Brock University associate professor of political science, Paul Hamilton, explains how impeachment and the removal of Donald Trump through the 25th amendment might work.
Paul Hamilton, Brock University political science associate professor
How might impeachment and the use of the 25th amendment to remove U.S. President Donald Trump work?
So, it would require the vice-president plus a majority of the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, but the the scenario gets complicated. So, first of all, it doesn’t look like Pence is enthusiastic about this idea, and I’m not sure the cabinet will vote for it. A number of cabinet members resigned last week. So, we might be dealing with the true believers of people that are left. That that would take some time. The 25th Amendment is really designed more for a medical emergency than it is for — let’s just call it erratic behaviour for now. So, I’m not sure that that is the best remedy although it might be the quicker. It would require a vote in Congress, a majority vote in the House and the Senate.
Impeachment is the more complicated version, but it might be more likely. The article of impeachment was introduced today. You mentioned it earlier. It involved the repeated claims of lies by the president about the election, followed by the taped call intimidating an official in Georgia who, by the way, was a Republican, and the incitement last Wednesday of this crowd to fight, in the words of Rudolph Giuliani to engage in trial by combat. All of this together is the impeachment charge. Now, if this is voted on by only a majority of the House, we then move to a trial in the Senate. Of course, as we know in the Senate, it requires two thirds to convict, at which time President Trump will be removed from office.
A subsequent minority vote could make him ineligible. Of the two options I think the best one is impeachment. Of the two, I think impeachment is the most likely to work. Of course the problem is getting roughly eighteen Republican senators to join Senators Murkowski And Twomey of Pennsylvania have both expressed a desire that President Trump resign, which might be an indication of where they’d vote on an impeachment. But I don’t think he’s going to resign. So, I think impeachment is really the best and only option.
You can watch the entire interview with Paul Hamilton and Jenn Merritt, a Hamilton woman who no longer speaks with her American relatives due to disagreements over the Trump presidency, below.
After four years of the presidency of former reality television star Donald Trump, Hamilton’s Jenn Merritt doesn’t talk much to her family in the U.S.. We talked with Merritt and Brock University associate professor of political science, Paul Hamilton, about the Capitol Hill riot, the Trump presidency and more. 31:41
