Seven Weeks Later, Trump’s Impeachment Hearings Become Public

By: Jordan Coll / Staff Writer

 

President Trump spoke to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on July 25 in efforts to conduct a full-blown investigation towards the Bidens on the basis of political corruption. The conversation among the two presidents dealt with President Trump congratulating his Ukranian homolog on his reelection, followed by several remarks on how the U.S has been a grand supporter of Ukranian affairs for several years.

President trump according to the telephone transcript released this Wednesday called for Ukraine’s assistance in investigating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter.

“The United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine” said President Trump on the telephone call with Zelenskiy.

During the conversation, President Trump asked Zelenskiy to “do us a favor” by looking into an American cybersecurity firm responsible for a potential security breach at the DNC 2016 presidential election.

An “impeachment inquiry” has sparked up after a whistleblower accused President Trump and other government officials of pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. According to Politico, $390 million dollars was held from Ukraine this year from the Pentagon and State Department, this would have served well for the Ukrainian military in defending itself against sovereign nations such as Russia.

“Congress had already approved a package of foreign assistance, to have a sitting president withhold funding simply to satisfy a domestic agenda is a violation of ethics,” said Eduard A. Gamarra, a professor in the department of politics and international relations.

According to Gamarra, having Ukraine look into the domestic political affairs of the U.S. is grounds for an impeachable offense. In fact, what holds true is Ukraine is a U.S. ally which has brought to question the extent to which the president is willing to go to investigate the Bidens.

Several media sources have already demanded the investigation of President Trump calling for the action of impeachment. 

Some might disagree that this impeachment inquiry is at all legitimate such as Elizabeth Price Foley, a professor at the School of Law at FIU. The article “This Impeachment Subverts the Constitution” published by the Wall Street Journal suggests that there is no evidence on the public record that implicates the president committed an impeachable offense.

This comes down to what is defined as “abuse of executive power.” One form of abusing power is exercising an authority not provided by the constitution such as unfair taxation policies. Another form of mishandling power executive power is by not enforcing laws that do favor his parties’ political views.

The article argues president Trump was lawfully exercising his constitutional power as it followed the system of checks and balances, a fair way of equally distributing power within the government. 

The impeachment process is a high-level charge against a government official that questions the scope of public service work. It starts off with the House of Representatives filing a complaint as a result conducts a formal investigation for impeachment. If approved by a grand jury in charge of overseeing the request filed then Articles of Impeachment are delivered to the Senate.

Having a two-thirds Senate majority vote allows the Senate to impose two penalties, remove the individual from office or remove the individual from that office and also prohibit him from all future office holdings. Ultimately the Senate is in charge of overseeing what happens to the president in terms of impeachment.

This has sparked intense talks on both parties on the grounds of possibly removing the president of the United States from office. Public hearings in Congress will begin next Wednesday in the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

The first open hearing, to be held Nov.13, will feature testimony from career diplomat William Taylor and State Department official George Kent. The second hearing is scheduled for Nov.15, which will feature former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

With talks on how the impeachment inquiry will develop along the following days, the question remains, should holding back aid on Ukraine, a U.S ally on the basis of investigating a past rival be enough for impeachment?