Opinion: Why impeaching Trump is a fruitless effort

Donald Trump, love him or hate him, his name is often followed by a wave of controversy. This statement is even more true nowadays, with the recent “quid pro quo” between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, according to the L.A. Times.

Due to this recent event, investigations have been launched with the end goal of impeaching Trump, but is this really the best course of action?

To impeach is simply “to charge with a crime or misdemeanor,” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. In Trump’s case, his opposition is trying to charge he with a quid pro quo, which refers to him pressuring Ukraine to help him.

The idea being that over a phone call, President Trump pressured Zelensky to aid in an investigation against Joe Biden, saying that he would withhold support if Zelensky did not comply. However, this argument falls apart once you look into the transcript of the phone call, which the White House released in September.

On the call, Trump begins by congratulating president Zelensky, according to the transcript. 

He asks for aid in investigation into Crowdstike servers.

Zelensky agreed. 

“We [Ukraine] are ready to open a new page in cooperation between the United States and Ukraine,” Zelensky said.

The president only then asks about an investigation into Biden. Zelensky agrees, and thanks him for his support. At no point does Trump talk about, or even imply that he is going to stop providing aid.

Even if he had done something illegal enough to get him impeached, it would end up getting shot down. For him to be impeached, it would require both a majority vote in the House of Representatives, and a two-thirds vote in Senate.

However, the Senate is currently majority Republican — the same political party as Trump. So, assuming that he was proven to be guilty, and that the majority vote was passed in the House of Representatives, the impeachment process would stop dead at the last step.

This was evident in Bill Clinton’s case in 1998, where he was found guilty of lying under oath and obstruction of justice, but still finished his term as president.

This debate is not about whether or not you are pro or anti Trump. Even looking at this as a Democrat, the entire ordeal would be pointless.

There simply is not enough evidence to link Trump to a crime illegal enough to get him impeached. And if there was, the Senate is almost certain to side with him, preventing him from getting removed from office.

The best thing that the anti-Trump side can do, would be to work with other presidential candidates, and out vote him in the 2020 presidential elections.