Byron York’s Daily Memo: First impeachment, now 25th Amendment

FIRST IMPEACHMENT, NOW 25TH AMENDMENT. A year ago at this time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority was preparing to begin secret depositions as part of their hurried drive to impeach President Trump. You may remember that it didn’t work: While Trump was impeached by the House on December 18, he was acquitted by the Senate on February 5.

You may also remember that some observers — not all of them Trump supporters — wondered why Democrats would try so hard to remove the president from office in an election year. The Senate acquittal took place just nine months before the election, when voters can remove Trump if they choose. Still, House Democrats forged ahead, at least in part in hopes of damaging Trump politically as his re-election campaign was beginning.

Now the election is just 24 days away, and believe it or not, Pelosi is at it again. Today the Speaker will announce an effort to use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. At her news conference Thursday, Pelosi teased news about a 25th Amendment announcement, tying it to her demand that Trump reveal more about his case of coronavirus.

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“I think that the public needs to know the health condition of the president,”  Pelosi said. “There’s one question that he refuses, they refuse to answer. When was — before he got the virus and admitted to it, when was his last negative test, when was his last negative test, to make a judgment about the actions that were taken after that?”

So today Pelosi and Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin — he’s been trying to remove Trump from office for years — will announce a bill calling for the creation of a “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office.” To know why she’s doing it, look at Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Pelosi’s plan is unrealistic — critics will call it nuts — in many ways. First, the 25th Amendment would require Vice President Mike Pence to declare President Trump unfit to serve. What are the chances of that? Then it would require a majority of Trump’s cabinet to agree. Again, highly unlikely. But that is where Pelosi has an opening — the 25th Amendment requires either a majority of the cabinet or “of such other body as Congress may by law provide.” And that is where Pelosi’s Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office comes in. It would be that “other body” that would declare Trump unfit. Of course, even that won’t work, because Congress has to create that body “by law,” meaning it has to be passed by majorities of the House and Senate and signed by the president, or if not signed by the president, passed by supermajorities of House and Senate. That is not going to happen.

But what if Pelosi succeeded? The next stage of the 25th Amendment process makes it still harder. If the president disagrees and says he is fit to serve, Congress would have to have a two-thirds vote of both House and Senate to remove him. That is even harder than impeachment.

So obviously Pelosi won’t win. She knows that. But there’s a campaign going on, and Democrats are doing everything they can to remove the president from office — one way or another.