Real quick reminder, team:
Tonight — in 600 communities all across America — people will gather to support impeaching Donald Trump.
Find the closest rally to you and join us this evening!
- Robert
P.S. My earlier note is copied below with a lot more info about these rallies. Don’t miss out!
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If you are at all able, please join one of the 600 rallies across the country on Tuesday evening to support impeaching Donald Trump.
This is a longish email, but that’s the bottom line.
Get more info and find a rally near you.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to take its historic impeachment vote on Wednesday.
It is overwhelmingly likely that the House will vote to impeach Trump, which will automatically start a process that will lead to a U.S. Senate trial on the articles of impeachment.
It may feel like the outcome of this process is preordained.
It is not.
What you do — what we all do, together — will decide how this whole thing turns out.
Let me explain.
First, let’s start with the facts.
Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to interfere in our elections by withholding military aid and other favors. That is beyond dispute.
Trump’s own words (“I would like you to do us a favor, though”) in the partial transcript of his call with the Ukrainian president make this clear.
Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged exactly what happened, telling Americans to “get over it.”
Testimony from numerous foreign policy officials before the House Intelligence Committee made clear that Trump’s demand on the call with the Ukrainian president was not a one-time thing.
Rather, the president’s private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was driving a shadow, full-fledged foreign policy operation — directing U.S. government officials — for the purpose of coercing Ukraine to interfere in U.S. elections.
None of this is in doubt.
Next, let’s look at the law.
There is no absolute definition of what constitutes impeachable wrongdoing.
But the essential issue is abuse of power.
And the quintessential abuses of power that most worried the framers of the Constitution — and which logically must be the most worthy of impeachment — are those that involve:
Trump’s abuses in the Ukraine scandal check all of those boxes.
Of course, there are many other reasonable grounds to impeach Trump: his self-enrichment in violation of the Constitution’s anti-bribery (“emoluments”) provisions; his obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation; his systematic efforts to exclude and demonize immigrants and religious and ethnic minorities, especially Muslims, in contravention of core constitutional norms; his failure to “take care” that the laws be faithfully executed, including to protect the nation from a rush to climate catastrophe.
So, the law and Constitution are not at issue, either. Trump incontrovertibly committed impeachable offenses.
But while the facts and Constitution matter — and should be all that matter — politics unavoidably intrudes.
In short, they need to feel the heat from the public.
That’s why calls, emails and protests — visible manifestations of support for impeachment — matter so much.
And, crucially, let’s look at the “What comes afterward?” question.
If Trump is not removed from office, does he emerge stronger or weaker?
We know what Trump will do if he’s acquitted by the Senate. He’s going to say it was all a witch hunt, that the Democrats refused to accept his win in 2016 and have simply been out to get him, etc., etc.
That will feed his narrative, and it could make him stronger.
But we can defeat that narrative — not on Fox News, but among the majority of the public — and make sure that, if Trump stays in office, he is weaker.
The key to that is simple: We have to show that the American people get it and care — passionately.
That we are united in our belief that nobody is above the law.
That we treasure our constitutional democracy and we will not tolerate a president who tramples on it.
The most important way we do that is by turning out in the streets.
If you are physically able to attend, please do all you can to join these demonstrations.
Public Citizen is helping lead a coalition of more than 100 organizations that have joined together to organize these rallies.
That’s a great start, but we need even more.
If you haven't found a rally near you yet, please join us!
For our democracy and our country.
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
P.S. If you aren’t able to attend a rally — or even if you are — anything you can chip in today would go a long way to helping defray the costs of the rallies and supporting all we’re doing to fight Trumpism.