The Patriot Post® · A Rotten Use of the 25th and Impeachment

To no one’s surprise, the Democrats’ 25th Amendment stunt is going nowhere. And it shouldn’t. The 25th, like impeachment, is merely rank political theater, courtesy of a shameless band of hyper-partisans hell-bent on sowing further division among the citizens of this nation.

Remember when Joe Biden said, “This is the time to heal in America”? Well, where is he now? Any self-respecting president-elect would’ve taken a principled stand, called off his party’s pit bulls, and put a stop to this. But here’s all we’re hearing from Team Biden: .

With merely seven days to go until 78-year-old Scranton Joe takes office, the Democrats’ only real goal in trying to remove President Donald Trump is to keep the Capitol riot front and center and to further shame and ultimately silence everyone who had the audacity to question the results of what tens of millions of Americans believe to be a deeply flawed election.

The 25th? Please. Here’s Section 4, which contains the relevant text: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President” (emphasis ours).

President Trump isn’t on death’s door in some hospital bed like James Garfield, and he hasn’t suffered a debilitating stroke like Woodrow Wilson. He’s fully capable of serving out the remaining seven days in his term. The Democrats just hate his guts.

Yesterday, House Democrats did indeed pass a resolution meant to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th, but he’s not playing along. Instead, he turned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s own words against her.

In a letter he penned to Pelosi yesterday evening, he acknowledged the shock and sadness brought about by last week’s events at the Capitol, as well as the resilience shown by Congress in reconvening that same day. “But now,” he wrote, “with just eight days left in the President’s term, you and the Democratic Caucus are demanding that the Cabinet and I invoke the 25th Amendment. I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution. Last week, I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our Nation.”

He continued, “Just a few months ago, when you introduced legislation to create a 25th Amendment Commission, you said, ‘[a] President’s fitness for office must be determined by science and facts.’ You said then that we must be ‘[v]ery respectful of not making a judgment on the basis of a comment or behavior that we don’t like, but based on a medical decision.’ Madam Speaker, you were right. Under our Constitution, the 25th Amendment is not a means of punishment or usurpation. Invoking the 25th Amendment in such a manner would set a terrible precedent.”

So now we’re on to impeachment, an article of which the Democrats introduced on Monday, charging the president with “incitement of insurrection” for his words before and during the events that so shook our elected representatives. It must’ve been the moment when he said, during his pre-riot address from The Ellipse, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a string of words more frightful, more inflammatory, or more inciteful than that.

Pelosi, of course, supports impeachment, as do most Democrats. Even some Republicans, such as Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the third-highest ranking House Republican, have expressed their support. Still others, like House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, think Cheney should resign from her post as House Republican Conference chair.

And then there’s The Most Powerful Man in Congress, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who said Monday, “I think this is so ill-advised for Joe Biden to be coming in, trying to heal the country, trying to be the president of all the people, when we’re going to be so divided and fighting again.”

Finally, there’s Ohio Representative Jim Jordan. “I’ve been here 14 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. … I do not know where it ends, but it is dangerous where they’re taking us. You couple this with what we’re seeing with the cancel culture out there. I fear for the First Amendment, I fear for the Second Amendment, I fear for the Bill of Rights, I fear for the Constitution.”

Frankly, so do we.