Republicans are burying Trump transgressions. Democrats need to make sure they get noticed.

1. Time to talk Trump impeachment:
Jason Sattler
Jason Sattler Published 3:24 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2017 | Updated 8:15 a.m. ET Feb. 27, 2017
Republicans are burying Trump transgressions.
Democrats need to make sure they get noticed.
At the Constitutional Convention, James Madison imagined
impeachment as a relief from a chief executive who
“might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might
pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or
oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.”
President Trump might have won Madison’s Triple Crown
— in his first few weeks.

2. This is no exaggeration. The latest but far from only example
is the Washington Post report that the White House, having
failed to get the FBI director and deputy director to publicly
rebut reports about contacts between Trump associates and
Russian intelligence operatives before the 2016 election,
then enlisted Congress and the intelligence community to
knock down stories about the alleged connections.
And the goon squad attempting to limit the president’s PR
damage reportedly includes the man Trump picked to lead
the CIA and the chairmen of the House and Senate
intelligence committees, who were Trump transition advisers
and now are the two men most responsible for investigating
Trump’s Russia ties.
The pair, Rep. Devin Nunes and Sen. Richard Burr, arguably
are already derelict in their duties. They “should have started
the investigation in August before the election and
showed no interest in doing so,” says national security
reporter Marcy Wheeler. Republicans on the House
Oversight Committee, meanwhile, instead of
investigating what could be the greatest scandal in U.S.
history, are focusing on the leaks that led Trump to ask
Michael Flynn to step down as national security adviser.
Imagine Watergate with a Congress even more interested
than the president in covering up potential high crimes and
misdemeanors.
It's time for Democrats to start talking impeachment, even if
it less likely to happen under this Congress than the

3. president giving up basic cable to learn Ancient Greek so he
can read some Plutarch.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has said Democrats
should not use the “I” word in reference to Trump until
“when and if he breaks the law.” This not only
misunderstands the Founders’ design of the ultimate check
and balance, it also ignores that besides his foreign
entanglements Trump may already be in violation of
the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
Most importantly, Pelosi’s abeyance all but absolves
Republicans of any responsibility to dig into potential
Trumpian wrongdoing.
Let’s allow that Trump’s constant lying — 80 false claims in
his first 30 days — and twitchy tweeting indicate that he’s at
least no more incapacitated than he was during the
campaign. Perhaps Trump’s possible coordination with
Russian President Vladimir Putin, reflected in softened
language on Russia in the GOP platform and his campaign's
odd associations with pro-Russian forces, merely indicates
he’s a huge fan of murderous thugs who compliment him.
But the question of whether Trump is engaged in schemes of
self-gain at the expense of actual taxpayers demands
thorough investigation, at the very least. Instead, House
Republicans are acting as his defense lawyers, refusing to
ask for his tax returns and burying investigations into his
conflicts.
Meanwhile, members of Trump’s private Mar-A-Lago
resort, where the membership fees recently doubled to

4. $200,000, are enjoying direct access to the president and
foreign leaders. And all of Trump’s businesses, which are
inextricable from Trump’s persona, still benefit the Donald J.
Trump Revocable Trust — a trust that has been set up for the
“exclusive benefit” of our current president.
Ignoring your own party’s transgressions is standard politics,
but the GOP has made fine art of it.
When Republicans are out of power they conjure scandals —
like #Benghazi, a tragedy in search of a crime. Now that
they’re back in charge at the White House, they're trying to
set records for how deeply they can push their heads into the
sand.
Ethics watchdogs have already filed dozens of
complaints against Trump. If Democrats don’t move swiftly,
they may find themselves trailing both their base and public
opinion, again.
A recent Public Policy Polling poll found 46% in favor of
the House calling up the current president on formal charges,
a number that Richard Nixon didn’t see, according to
historian Kevin M. Kruse, until 16 months into the
Watergate crisis. In contrast, only 35% of Americans backed
the actual impeachment of Bill Clinton, in the days after the
House had passed two charges against him.
Democrats have to set the stakes now for the 2018 election.
A minority president with a negative mandate under a cloud
of inscrutable suspicion is pursuing a largely unpopular
agenda with possibly irreparable consequences.

5. If Republicans won’t check him, the voters must.
Jason Sattler, a member of USA TODAY's Board of
Contributors, is a columnist for The National Memo. Follow
him on Twitter @LOLGOP.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of
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The House of Representatives voted mostly along party lines
to block a resolution that would request the IRS to send
President Trump's tax returns to a committee for review.
Matt Hoffman reports.

6. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/02/26/democra
ts-impeach-trump-gop-jason-sattler-column/98263054/