To the Editor:

To impeach or not to impeach, that is the question on the minds of many Americans and the U.S. Congress. We must consider whether such action is in the vital best interests of the United States despite any political risks of its outcome.

Children of my generation were taught, accepted, and held inviolate, the Constitution’s basic principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. Every child today, and every adult in America, is learning from Donald Trump, that these tenets, this foundation, our code of ethics, our Constitution, may be nothing but hogwash.

By refusing to respond to any congressional subpoenas, Trump is saying Congress has no constitutional authority to oversee the executive branch. He’s stating that Congress is subordinate (not a co-equal) branch of government. Do we just simply forget about separation of powers?

By spending money on his ill-conceived wall that Congress explicitly refused to OK, Trump is saying Congress has no constitutional authority over spending. Goodbye, checks and balances. Goodbye, Congress.

By shutting down government whenever this man-child doesn’t get his way, Trump is saying he has the constitutional right not to execute laws whenever it suits him. Again, Farewell, Congress.

By directing the attorney general, the justice department, the FBI and the secretary of the treasury to act in his own personal interest rather than in the interests of the American people, Trump is saying that he (or any president) can run the U.S. government on his own. Adios, Constitution and Goodbye, America, au revoir, ta-ta, sayonara.

By threatening to cut off trade with the second-largest economy in the world, Trump is saying he has sole authority to endanger the entire American economy. Andres Manuel Lopez Abrador (President of Mexico) is the most recent leader to try and explain the economic facts of life to Trump before he puts the world’s economy in a tailspin.

And by doing everything possible to stop an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including firing the head of the FBI (interference we all now know was true and clearly took place), Trump told America it’s AOK for a president to obstruct justice. Goodbye, law. You comfortable with that? I’m not.

The core purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to prevent tyranny. The framers wisely distributed power among the President, C ongress, and the judiciary, giving each of the three branches the means to limit the power of the other two. In other words, the framers of the U.S. Constitution anticipated the possibility of a Donald Trump.

The framers also put in components to enforce the Constitution against a president who tries to usurp the powers of the other branches (which Donald Trump clearly has). The last sentence of Article I, Section 2: “The House of Representatives shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.” In the next to last paragraph of Article I, Section 3: “The Senate shall have sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

President Trump (in my opinion) clearly appears to be actively usurping the powers of the other branches. Therefore, the road ahead (though difficult to traverse) seems equally clear. Under our present circumstances, the Constitution mandates, commands, and expressly directs that the House of Representatives undertake an impeachment inquiry and present the resulting evidence to the Senate.

This may not be the most popular or the most practical and certainly not the most risk-free political thing to do. But it is the necessary and the right thing to do.

David L. Snell

Franklin