Yeomans: Time for GOP to Speak Out on Trump’s Unfitness

Washington, D.C., October 16, 2017 – In the latest edition of Yeomans Work, “Rise Up, Republicans,” AFJ’s Ronald Goldfarb Fellow for Justice Bill Yeomans exhorts Republicans to speak out about President Trump’s unfitness for office. “Republicans in Congress have demonstrated impressive partisan discipline and stunning irresponsibility in avoiding criticism of Trump,” he writes.  “It has become a Washington parlor game to predict who will eventually crack and speak out.”

However, he notes:

“Finally, the last week saw cracks in the Republican wall of silence.  Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, liberated by his decision not to seek reelection, gave an alarming interview to The New York Times, warning that Trump was leading the country toward World War III.  Trump predictably reacted with a series of schoolyard-quality tweets demeaning Corker, who has made it clear that he is not backing down.  And Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) tweet-challenged Trump’s frightening call to pull the license of NBC (stickler alert: networks don’t have licenses, but this is after all a Trump tweet).  This is not quite a chorus, but it beats silence.”

Yeomans writes that the big question now is whether the chorus will grow and translate into actual resistance to Trump among Republicans in Congress.  If not, he says, “the constitutional mechanisms for Trump’s removal will not be triggered any time soon, barring devastating revelations.” Those mechanisms encompass impeachment and removal under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment: either of those, Yeomans believes, could be invoked here — if Republicans were willing to break their silence.

Bill Yeomans is available for interviews: Contact Laurie Kinney at laurie@afj.org