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following such instructions.[1] Current and former State Department officials are duty bound to protect the confidentiality interests of the Executive Branch, and the Office of Legal Counsel has also recognized that it is unconstitutional to exclude agency counsel from participating in congressional depositions.[2] In addition, any attempt to withhold an official’s salary for the assertion of such interests would be unprecedented and unconstitutional.[3] The Committees’ assertions on these points amount to nothing more than strong-arm tactics designed to rush proceedings without any regard for due process and the rights of individuals and of the Executive Branch. Threats aimed at intimidating individuals who assert these basic rights are attacks on civil liberties that should profoundly concern all Americans.
| II. | The Invalid “Impeachment Inquiry” Plainly Seeks To Reverse the Election of 2016 and To Influence the Election of 2020. |
The effort to impeach President Trump—without regard to any evidence of his actions in office—is a naked political strategy that began the day he was inaugurated, and perhaps even before.[4] In fact, your transparent rush to judgment, lack of democratically accountable authorization, and violation of basic rights in the current proceedings make clear the illegitimate, partisan purpose of this purported “impeachment inquiry.” The Founders, however, did not create the extraordinary mechanism of impeachment so it could be used by a political party that feared for its prospects against the sitting President in the next election. The decision as to who will be elected President in 2020 should rest with the people of the United States, exactly where the Constitution places it.
Democrats themselves used to recognize the dire implications of impeachment for the Nation. For example, in the past, Chairman Nadler has explained:
The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters. We must not overturn an election and remove a President from office except to defend our system of government or our constitutional liberties against a dire threat, and we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people. There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeahment supported by one of our major political parties and opposed by another. Such an impeachment will produce divisiveness and bitterness in our
- ↑ See, e.g., Testimonial Immunity Before Congress of the Former Counsel to the President, 43 Op. O.L.C. __, *19 (May 20, 2019); Prosecution for Contempt of Congress of an Executive Branch Official Who Has Asserted a Claim of Executive Privilege, 8 Op. O.L.C. 101, 102, 140 (1984) (“The Executive, however, must be free from the threat of criminal prosecution if its right to assert executive privilege is to have any practical substance.”).
- ↑ Attempted Exclusion of Agency Counsel from Congressional Depositions of Agency Employees, 43 Op. O.L.C. __, *1–2 (May 23, 2019).
- ↑ See President Donald J. Trump, Statement by the President on Signing the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 (Feb. 15, 2019); Authority of Agency Officials To Prohibit Employees From Providing Information to Congress, 28 Op. O.L.C. 79, 80 (2004).
- ↑ See Matea Gold, The Campaign To Impeach President Trump Has Begun, Wash. Post (Jan. 21, 2017) (“At the moment the new commander in chief was sworn in, a campaign to build public support for his impeachment went live….”).
