An acquittal on the grounds Trump is no longer president could weaken a uniquely congressional power
Senators will determine not only the political fate of Donald Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial next week but also whether or not to weaken their own congressional power to rein in presidential misconduct.
If that happens, it could undermine the reason the founders gave Congress the impeachment power in the first place: as one of the checks and balances in the Constitution to keep a president from becoming a tyrant, members of Congress, historians and constitutional scholars say.
“The fact that we can’t come together, both as a political body and as a nation, around the notion that an incumbent commander in chief cannot stage a coup against his own government in order to overturn the will of the people speaks to how far we have strayed from our ideals as a nation, without question,” said Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian for ABC News who is president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. Continue reading.