USA Today editorial board calls for Trump’s impeachment

USA Today’s editorial board called for President Trump’s impeachment in a scathing new editorial, accusing the president of meeting the impeachment inquiry launched by House Democrats with “outright and unprecedented defiance” and abusing his contacts with Ukraine.

“Put your own narrow interests ahead of the nation’s, flout the law, violate the trust given to you by the American people and recklessly disregard the oath of office, and you risk losing your job,” the editorial board wrote.

“USA TODAY’s Editorial Board wrote those words two decades ago when it endorsed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, a Democrat,” it continued. “Now, in graver circumstances with America’s system of checks and balances at stake, they apply to another president facing impeachment, Republican Donald Trump.”

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against Trump, accusing him of abusing his office and obstructing Congress in its impeachment inquiry. Trump is accused of holding up millions in military aid to Ukraine while pressuring the country’s government to open political investigations.

Trump and his GOP allies have repeatedly denied the allegations. 

The USA Today editorial board said that “Trump’s egregious transgressions and stonewalling have given the House little choice but to press ahead with the most severe sanction at its disposal.” 

It goes on to accuse the president of using “[American] tax dollars to shake down a vulnerable foreign government to interfere in a U.S. election for his personal benefit.”

The board cited several current and former Trump aides and advisers, including some who have testified in both public and closed-door impeachment hearings. 

“To former national security adviser John Bolton, the months-long scheme was the equivalent of a ‘drug deal.’ To Bolton’s former aide Fiona Hill, it was a ‘domestic political errand’ that ‘is all going to blow up.’ To Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, ‘it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,’ ” the board said. 

“And to Ukrainian soldiers, fighting to fend off Russian aggression in the eastern part of their country, the money was a matter of life and death,” it continued. 

The board also said that Trump has “met the impeachment investigation with outright and unprecedented defiance,” noting Trump administration officials who did not comply with subpoenas seeking testimony or some documents.

The board also called out Trump’s GOP allies in Congress, alleging that they have placed “power and party ahead of truth and country.”

“Had any Democratic president behaved the way Trump has — paying hush money to a porn star, flattering dictators and spewing an unending stream of falsehoods — there’s no doubt congressional Republicans would have tried to run him out of the White House in a New York minute,” the editorial said. “Twenty-seven Republicans who voted to impeach or convict Clinton remain in Congress. If they continue to defend Trump, history will record their hypocrisy.”

This is not the first time the USA Today editorial board has blasted the White House; in September of 2016, ahead of Trump’s election, it cautioned that Trump was “unfit for the presidency.”

The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times also called for Trump’s impeachment, calling his behavior “outrageous and corrosive of democracy.”