Readers React: The Constitution demands that Democrats begin the impeachment process now

To the editor: Call investigating President Trump “pre-impeachment” if you want, but it is the sworn duty of every member of Congress to “well and faithfully discharge the duties” of their office. They took a solemn oath to “support and defend the Constitution” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

The framers foresaw that the power of impeachment was essential to remove from office, as Alexander Hamilton put it, any president for “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Periodic elections were not enough in the face of “great and dangerous offenses.”

James Madison considered impeachment “indispensable” to defend the nation against “the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief magistrate” who might “pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression” or “might betray his trust to foreign powers.”

It is imperative that members of the House Judiciary Committee open an investigation, marshal the evidence and hold public hearings on whether Trump has committed “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Anything less is a gross abdication of their constitutional obligations.

Stephen F. Rohde, Los Angeles

The writer is a constitutional lawyer.

..

To the editor: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) is quoted as saying, “There’s a lot of work we need to flesh out the facts.”

Does he mean facts need to be fished for, or flushed out? And, once determined, fattened? Could such “facts” suffice for impeachment?

I was taught in childhood that facts are facts. I daresay Trump will not be fazed when Schiff lays out his fleshy items before Congress and the world.

Jascha Kessler, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: The Republican Party has allowed itself to be hijacked by a reality television star who is a pathological liar, emotionally unstable and accountable only to himself. Had Democrats embraced this kind of behavior, they would have been denounced as corrupt, incompetent and possibly even treasonous.

Let the impeachment begin.

Bunny Landis, Oceanside

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook