by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Someone on Twitter said you can’t impeach someone once they’re out of office. The only reason why I event brought this up was how often Republicans have tried to impeach various out-of-office Democrats over the years. So, I guess, should the Russians let Trump lose, the entire Trump Era will be value free other than a shit ton of young hack MAGA judges and a massive tax cut for plutocrats.
We have to be honest with ourselves. Even if the Russians mysteriously allow Trump to lose, even if Barr doesn’t help Trump stage a successful coup in the courts, Trump is going to escape justice.
If you thought we didn’t have the political will to do anything about Trump’s crimes, just wait until he’s out of office. Everyone could be so relieved that a civil war didn’t break out that Trump gets what he wants — the opportunity stay a free man AND be able to run again in 2024.
Of course, New York State keeps making rumblings about going after Trump once he’s no longer president, but I find that to be something of a liberal fever dream. And, really, it sets a very, very bad precedent.
And, yet, given what a Singularity of criminality Trump is, it’s possible that after Trump is out of office that we are faced with only one option: impeachment.
This is not the greatest precedent to set and it would only work if Republicans lost the Senate, but it would be a way to, at last, allow the laws of political gravity to snap back into place (in a sense.) The reason is — it’s almost value free. In real terms, if Trump was impeached and convicted after leaving office, all it would mean would be he would lose his pension and he couldn’t run for president again.
This is an extremely problematic thing to do for a number of reasons. Even though it would be almost entirely value free — and difficult to explain to the average person — if any of the dozen or so scandals Trump has managed to punt down the road in the courts blew up in a massive way after he left office there might be a serious consideration of impeaching him even out of office.
While this is just the type of liberal fever dream that Twitter liberals have wallowed in for the last four years, the biggest obstacle to such an idea may be a a matter of attention.
It just would suck up way too political energy and attention to do such a thing. And, from Nancy Pelosi’s point of view, probably rile the already polarized nation up even more.
The only reason why I even suggest this is there are some doozy scandals Trump has run the clock out on and at least one of them might be so shocking, so heinous that there finally is the political willpower to do something about it, even if Trump is out of office. I’m thinking about what Don McGahn might finally say at some point. Or the various cases connected to Trump’s many sexual assault allegations.
And, yet, we probably should just be happy we get rid of Trump, should that happen.
