Readers React: Nixon, Clinton and now Trump: Why Americans have ‘impeachment fatigue’

To the editor: Law professor Andrew Coan makes a strong case for impeaching President Trump, but his analysis completely omits the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

In its first 185 years, the U.S. saw one presidential impeachment. If we include Trump, in the past 45 years there have been three serious impeachment efforts.

Could there actually be “impeachment fatigue,” where many Americans see this as an almost routine political tactic against the opposition party occupying the White House, despite the supporting evidence?

Bob Shapiro, Goleta

..

To the editor: Coan takes a whole column to write that Trump fires those he doesn’t like and hires people he does. Who knew? Golly, that’s a terrible thing to do.

No other president has done that as far as I know. For sure no Democratic president ever did that.

So yes, impeach Trump. It should not be difficult with a Republican Senate.

Bill Simpson, Rancho Palos Verdes

..

To the editor: Coan’s op-ed piece makes a good point, but it misses the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency: the fact that the public voted him into office even though it knew that Trump consistently placed himself above the law.

Prior to the election, it was known that Trump or his companies had destroyed or hid documents in violation of court orders to turn them over to opposing parties in litigation, routinely failed to pay contractual obligations, established a “university” that did not provide the promised instruction, and bragged about assaulting women.

Voters nonetheless decided that it was OK to put into the highest office in our country a man who made it very clear that he believes he is the law. Whether or not Trump is impeached, the fact that those voters chose to ignore, or even reward, such conduct does not bode well for the future of this country.

Stephanie Scher, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Coan’s op-ed article, along with so many other opinions on possible impeachment, culminate with the statement that even if the House votes to impeach, the Senate will never achieve the two-thirds vote needed to remove Trump from office.

This assumes that there are not a number of Republican senators who would prefer a much more conservative and much more stable Mike Pence as president. I think this likely scenario deserves a lot of consideration among Democrats unsure of whether to pursue impeachment.

Jordan Austin, Port Hueneme

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook.