Impeachment: Pelosi did it the right way
Re: “Trump’s actions impeachable; Pelosi’s are political,” (TNT, 1/14).
Washington Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen is wrong to conclude that Speaker Nancy Pelosi needlessly politicized the impeachment.
As he points out, President Trump engaged in obviously impeachable conduct, behavior that cannot be allowed to become a precedent.
It is not at all clear that it is legally possible to impeach a former president, and the seriousness of Trump’s incitement to insurrection made it too risky to chance impeachment being thrown out in a subsequent lawsuit.
Should Trump be convicted in the forthcoming Senate trial, it may be later overturned. But future presidents will at least know that impeachable conduct, even in the waning moments of their term, will not be tolerated.
Van Perdue, Tacoma
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 8:05 AM with the headline "Impeachment: Pelosi did it the right way."