With Wednesday being the first day of public impeachment hearings, the looming possibility of President Donald Trump becoming impeached is of upmost importance in the minds of many politicians and the general public. If impeached, Trump would join the likes of former presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, becoming the third in United States’ history.
For more than 35 years, St. Bonaventure has held a yearly forum, called Congress to Campus, in which two former members of Congress, one Democrat and one Republican, come to discuss a current issue regarding the legislative branch or facilitate some other discussion in regards to the importance of Congress. This year, the topic was that of impeachment.
Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from California who served as a member from 1997 to 2017, and J. Phillip Gingrey, a Republican from Georgia who served from 2003 to 2015, attended as this year’s former congresspeople.
The impeachment inquiry, which was announced on Sept. 24 by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is specifically investigating Trump.
Gingrey and Sanchez had differing beliefs on the legitimacy of the investigation.
“I think it is somewhat illegitimate,” Gingrey said. “The fact as you read in regard to the election and the Democratic party’s intent on eventually trying to successfully impeach President Trump has been ongoing for most, if not even before he was sworn in in January 2017.”
He continued, bringing up how possible Russian interference, an issue that many politicians have brought up, may have worked positively for the president.
“We don’t want to see this happen again,” he continued. “But President Trump was not colluding with the Russians.”
Sanchez, however, said she thinks the investigation is legitimate because no congressperson would want to divide the country unless they must, continually citing Pelosi as an example.
“When there is an impeachment situation going on, it divides the country. It affects the country. It makes the American people very uncomfortable,” Sanchez said. “They get very angry because they understand that we see every day while in the Congress that what we want to, the reason we go to Congress, the reason I ran, the reason that Nancy’s there or any member, is that we came to Congress to do things. To create things right. To make better things. To make better policy. To be constructive about our country. We do not run for Congress to run things down, to destroy things, to undo things. So, when you have an impeachment process going on, you can’t do the things that you went to Congress to do.”
For a president to be impeached, he must be found guilty of treason, bribery or a high crime or misdemeanor, which may all be debated loosely as the terms may appear vague. To this, Gingrey said that Trump has not done anything impeachable.
“Just because he’s not so likable, just because he tweets some awful things on occasion…those aren’t a ground for impeachment,” Gingrey said.
Even if Trump is found to have done a crime, Sanchez noted that there still is a possibility that Trump would not be impeached.
“Let’s say it is pretty straightforward, and the president did something wrong, but the Republicans are political, and they don’t remove him. That’s politics. I may not like it, but that’s how the system is set up,” Sanchez said. “Our system is set up for it to be very difficult to remove a president of the United States. It’s the system we live under. It may not be perfect, but it’s a lot better than a whole heck of a lot of things you see around the world. “
Sanchez continued to note how important it is that these impeachment hearings are public.
“Let’s say that it is pretty straightforward…that’s why we need to take a look at it for ourselves. Don’t let someone else decide for you what happened in this process,” she said.
In the end, the one thing both Sanchez and Gingrey agreed on is how grateful they are to not be in Congress right now.
“I am so glad I am not there,” Gingrey said.
“You never know from one day to the next what is going to happen in the House of Representatives,” Sanchez said.
By Natalie Forster, Editor-in-Chief
forstena17@bonaventure.edu
