Osler's Razor

The Constitution is pretty important right now (and I'll admit-- I have spent more time reading the actual Constitution in the last week than I probably did in Con Law class when I was in law school).

Pretty clearly, that document creates a power of impeachment that rests with the House of Representatives. If the House impeaches the president, the case is then sent to the Senate, and the Senate tries and sentences those who are impeached by the House.

President Trump's position--expressed in a pretty wackadoodle letter from the White House Counsel-- seems to be that the President has the duty to discern when an impeachment investigation involving him is legitimate, and not cooperate if he thinks it isn't. In other words, the defendant decides whether or not there should be an investigation and prosecution.

That's totally inconsistent with the structure established by the Constitution, which sets up a system, impeachment, that addresses wrongdoing by some officeholders including the president. As the Trump lawyers have been arguing for years, that process is the reason that sitting presidents are not charged by federal bodies-- there is another process to handle that.

The Trump obstruction will end up in the Supreme Court, where there is a strong precedent. The landmark 1974 case of US v. Nixon--which came up in the context of an impeachment investigation-- saw the Court order Nixon to provide all the tapes he had, despite his expression of executive privilege. It was a unanimous opinion, and part of the holding was that confidentiality was not a fit reason to exert privilege in that context.

After that, we enter uncharted ground.

If Trump defies a Supreme Court decision that echoes Nixon, we will have a real crisis-- and possibly a conviction in the Senate for the bare fact of the obstruction.

And after that?

The Constitution requires the president to be removed if convicted.

It is discretionary whether or not to bar him from future office-- meaning that Trump could potentially be convicted and removed, and then run against now-incumbent-President Mike Pence in the 2020 election. AND Pence would have to find a vice-president that would meet the approval of the Democrat-controlled House (per the 25th Amendment). AND Trump would possibly be under criminal charges, which the Constitution expressly allows after impeachment and removal.

That would make for a pretty interesting 2020, huh?