A trio of University of Pittsburgh professors were among more than 750 historians nationwide calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump in an open letter this week.
The letter, posted online in advance of the House’s historic vote on Wednesday, accuses the president of violating his oath of office and demonstrating “utter and deliberate scorn for the rule of law” — which they describe as a clear and present danger to the U.S. Constitution.
“President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what the Framers had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president,” the historians write, citing Mr. Trump’s alleged dangling of Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden.
Offering an academic backbone to what has been a highly partisan political process, signee William Chase, professor emeritus of history at Pitt whose work has focused on the Soviet Union, the Stalin years and 1930s Europe, said he added his name to the letter because he fears the executive is being given the go-ahead to misuse power and abandon his oath of office.
Mr. Chase repeatedly pointed to the idea of checks and balances, and how the three branches of government are constitutionally mandated to hold each other accountable.
“Unfortunately nowadays, there are lots of aspiring leaders who are giving an authoritarian bent throughout the world,” Mr. Chase said Tuesday. “We all condemn those, but when something comes so close to actually empowering one branch of the government over the others, it scares me.”
Mr. Chase’s colleagues in the history department — Keisha Blain and Patrick Manning — signed the letter but could not be reached for comment.
Deeming Mr. Trump’s alleged attempts to obstruct Congress and justify it on the grounds that he enjoys immunity, the historians wrote that if his conduct doesn’t rise to impeachment, “then virtually nothing does.”
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called the impeachment proceedings an “unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers,” alleging that Democrats are simply trying to nullify the results of the 2016 election.
“The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence,” the president wrote. “They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.”
Mr. Trump also claimed that “those accused in the Salem Witch Trials” had more due process than he was offered during the proceedings.
Mr. Chase said he once taught a course called “Comparative Witch Hunts” — in which he came to realize that documents in the archives in Moscow echoed the sentiments in Salem — and said this impeachment isn’t a witch hunt, but a rightful investigation into an abuse of power.
“He’s got the job, and he took an oath of office saying he would respect the Constitution,” Mr. Chase said. “I see this as, in spirit and action, a violation of that oath.”
A letter from historians, Mr. Chase said, is an attempt to show the public that people who understand the structure of government and checks and balances think the president’s actions are a threat to those foundations.
First Published: December 17, 2019, 10:37 p.m.