Democrats Pushing Trump Impeachment Need To Reconsider

Hopefully some sanity will prevail to prevent a partisan impeachment vote going ahead that can only divide the country that is so much in need of healing

The Democrats push to impeach President Trump is seriously tainted by the fact that Trump’s phone call to President Zelensky on July 25,  2019 was authorised and permitted under The Treaty Between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.

Despite four eminent law Professors giving evidence for over eight hours to the House Judiciary Committee—not one Committee Member—Democrat or Republican—with their staffs of highly paid advisors sitting behind them—thought of asking any of those law Professors one very pertinent question:

Have you considered whether “The Treaty Between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters” (Treaty)—ratified by the Senate on October 18, 2000—has any relevance to the impeachment proceedings or acts as exculpatory evidence to legitimize the President’s phone call on July 25,  2019 to President Zelensky? 

In transmitting the Treaty to the Senate for approval then President Bill Clinton wrote:   

“The Treaty is self-executing. It provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state”

Article 2 establishes Central Authorities and defines Central Authorities for purposes of the Treaty. For the United States, the Central Authority is the Attorney General or a person designated by the Attorney General.

I decided to ask the four law professors this question to elicit their answers. 

Only one, Professor Michael Gerhardt, had the courtesy to reply and I commend him for doing so.

His answers are very informative and revealing.

Professor Gerhardt:  Great question. The answer is article 2 applies and therefore the President should have tasked Justice Department prosecutors to look into this.

My response: President Trump did make it very clear in his phone call that the Justice Department would be tasked with looking into this when he told Zelensky (my emphasis):

“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.”  

Professor Gerhardt’s Reply:  He mentioned Barr, true, but that is not how this is supposed to be done the treaty above if it applies requires the actual overture to be done by the attorney general the idea was to keep the president out of this, exactly the problem that arises here 

My response: In your opinion does the Treaty apply to allow the Attorney General to request such assistance?

Regrettably this is where our conversation stands – but it certainly indicates that further examination of the applicability of the Treaty to make President Trump’s call perfectly legal is justified before the decision is taken to impeach the President.

My own view is that the four law professors be asked to reappear before the House prior to the impeachment vote to answer this one very important question.

Hopefully, after they have given their answers some sanity will prevail to prevent a partisan impeachment vote going ahead that can only divide the country that is so much in need of healing.