How would a person feel if their employer lowered a salary for no acceptable reason? Frustrated, enraged, and offended are all common answers, but that person would likely believe that the system is completely broken in their company. In many ways, that company is like the United States. In fact, it basically is the United States. Current President Donald Trump has done actions that can be interpreted by some as irresponsible and threatening. Donald Trump should be removed from the Office of the President through the impeachment process or the 25th Amendment to prevent further executive overreach, constitutional violations, and the threatening of our democracy.

Donald Trump considered pardoning himself and other members of the Trump Organization due to an investigation into him. Back in July, Trump tweeted, “While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. [sic] FAKE NEWS.” Normally, the president has the power to “Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States,” and before a request even reaches the president, it has to be recommended by the Office of the Pardon Attorney and the Deputy Attorney General. If Trump were to pardon himself and his family, he would be bypassing the entire system by which pardons are traditionally issued. In fact, Trump has already done this, although it wasn’t for his family. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, who was an Arizona sheriff before he was convicted of violating a court order to not target immigrants more heavily than other groups. According to an anonymous source with knowledge of the pardon, it was “the President’s pardon,” which shows that Trump never sought the advice of the Justice Department, which was a tradition among presidents. However, this isn’t the only case of Trump being impulsive.

Trump’s alleged order to fire former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey could be treated as a reckless act. It all started with the firing of former director James Comey. Although unconfirmed, Donald Trump may have ordered Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Comey just because of a request for more resources in the Russian Election Interference Investigation. If these allegations were confirmed, it would clearly show Trump was actively attempting to influence a criminal investigation, which is also known as obstruction of justice. Obstruction of Justice is the the act of interfering, impeding, or obstructing the justice system inside the US. Donald Trump shows this clearly, since firing Comey could cause the investigation to grind to a halt.

Donald Trump considered revoking the news media’s broadcast licenses for televised news to the American public. In a tweet, Trump made the point “Bad for country!” in a tweet against NBC’s coverage of increasing the US’ nuclear arsenal. However, some issues arise with his argument to revoke media licenses. First of all, the FCC can’t repeal media licenses based on aired content. Furthermore, the FCC can’t revoke a station’s broadcast license on the basis of the content they air. Most importantly, the FCC simply can’t do that for the national media since local stations broadcast the media. A separate constitutional problem is that he would be infringing on the media’s freedom under the 1st Amendment. By tweeting this, he is showing the world that he is willing to sacrifice the freedom of the press for control, which shows that Trump is an authoritarian. Authoritarians tend to replace freedoms with strict laws, which is exactly what Trump is showing, even if it isn’t clearly evident. He is sacrificing the US’ rooted democracy through small changes that eventually could destroy the country in the gradual process of democratic backsliding. Democratic backsliding is where an elected leader - such as the president - begins to roll back or attack their country’s democratic branches. The end result is a dictatorship occurring in the country. One such example is Venezuela, where former leader Hugo Chávez was elected with a populist tone. When a petition that would remove Chávez was approved by the Supreme Court, Chávez gave himself the power to fire judges on the Supreme Court, which effectively ended that petition. Using that power, he consolidated power into himself, which allowed him to amend the Venezuelan Constitution to remove freedoms. Likewise, Donald Trump is a demagogue that is figuratively attacking the Justice Department, the US’ intelligence agencies, and even the defense contractors that build the military that Trump wants to grow in power.

The sheer severity and quantity of these violations is unbelievable (only some shown), which shines forward the goal of some Americans to end the chaos: remove Donald Trump from the presidency.

