Democrats haven't made case for impeachment. They should censure Trump instead: Fleischer

Democrats could get Republican votes if they censured Trump for his attempts to link political investigations to Ukraine aid and an Oval Office visit.

Ari Fleischer
Opinion contributor


Over the course of the House impeachment hearings, the witnesses called by Democrats successfully made the case that the president and his top aides wanted Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
Of course he did. He said so in his “perfect” July 25 phone call. He also, unwisely, publicly called on China to do the same. He once, also unwisely, publicly called on Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s emails if it had them.
The problem the Democrats have is that their impeachment hearings proved a point that almost everyone knows: Trump did it.
The Democrats, and much of the news media, say the hearings were full of bombshells and smoking guns. But the smoking guns were BBs and the bombshells were duds.
In football terms, Trump deserves a flag for a false start, or maybe unnecessary roughness. But the Democrats want to add up all the penalty flags Trump has earned in three years of his presidency, and they see the Ukrainian phone call as incontrovertible proof that the president should be thrown out of the game.
I, on the other hand, heard nothing that rises to the level of impeachment.

Drop impeachment, censure Trump

If the Democrats were smart, they would drop impeachment and instead vote to censure the president for his phone call and his attempts to link an investigation to the receipt of military assistance and/or an Oval Office visit. I suspect many Republicans would vote for it.
That would be a bipartisan outcome.
But the Democrats can’t stop themselves. Their hatred of the president, driven by their growing liberal base and shortage of conservative or moderate members, has led to this gigantic waste of time that will result in a one-party, partisan impeachment.
The Democrats fail to understand how anyone, especially those who have misgivings about the president, can’t support impeachment. They don’t accept the point of view that elections are the superior remedy to issues like this. We’re a republic if we can keep it, they like to say.
We’re also, as the Declaration of Independence states, a nation in which the government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
The governed should decide what to do with President Trump, not 218 House members and 67 senators as called for under the Constitution. An election, not an impeachment, is the better way of keeping this republic.
As an occasional Trump critic and an occasional Trump supporter, I have a deal for the Democrats: I won’t try to persuade them to support the president if they will stop trying to persuade me to impeach and convict him.


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