For months now, Democrats have invested their souls in impeaching President Trump over a questionable phone call with the president of Ukraine. This has been their dedicated mission, despite the dubious dealings of top Democratic leaders’ family members with Ukraine. Still, Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have been considered so questionable that the public remains divided over whether or not he deserves impeachment.
Before the Ukraine angle, Democrats staked everything on trying to prove that Trump had somehow colluded with Russia to turn the 2016 presidential election in his favor. This was despite evidence that Democrats and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, might have deceptively tried to swing the election. Once special counsel Robert Mueller’s report came out last spring, the Democrats’ Russia-Trump conspiracy theory was soundly put to rest.
Yet Democrats had so heavily invested in the Russian collusion conspiracy theory that many still desperately cling to it. And however the Trump-Ukraine affair unfolds in the Senate, it will likely remain an integral part of the Democratic Party’s political identity for years to come — “#MoscowMitch” and “#LeningradLindsey” are still daily Twitter trends popular among liberals — just as some foolish Republicans no doubt still believe former President Barack Obama was a Kenyan-born impostor with a fake birth certificate.
These myths are the kind of trash partisans obsess over merely to score points against their political opponents, even to the point of pursuing impeachment. But will any Democrat, with the possible exception of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, now try to impeach Donald Trump for trying to start a war with Iran?
Doubtful.
Trump’s Iran general strike is the kind of thing you should actually impeach him over.
— Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) January 3, 2020
When we learned Thursday that Trump had ordered a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani, several top Democrats blasted the president for recklessly trying to lead the U.S. into war with Iran. Democrats who made that charge were correct in their critiques and well warranted in their concern.
But few would ever think to impeach the president over it. Why? Because every president since 9/11, including Obama, has used the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, AUMF for short, to launch acts of war against other countries without consulting Congress.
The original purpose of AUMF was to go after the perpetrators of 9/11. The actual use of it has meant the last three presidents have bombed whomever they pleased without a declaration of war by Congress, which the Constitution demands.
Obama’s 2013 strike on Libya was a prime example of abuse of the AUMF, and many Republicans opposed that act of war at the time on constitutional grounds. In 2012, Republican Rep. Walter Jones tried to rally preemptive support for impeaching Obama should he decide to act militarily abroad without congressional approval. A few libertarian-leaning Republicans got behind Jones, but the overwhelming majority of Congress ignored him.
No one cared.
The Founding Fathers’ purpose in designing impeachment was to reign in any president who might assume too much executive power. As commander-in-chief, waging war legally is a primary responsibility. Doing so unconstitutionally is a textbook example of executive overreach and abuse of power.
Yet while Democrats harp incessantly over the crucial need to impeach Trump over the comparatively trivial Ukraine call or lingering supposed Russian connections, most would not dare pursue impeachment on a transgression as dangerous as unconstitutional war despite having far more justification for it. Why? Because there is no partisan angle to it — and because they do it too.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
