For those of you pining for the sturm und drang of Donald Trump’s first term, I’m the bearer of good news: The first attempt to impeach the newly minted president is already underway.
Sure, as political pseudoevents go, it’s about as anticlimactic, low profile, and ill-conceived as a Limp Bizkit reunion album. But #TheResistance 2.0 has to begin somewhere, and it’s apparently beginning with leftist interest group Free Speech For People.
The group — whose website looks like it dates from the era where Daily Kos’ site interface looked positively cutting edge — bills itself as a “non-partisan campaign, but is focused on a bevy of leftist issues, including stopping “voter suppression” (read: preventing anti-voter fraud initiatives), eliminating dark money in politics (unless it comes from George Soros, one assumes), and tackling “corporate abuse of power.”
It’s perhaps best known for its opposition to the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled independent campaign expenditures counted as free speech. (Floyd Brown, founder of The Western Journal, was also the founder of Citizens United, the plaintiff in that case.)
But now, the group has a more important mission. Free Speech For People — which apparently knows about as much about what “high crimes and misdemeanors” are as it does about using definite articles to make their organization’s name sound less awkward — began a campaign to impeach Trump on the day he was inaugurated.
The group’s petition is “calling on the U.S. Congress to initiate an immediate impeachment investigation into Donald Trump’s violations of the Emoluments Clauses and into his unlawful, corrupt campaign practices.”
“Trump’s return to the White House poses an unprecedented threat to our democracy,” says John Bonifaz, organization president.
“During his campaign and in the months before his inauguration, Donald Trump engaged in unlawful, unconstitutional conduct and threatened more. He has once more positioned himself to abuse the office for personal profit and power in violation of clear constitutional commands and at the expense of our democratic institutions, constitutional precedent, and the safety of our country’s most vulnerable.”
The petition refers to two sections of the U.S. Constitution Free Speech For People believes Trump has violated: Article I, Section 9, Clause 8; and Article II, Section 1, Clause 7.
The first clause they believe is impeachment-worthy: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”
The second: “The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.”
By the way, in case you’ve forgotten from the last go-around, “emolument” means “the returns arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites.”
especially real estate — and of course the wealthy were drawn to the Trump name before and after he became president. That’s not an emolument, that’s business as usual.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, has spent four of the last 52 years in the private sector — and he spent it writing a book which he improperly retained classified documents to complete. Hunter, meanwhile, mysteriously began getting well-remunerated roles with companies in countries like Ukraine and China in fields which he had no experience in, and while he was in the throes of a drug, alcohol, and sex addiction that would make Hunter S. Thompson and Charlie Sheen blush. His father claims that he had no knowledge of or discussions about his son’s overseas dealings, which is why he took numerous photos with his son’s foreign business contacts, a trove of which were released as Uncle Joe was exiting the White House.
Oh, and it’s not just the emoluments clauses! “The campaign lists additional impeachable offenses committed during Trump’s 2024 election campaign and leading up to the inauguration, including: threatening physical violence, including murder, against political opponents, journalists, and protestors; using racist, xenophobic rhetoric that has endangered immigrant communities; and violating campaign finance laws by offering benefits in exchange for campaign contributions,” the release reads.
Unlike their fulmination over alleged violations of the emoluments clauses, however, there’s absolutely no supporting evidence of this given — and there’s also no impeachable offense in there once you reduce the febrile rhetoric to what it is, which is positions Trump and his supporters have taken that they disagree with.
If this is what they think will produce the third impeachment of Trump, it’s practically adorable. I doubt that Free Speech For People will be the last organization advocating for this kind of futile opposition to The Donald’s second term. It’ll be hard to top them for sheer unintentional humor value, however.
