Thom Hartmann: Trump's Tweet Slamming Gillibrand is 'Impeachable' Offense

December 14th, 2017 8:29 PM

Yeah, good luck with that.

The perpetual outrage machine that is the left's pathological loathing for President Trump keeps reaching new lows in absurdity, albeit only on an hourly basis.

Plenty of liberals have labeled Trump's tweet slamming Democrat Senator and potential 2020 opponent Kirsten Gillibrand as "sexual harassment." But liberal radio host Thom Hartmann went beyond that and described it -- I'm not making this up -- as grounds for impeachment.

Here's Hartmann suggesting this during a conversation with a caller to his show on Tuesday --

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HARTMANN: Merlin in Madison, Wisc. Hey, Merlin, what's on your mind today?

CALLER: Hi. I'm calling to ask your listeners to do as I'm spending the day doing. I'm calling every single member of Congress, I'm just north of 200 phone calls now, and asking them to go out on the floor of the House or the Senate and denounce Donald Trump for his sexual harassment of a sitting senator.

Got that? "Merlin" from the moonbat magnet that is Madison is spending her day phoning every member of Congress to insist that what she tells them must be carved in stone. (The goddess is alive and magic is afoot!). In other words, the absolute last person you'd want sitting next to you during an extended meal. More of this scintillating chat --

CALLER: This needs to be in the Congressional Record. Tweets are great, social media's great, but this needs to be there for history and it's just undeniable, it needs to be written in stone. And the Democrats and people of conscience of this country have to get serious about this person who is -- I hate to say it -- our president.

HARTMANN: At the very least there needs to be a resolution of censure, a censure resolution coming out of both bodies, you know, which is, of course, the Republicans control them and the Republicans are absolutely shameless. They care about money and power, they don't care about people or principles, and so it's probably not going to happen. But I think that what you're doing is very noble. I totally salute it and encourage other people to do the same, is call your elected officials and say, it is time to, at the very least, censure, you know, Donald Trump and, at the most, I mean, you know, is, is this an impeachable offense? The impeachment mechanism in the Constitution is not legal, it's political. It's very, very vague. It was intentionally made very, very vague. In fact, in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton comes right out and says what's impeachable is whatever the politicians decide is impeachable. In other words, you know, we wanted it to be vague so that, you know, we could cover a wide variety of possible exigencies, or however you say that word. And this is clearly one of them. I think this tweet, you know, arguably is even impeachable. It's just absolutely horrifying. So Merlin I'm spot on, I'm with you.

Hartmann apparently refers to Federalist #65 in which Hamilton describes the Senate's role as "a well-constituted court for the trial of impeachment." Hamilton then outlined its "subjects of jurisdiction" as --

... those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on the one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties , than by real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. (emphasis added)

But the actual wording of the Constitution, in Article II, Section 4, cites specifics --

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Suffice it to say this one skirts much closer to the misdemeanor end of impeachable offenses instead of "high crimes."