The U.S. House of Representatives is on the verge of making a crucial decision. Every American should be weighing the evidence that has been presented during this impeachment inquiry and considering whether President Donald Trump should be removed from office.
We expect and Coloradans should demand that those representing us in Congress set aside their partisan loyalties and participate fully in this constitutional process.
It was particularly disappointing, then, that U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, chose not to attend long stretches of the House Judiciary Committee hearings over the last two weeks. The hearings led up to the committee’s vote on Friday to send two articles of impeachment to the House floor. Buck voted against the articles saying that what Trump did, did not rise to the level of removal from office and criticizing Democrats for what he described as their partisan pursuit of impeachment.
On Monday, Buck wasn’t in the room for most of a nine-hour hearing. The week before that, The Denver Post reported, Buck missed large sections of hearings about the constitutional basis for impeachment. Buck’s spokeswoman told Denver Post reporter Justin Wingerter that the congressman was listening to the hearings from his office.
Removing a president from office is the most daunting task a member of Congress can undertake. Impeachment in the House would send the matter to the Senate for a trial that is presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Buck’s actual physical presence in the hearings would have sent a public message that he is taking this matter seriously. It would have sent a message that his vote wasn’t a foregone conclusion. It would have added more weight to his opposition.
U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat from Colorado who is also on the House Judiciary Committee, attended more of the hearings. Neguse voted in favor of the articles of impeachment on Friday, paving the way along with his Democratic colleagues on the committee for the full House to vote on the matter next week.
“President Trump abused his power, and then he engaged in a wholesale obstruction of Congress to cover it up. The fact remains that in the history of our republic, no president has ever ordered such a complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry, until now,” Neguse said.
The House Judiciary drafted two articles of impeachment that charge the president with high crimes and misdemeanors. First, that he abused the high powers of his office to solicit “the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States presidential election.” Second, that he obstructed Congress by directing “the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole power of impeachment.”
The charges are based on evidence that Trump ordered top U.S. officials, who then followed his orders, to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. A number of witnesses described how Trump pressed relentlessly for months to get Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter. Officials testified that they were explicitly told that a visit to the White House was contingent on the announcement.
The public also learned through the impeachment hearings that White House officials, at Trump’s behest, ordered that $391 million of congressionally approved in aid be withheld from Ukraine in the weeks before Trump had a phone call with Zelensky on July 25 that prompted the whistleblower complaint sparking the investigation.
The final vote was split along party lines in the House Judiciary: Republicans opposed and Democrats supported the two articles of impeachment.
We ask that Colorado lawmakers demonstrate a commitment to learning the truth and then weigh whether Trump’s actions rise to the level of removal from office. The articles of impeachment are not written to allow members of the House to pass the buck on this fundamental question: Should Donald Trump be removed from office and barred from holding future office, including seeking re-election in 2020, for his actions?
Colorado Democrats – Joe Neguse, Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and Jason Crow – must apply appropriate weight to the prospect that a “yes” vote is agreeing to undo the will of millions of American voters.
Colorado Republicans – Ken Buck, Scott Tipton and Doug Lamborn – must consider the overwhelming evidence that Trump used the powers of his office to pressure the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation into a U.S. citizen based on the president’s political motivations. Trump then thumbed his nose at Congress and the system of checks and balances created by the founders of this nation by refusing to participate in the inquiry and demanding that other top U.S. officials also ignore lawful subpoenas for testimony and documents.
Either vote will set a precedent for Congress, for future occupants of the White House and for our republic that will reverberate for decades. Republicans must set aside petty, unrelated debates about process and Democrats must set aside their anger over Trump’s outlandish behavior and disastrous public policy decisions, to weigh the evidence outside of partisan considerations.
America’s democracy deserves nothing less.
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