It’s been quite a week and there’s lots to unpack. In my last post I suggested that we need to reconsider impeachment, even if probably won’t lead to the Senate removing the President from office.

None of this would have happened had not a civil servant (the whistleblower) read the transcript of a phone call. Our President, never one to care about anyone other than himself, has called this civil servant almost a spy and suggested he (or she) committed treason.

The Republican response is no more responsible. They claim that since the whistleblower was not on the call, anything he says is hersay and this needs some unpacking.

When someone testifies in a court of law, he (or she) can only testify to what he saw or heard. For example, if I witness a robbery I can testify to that. But I can’t testify that I overheard someone tell another person that he committed the robbery. That’s hearsay.

But here’s the problem: the whistleblower isn’t testifying: he’s reporting. His report doesn’t claim there was a crime or an impeachable offense, only that there might be something that bears a look.

Let me draw a parallel from my own life: because of my job as a hospice chaplain I’m known as a “mandated reporter” for elder abuse. If I see or suspect abuse I’m required by law to report it to the authorities. Nobody gets in trouble for what I report and all it means is that someone will investigate.

That’s what the whistleblower did. He reported his concerns to the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General.

Stay tuned. More later.

Six months ago I wrote that impeaching President Trump probably wasn’t a good idea. At the time (a month before the release of the Mueller Report) we suspected much but knew little.

The report’s release stopped short of accusing the President of a crime, but also didn’t exonerate him. The President, of course falsely claimed it did exonerate him and most Republicans sided with him. I still believed impeachment wasn’t a good idea.

But the events of this week have cause me (and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) to reconsider. In the last week we learned that someone in the intelligence community read a transcript of a phone conversation between the President and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019. This person became so alarmed by what he read that he wrote a report to the Intelligence Community Inspector General raising the possibility that the President implied that he would sell anti tank missals to Ukraine in return for Ukraine investigating Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

These reports are often called “whistleblower” reports and this public servant has become known as the “whistleblower.” We don’t know who this person is.

The “transcript” he read isn’t a verbatim transcript but a report written by someone was listening to the call. You can find a link to the transcript from the White House page.

This is pretty common and most of these transcripts are classified. They aren’t normally shared with the public, but they are shared with members of Congress. But here the administration attempted to block it from Congress. It didn’t work and the White House eventually released it.

So where does this leave the question of impeachment? Good question. Democrats, and even a few Republicans, have reacted with alarm. Not surprisingly, the President insists this is just another witch hunt and most Republicans are ducking for cover or supporting the President. The idea that, if impeached, the Senate would vote to remove him is pretty remote. While the House can impeach with a simple majority, the Senate needs a 2/3 majority to remove him from office.

When President Bill Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office, in 1998 there was a backlash and his popularity increased. The President’s opponents have a well founded fear that this will aid his re-election next year.

But on the other hand, if we allow him to continue with this behavior, I believe we are tacitly complicit. The Republicans in Congress have shown a breathtaking amount of cowardice in the face of wrongdoing. If nothing else, impeachment and removal will force them out of the shadows and explain to their constituents and the American people why they support this President.