Opinion
[Opinion] All This Talk of Impeachment…Not Gonna Happen!
ORLANDO, Fla. (FNN NEWS) – If you listen to mainstream media or the liberal left you might think our President is a hop skip and a jump away from impeachment. Well, I hate to disappoint the haters, but impeachment isn’t on the table. We’re not even close. What we’re witnessing is a modern day media ratings-driven lynching of our President and his administration. Even young Barron can’t walk across the White House lawn with a fidget spinner in his hand without making the news. “Pragmatically speaking, President Trump will not be impeached during this Congress,” says Attorney Robert Duchemin. Let’s explore the impeachment conversation and put this to rest once and for all.
Photo courtesy of Attorney Robert Duchemin (pictured)
Here’s the basic Wikipedia definition of impeachment:
“…The process by which a legislative body formally levels charges against a high official of government. Impeachment does not necessarily mean removal from office; it is only a formal statement of charges, akin to an indictment in criminal law, and is thus only the first step towards removal. Once an individual is impeached, he or she must then face the possibility of conviction via legislative vote, which then entails the removal of the individual from office.”
Let this basic definition be the framework for which we pivot to understand where we are with this subject matter. The United States Constitution defines impeachment most simply: Acts of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Certainly, as we know, our President has NOT committed any such crimes.
ONLY TWO PRESIDENTS IN HISTORY HAVE BEEN IMPEACHED
Can you guess who they are?
Andrew Johnson, our 17th President, and yes…wait for it…William “Bill” Jefferson Clinton.
President Andrew Johnson. Photo: Wikipedia.
ANDREW JOHNSON
Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, was accused of violating the Tenure of Office Act. The 1867 incident required Senate approval before a president could remove any member of his cabinet who had been confirmed by the upper chamber of Congress. The House impeached Johnson on February 24, 1868, three days after he terminated his secretary of war, a radical Republican named Edwin M. Stanton, allegedly in violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The U.S. Senate acquitted Johnson later that year by a narrow margin–he avoided conviction by one vote.
President Bill Clinton. Photo: Wikipedia.
WILLIAM “BILL” JEFFERSON CLINTON
Clinton, the nation’s 42nd president, was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, for allegedly misleading a grand jury about his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and then persuading others to lie about it, too. The charges against Clinton were perjury and obstruction of justice. After a trial, the Senate acquitted Clinton of both charges on February 12, 1999. He went on to apologize for the affair and complete his second term in office, telling a captivated and polarized American public, “Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.” Yet, as we all remember, the twice- failed Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary R. Clinton stood by her man, making her a bit of a hero to many American women for doing so.
Duchemin offered up an interesting anecdote: “Without conviction in the Senate, impeachment in the House is meaningless. Bill Clinton was impeached but not removed because the Senate did not convict him. He still enjoyed all the benefits and powers of being president and continues to receive all the benefits of being a former president, even though he was disbarred by the State of Arkansas for being dishonest.”
Interesting, as yours truly never realized Clinton was disbarred. It certainly hasn’t effected his whopping $200,000-plus-per-event speaking fee.
WHICH PRESIDENTS WERE CLOSE TO IMPEACHMENT?
President Richard Nixon. Photo: Wikipedia.
One of them, our 37th President Richard M. Nixon, was certain to be impeached and convicted in 1974, but he resigned before he would be prosecuted over the 1972 break-in at the Democratic Party’s headquarters in what became known as the “Watergate” scandal. Uniquely, Nixon is often referred to as one of the nation’s best statesmen and more revered post-Presidency than during this time as President.
President John Tyler. Image: Wikipedia.
The first president to come very close to impeachment was John Tyler, the nation’s 10th president. An impeachment recommendation was introduced in the House of Representatives after his veto of a bill angered lawmakers. The impeachment failed to occur. Remind you of how the repeal of ObamaCare has angered Democrats?
IMPEACHMENT: The Liberal Left and Media Buzzword for 2017
What we’re seeing is spin suggesting our President has done or participated in obstruction of justice that would be impeachable. There simply is no such obstruction. But the liberal left and the media are creating what I liken to public perception reasonable doubt. With their pushing issues like the former FBI Director James Comey’s firing or Russian collusion, both sexy in their essence, the general public is fed a story that rivals a soap opera. But unlike a “Real Housewives” table tossing, this is our President they’re disgracing.
“The liberals’ use of obstruction of justice is another false narrative to keep the impeachment narrative alive and base it on Comey’s firing,” says political strategist LeLand McKee. “Democrats and the Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and in his recommendation memo, indicated Comey, an at-will appointment, had to go due to continued missteps from 2016.” McKee added that Rosenstein and President Trump’s decision to fire Comey was correct “due to recent discoveries [that] he leaked privileged communications. Therefore, there cannot be any obstruction of justice claims.”
How can anyone look at the Comey ups and downs, in action and testimony, and see any validity? McKee continues, “In the twenty-four months since Donald Trump announced his run for the presidency and subsequently winning, not one false narrative, false name or false label has proven true…not even one!”
