complaints and alleged gerrymandering to deliberately over-represent minorities in four Texas Congressional districts, including Al Green’s.
Right now, it seems there is tension over the fact that the folks who made the 2020 districts said they did not use race, but the Governor has agreed to comply with the demand to redistrict those four districts.
Parting Shots
John Bonifaz has said that he now has 900,000 signatures for impeachment of Trump. Add your name here. My recollection is that he said he would deliver them to Congress when he had a million signatures. That should be soon.
Hopefully, the GOP “Civil War” over Epstein, and the murderous benefit cuts in the Big Ugly Bill, will generate more pressure for another impeachment vote soon.
Also, many of the “Good Trouble” protests in two days will address impeachment.
I’ll be watching, and will keep you posted.