Now the fight begins
Last Tuesday, a native New Yorker, who’s also the head of state of a world power, was handed a big setback.
I’m talking about Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, better known as just Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who was nearly defanged politically by the British Supreme Court.
He’d been taken to task for engaging in an unlawful action to suspend Parliament – and for no apparent reason.
Ironically, he was in New York with other world leaders at the United Nations.
And even more ironic, that day he met with that other New York-born world leader, Donald Trump.
Trump, you know by now, had his own set of problems.
The U.S. House of Representatives had finally decided to formally open an impeachment inquiry that could (but probably won’t) end his presidency.
(Before I go on – yes, Boris Johnson was born in New York. The Upper East Side of Manhattan to be exact. He had a dual British/American citizenship until 2016. That year, he renounced his US citizenship.)
Ok.
Johnson and Trump, who are both ill-tempered, foul-mouthed New Yorkers with uncombed, and over-combed hair (in that order) – with apparently self-inflicted problems.
Trump, though, may easily survive his.
Only because in the entire 243 years of the United States of America, not one president has been removed from office after they’ve been impeached.
Neither Andrew Johnson in 1868, nor Bill Clinton in 1998 were convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, and sent packing, after their impeachments.
Richard Nixon was the subject of an impeachment inquiry, but he resigned before there was an official impeachment proceeding.
Because past impeachments haven’t led to any presidents being sent out to pasture, that doesn’t mean Trump will escape unscathed.
He’ll be “scathed” a lot!
Offering to help another world leader get weapons in exchange for dirt on a political opponent, seems to be quite problematic.
So problematic, in fact, that Trump is tweeting almost non-stop trying to defend himself.
At the current tweet-rate, his finger might fall off.
He spent the week at the United Nations with other world leaders, and he managed to hammer out an important trade deal with Japan.
Too bad.
Reporters around the world have been more concerned about his July 25th phone call with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
A read-out of that conversation led Democrats to move swiftly toward forming an impeachment inquiry.
On that call, Trump is quoted as telling Zelensky, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”
That could indicate that Trump is being quite direct in getting a foreign head of state to investigate his possible presidential challenger, Joe Biden and his son. And worse, that he might be dangling military weaponry as payment for that investigation.
So far, there has been no indication that Biden and his son have done anything illegal. But Trump keeps claiming that they have.
It’s all so reminiscent of Trump’s obsession with Barack Obama’s birthplace.
No matter what information to the contrary was revealed, Trump still maintained Obama was a secret Kenyan.
These days, it’s his obsession with Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who’ve supposedly taken part in all manner of skullduggery.
That’s just not the case.
All of this is a background to the real action in the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. House of Representatives, led by Democrats, will now use six committees to exercise the impeachment inquiry.
The Judiciary, Intelligence, Oversight, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, and Ways and Means Committees will all be involved in their very specific investigations if, and until official articles of impeachment may be announced.
That could take months.
That’s months and months of political upheaval – bracketed by dozens and dozens of hostile presidential tweets.
We’re in for a wild ride.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV-news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.