Donald Trump should be removed from the Presidency using the impeachment process. Under Article II of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to impeach (charge with crime) and remove from office a sitting official for “Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” For impeachment to occur, the House of Representatives must approve resolutions by a majority to impeach, while the Senate afterward holds a trial where a supermajority of Senators are required to remove the president. Although this seems to be a very long, complicated, and arduous process, part of it has been done twice. The first instance of this was in the 1868, when former-President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the Republican-controlled Congress for vetoing legislation that would have benefited freedmen and for firing his secretary of war. Although he was impeached, he was acquitted by the Senate; therefore, he was able to maintain his presidency. The next occurrence was in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath and obstruction of justice (it continued to the Senate, but he was acquitted). Even though only two sitting presidents have been impeached, they weren’t the only ones with an imminent threat of impeachment. In the ‘70s, Richard Nixon was likely involved in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate complex. Consequently, Congress appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate break-in. In a likely attempt to prevent a “smoking gun” from being released, Nixon ordered his Attorney General to fire the prosecutor, who soon resigned in the fallout; subsequently, he directed his Deputy Attorney General to do so, but he also resigned. Before the House could vote on the charges brought up by the firing and further investigations, Nixon promptly resigned. During all these impeachments, Congress had to sufficiently define “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” as this phrase is not clear as-is. Gerald Ford - Nixon’s Vice President - once said while he was the Minority Leader of the House, “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” Trump has possibly committed certain acts that could be interpreted as being impeachable, like firing Comey, tweeting about broadcast licenses, and much more. Although Trump has expressed this impeachable ideology, it is quite unlikely that the Republican-led government will lead an impeachment effort against Trump. Nonetheless, Congress doesn’t always lead the charge in removing Trump.

Donald Trump could be removed from office by invoking a clause in the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, which describes Presidential succession. The origins of the 25th Amendment run back into the ‘60s, when former-President Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson was promoted to Acting President. After Kennedy’s assassination, Congress was mulling over how to deal with presidential succession and filling vacant offices in the Executive Branch. After around four years, Congress passed and ratified the 25th Amendment, which contained four sections. The first section described the ascension of the Vice President to the Presidency due to death, resignation, and removal. The second section handled Vice President vacancies, while the third handled the Vice President’s Acting President capabilities. The most elusive section, however, is Section Four. In Section Four of the 25th Amendment, it specifically describes removing a president due to the inability to “discharge the powers and duties of his office.” In order to remove Trump, the Cabinet and Vice President must decide with a majority to remove him and notify Congress, where the House and Senate decides the President’s fate. Although Section Four has never been used, the other sections certainly have. One such occurrence was when former-President George W. Bush underwent a colonoscopy at Camp David in 2007. During this, he was administered general anesthesia. Since he obviously couldn’t respond to any incidents and orders during the operation, Bush passed his authority to his Vice President Dick Cheney. After the procedure, Bush reclaimed his power as the commander-in-chief. In this instance, the sitting-President is physically incapable of performing his duties. However, Donald Trump isn’t currently physically incapacitated, and he is also highly unlikely to resign. Although this is certainly true, it isn’t the first time Section Four of the 25th Amendment was considered to remove a president. In the ‘80s, many of Ronald Reagan’s adversaries mentioned his contradictory statements as a sign of mental instability. Further research has shown that Ronald Reagan exhibited the signs of Alzheimer’s, which is a degenerative brain disease. To back this up, the researchers noticed a distinct increase of repeated words and nonspecific subjects like “thing” even though the subject may have been clear in context. Although it wasn’t known when Reagan’s presidency ended, his misjudgement could have caused nuclear war with the former Soviet Union. Likewise, Donald Trump has been compared to a child by some critics; therefore, the critics state that Donald Trump shouldn’t have access to the nuclear codes that launch America’s nuclear arsenal due to the potential relationship between his mental well-being and previous incidents.

Donald Trump should be removed as the US’ President through the impeachment process or the 25th Amendment to prevent him from usurping the Justice Department, to prevent unconstitutional violations, and to halt the degradation of America’s democracy. Even though it’s only around a year into Trump’s presidency, his actions have shown the US’ adversaries that Trump is a reactive, irresponsible leader whose enemies only seem to be former-President Obama’s policies. As he has shown, maybe that company should step up to show the public the solution to America’s decline.

-Michael Wong