More than 750 American historians have put their names to a letter urging the US House of Representatives to impeach Donald Trump, saying that it is their “considered judgment that if President Trump’s misconduct does not rise to the level of impeachment, then virtually nothing does”.
The 752 historians, who describe themselves as “devoted to studying our nation’s past”, include some of the biggest names in American letters. They range from the much acclaimed biographer of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro, to Ron Chernow, who has written award-winning lives of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Trump’s “numerous and flagrant abuses of power”, they write in an open letter published on Medium, “are precisely what the framers [of the US constitution] had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president”.
The historians point to Hamilton’s words in defence of the US constitution, The Federalist, in 1792. One of the so-called Founding Fathers of US democracy, he wrote that impeachment was designed to deal with “the misconduct of public men”, which included “the abuse or violation of some public trust”.
The republic, Hamilton wrote in the 18th century, was vulnerable to the rise of a “man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents … despotic in his ordinary demeanour.” Hamilton feared such a man could manage “to mount the hobby horse of popularity – to join in the cry of danger to liberty – to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government and bringing it under suspicion – to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day.” He would, said Hamilton, “throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind’”.
A growing number of historians have signed the letter, which says: “President Trump’s actions committed before and during the House investigations fit Hamilton’s description and manifest utter and deliberate scorn for the rule of law and ‘repeated injuries’ to constitutional democracy.”
“That disregard continues, and it constitutes a clear and present danger to the constitution. We therefore strongly urge the House of Representatives to impeach the president,” they write. “Collectively, the president’s offences, including his dereliction in protecting the integrity of the 2020 election from Russian disinformation and renewed interference, arouse once again the Framers’ most profound fears that powerful members of government would become, in Hamilton’s words, ‘the mercenary instruments of foreign corruption’. It is our considered judgment that if President Trump’s misconduct does not rise to the level of impeachment, then virtually nothing does.”
Trump has been charged with placing “his personal, political interests above our national security, our free and fair elections, and our system of checks and balances”. The House of Representatives is set to vote in favour of two articles of impeachment on Wednesday. The president has ferociously rejected all charges, and the trial in the Senate is almost certain to acquit him.