Photo courtesy of LeLand McKee (pictured)
Duchemin furthers the understanding. “As the President continues to do what he promised and the nation improves, most of the politicians’ constituents will want him to remain in office. Let’s not forget who still makes the final decision: the American voters.”
The odds of impeachment of President Trump in a Republican-controlled House are dismal as you’d be hard pressed to find Republicans willing to go against the party or the President. In fact, it would take a majority of the House, or 67 senators, to remove him from office. Duchemin continued, “Because of the animosity that has developed between the political ideologies, it is unlikely that any congressman or senator will vote against party lines.” The numbers make the reality even more clear. “In the House the Democrats would have to pick up 25 Republican votes. In the Senate they would have to pick up 19,” Duchemin noted. “That is not going to happen absent a truly egregious act by the President.” Even with some in the GOP disliking the President, the reality of gathering that many votes is simply not plausible. And we can’t forget, there are Democrats that represent states that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump who need to consider their reelection as well.
All in all, impeachment is the 2017 boogeyman that liberals and the media are chasing. They can look under the bed or in the closet countless times and they simply won’t be able to find anything but the reflection of a sad clown that nominated a flawed losing candidate for President. We’ve watched the media and liberal left come at our President from nearly every angle and certainly once the impeachment shenanigans are debunked they will identify a new angle and pursue it to their fullest. Because instead of truly focusing on the country and the Americans that voted to “Make America Great Again,” the focus is on all available means of destruction of our President. And that makes the entire theatrics a sad state of affairs for our great nation. The good news? We elected a fighter not easily swayed by the noise of the left. We elected a hero. We elected Donald J Trump…For America! #Trump2020
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Randy Ross is a political contributor for Florida National News. He is also the host of “Trump Chat LIVE” and was Chairman of the 2016 Orange County 4 Trump Campaign.
Opinion
Commentary: Civility as Moral Power: What Gandhi Gave King — and What King Gave America and the World
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not merely change laws. He changed the moral tone of a nation.
At a time when America was convulsed by racism, violence, and injustice, Dr. King chose a path many dismissed as weak or naïve: civility, nonviolence, and disciplined love. History proved otherwise. In King’s hands, civility was neither politeness nor passivity. It was moral power.
That power did not arise in isolation. King drew deeply from the life and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. While studying theology and social ethics, he encountered Gandhi’s doctrine of satyagraha — the “force of truth.” What struck King most was Gandhi’s insistence that injustice must be resisted, but never with methods that corrupt the soul or mirror the cruelty of the oppressor. King later called Gandhi “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”
From India’s struggle against British colonialism to America’s fight against segregation, the moral logic was the same: suffering willingly endured, without hatred or retaliation, can awaken the conscience of a nation. Nonviolence was not weakness; it was moral jiu-jitsu — exposing injustice by refusing to cooperate with it, while refusing to become it.
For King, civility did not mean silence in the face of injustice. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he made clear that unjust laws must be broken — openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. Like Gandhi, King rejected both cowardly submission and violent revolt. His method of nonviolent civil disobedience was precise and intentional: it disrupted injustice while preserving the moral legitimacy of the movement.
This moral lineage from Gandhi to King remains one of the most remarkable transmissions of ethical philosophy in modern history. Different cultures. Different continents. One moral grammar. Both men believed that love is a social force, not merely a private virtue; that hatred multiplies hatred; and that the means we use to pursue justice shape the society we ultimately create.
When children were attacked by fire hoses in Birmingham and peaceful marchers were beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, it was not rage that moved the conscience of the nation. It was the devastating contrast between the dignity of the protesters and the brutality of their oppressors. Civility gave the movement credibility. Nonviolence gave it legitimacy. Moral discipline gave it victory.
Neither Gandhi nor King was “nice” in the shallow sense. Both condemned injustice relentlessly. Both disrupted the comfort of the powerful. Yet neither surrendered to cruelty or dehumanization. They understood a hard truth: a movement that loses its soul cannot save a society.
Today, in an age of outrage, humiliation, and political tribalism, their shared example speaks with renewed urgency. We cancel rather than persuade. We humiliate rather than debate. We dehumanize rather than disagree — and we call it authenticity.
Gandhi and King would have rejected this moral downgrade.
They would remind us:
That cruelty is not courage.
That rage is not righteousness.
That humiliation is not justice.
Gandhi lit the torch. King carried it across an ocean. Now it rests in our hands.
To honor them is not merely to quote them once a year. It is to practice what they practiced: to resist injustice without surrendering our humanity, to speak with moral clarity without moral cruelty, and to pursue change without poisoning the future with hatred.
Their revolution was not only political.
It was moral.
And it remains ours.
Hon. Rick Singh is a former Orange County property appraiser and a civic leader in Central Florida. He writes on ethics, public service, and democratic culture.
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