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As someone who has focused intently on the need to reconnect the American people with their system of government, President Trump presents a serious threat to those who currently occupy positions of power in Washington. These individuals who are for the most part hard-working, well intentioned, well-educated, and highly specialized are also unelected and unaccountable.

President Trump has defied this ruling elite on many levels and he has infuriated them as he has done so. He’s bucked them on so many levels, declining to defer to the opinions of self-proclaimed government experts, who claim that they know better than any of us.

He pushed back on them, for example, when it comes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA as its sometime described. When he insisted that FISA had been abused in efforts to undermine his candidacy, and to infringe on the rights and the privacy of the American people. When he took that position, Washington bureaucrats predictably mocked him, but he turned out to be right.

He called out the folly of engaging in endless nation-building exercises, as part of a two-decade long war effort that has cost this country dearly in terms of American blood and treasure. Washington bureaucrats mocked him again, but he turned out to be right. 

He raised questions with how U.S. foreign aid is used and sometimes misused throughout the world, sometimes to the detriments of the American people and the very interests that such aid was created to alleviate. Washington bureaucrats mocked him, but he turned out to be right. 

President Trump asked Ukraine to investigate a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. He momentarily paused U.S. aid to Ukraine, while seeking a commitment from the then newly elected Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, regarding that effort.

He wanted to make sure that he could trust this recently elected President Zelensky, before sending him the aid. Within a few weeks his concerns were satisfied, and he released the aid.

Pausing briefly before doing so isn’t criminal, it certainly isn’t impeachable, it’s not even wrong.

Quite to the contrary, this is exactly the sort of thing the American people elected President Trump to do. He would, and has decided to bring a different paradigm to Washington. One that analyzes things from how the American citizenry views the American government. 

Because President Trump took a conclusion different than that offered by the so-called “interagency process” the House impeachment managers argued that that amounted to a constitutionally impeachable act. It is not an impeachable act. It is nothing of the sort. Quite to the contrary, when you actually look at the constitution itself, it makes clear that any president has the power to do what President Trump did here.

The very first section of Article 2 of the Constitution, this is the part of the Constitution that outlines the president’s authority, makes clear that the executive power of United States government shall be vested in the President of the United States.

When a newly elected president comes in, this president, or any president in the future and thinks hey, “We’re giving a lot of aid to this country, $391 million for the year in question. I want to make sure that I understand how that president operates. I want to establish a relationship of trust before taking a step further with that president. So, I am going to take my time a little bit, I’m going to wait maybe a few weeks in order to make sure that we’re on a sure footing there.” He did that and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

At the end of the day, this government does in fact, stand accountable to the people. This government is of, by and for the people. We cannot remove the 45th President of the United States for doing something that the law and the Constitution allows him to do without doing undue violence to that system of government to which every single one of us has sworn an oath. We’ve sworn to uphold and protect and defend that system of government. That means standing up for the American people and those they have elected to do a job recognized by the Constitution. 

These were factually and legally flawed articles of impeachment and anyone who voted for them undermined the very principles that our Constitution was designed to protect.