Free Speech For People Legal Director Ron Fein was recently joined by NBC Think to discuss the call on Congress to begin an impeachment investigation of President Trump.

There’s no need to wait for secret tapes or the conclusion to the Russia investigation, says Ron Fein, co-author of “The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump.” Congress already has all of the evidence it needs to start impeachment proceedings.

Watch the video below!

In a recent article in The Nation, John Nichols cited our campaign calling on Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against Judge Brett Kavanaugh for committing perjury.

Nichols discusses the background of the call for impeachment proceedings. He details how, during his confirmation hearings in 2004 and 2006, Kavanaugh was questioned regarding an incident in which private computer files of Senate Democrats were hacked and stolen. These files were “used to assist in getting President Bush’s most controversial judicial nominees confirmed.”

But Free Speech For People Legal Advisory Committee member, Lisa Graves, the chief counsel for nominations for the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during that period, recently stated in an article in Slate:

Kavanaugh actively hid his own involvement, lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee by stating unequivocally that he not only knew nothing of the episode, but also never even received any stolen material.

Kavanaugh continues to deny his knowledge of the stolen files in current Supreme Court confirmation hearings, despite evidence to the contrary. In his piece, Nichols highlights our campaign to launch impeachment proceedings against the judge. Nichols further cites our memorandum to argue that federal judges can be impeached and removed from the judiciary for committing perjury:

The Framers of the US Constitution understood that corruption in the process of obtaining a federal office is an impeachable offense… Judge Kavanaugh’s perjury in the process of obtaining his current position on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, should…lead to his removal from the federal judiciary and should disqualify him from ever holding a future federal office.

There is precedent for impeaching judges who have committed constitutional violations and perjury, and there is sufficient evidence that shows Kavanaugh lied under oath. The solution is to launch impeachment proceedings against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Sign our petition now to encourage Congress to act!

In a recent op-ed in the Huffington post, Ron Fein, Free Speech For People Legal Director and co-author of The Constitution Demands It, discusses Trump’s capacity to serve and the “Trump Defense.”

Citing Bob Woodward’s new book and numerous claims from Trump’s staff and lawmakers, Fein discusses the possibility of Trump’s incapacity to serve as president. But focusing on his mental state as grounds for removal from office may have an unexpected, negative consequence:

“We have never tested whether incapacity alone is grounds for impeachment. And under the over-criminalized view of impeachment promoted by congressional leaders of both parties, Congress’ impeachment power takes a back seat to a prosecutor’s decision of whether to charge Trump with a crime. But that might create an even more perverse consequence, in which Trump’s incapacity could be used as an argument against impeachment.

Call it the Trump Defense. Trump’s lawyers may argue that he is incapable of forming the necessary state of mind (mens rea) to commit impeachable crimes such as obstruction of justice or conspiracy to violate election law.”

While Fein acknowledges that a jury may not buy the “Trump Defense,” he goes on to emphasize that it should not be relevant at all:

“The lesson is that impeachment does not require a criminal mental state because impeachment is not about crime or punishment ― it is about protecting the country.

The Trump Defense’s logic is ridiculous: The president’s mental incapacity means no criminal charges, and no criminal charges mean no impeachment. Yet by abdicating its constitutional responsibility of impeachment, Congress leaves the door open to this absurd gotcha.

The solution is simple: Congress needs to stop confusing impeachment with criminal prosecution — and stop using Mueller as an excuse to avoid its constitutional duty to conduct its own impeachment investigation. The framers of the Constitution entrusted the impeachment power not to a prosecutor but to Congress. And allowing Trump continued access to power as he spirals further into madness might be, as Madison prophesied, fatal to the republic.”

As Ron Fein asserts, Congress must begin its own impeachment investigation of President Trump now. We do not need to wait for Mueller’s criminal investigation, nor do we need to focus on Trump’s mental state. We have all the evidence we need to begin an investigation and Congress must act.

On September 11, 2018, John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar on her program, Rising Up with Sonali, regarding our recent call for an impeachment investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Watch the discussion below and sign our petition calling on Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Free Speech For People announced today that it delivered a letter to New York State Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood on August 24, 2018, calling for an investigation into whether to revoke the corporate charter of the Trump Organization under a New York law that authorizes her to dissolve a corporation for persistently illegal conduct or abuse of its powers contrary to the public policy of the state. These alleged activities, detailed in the letter and in previous correspondence, include money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, facilitating unconstitutional foreign government payments (emoluments) to the president, helping Iran’s Revolutionary Guard evade international sanctions, and concealing a political slush fund by invoicing bogus “legal services.”

The letter sets forth new charges drawn from the federal criminal charges against Michael Cohen, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, Inc. until 2017, who pleaded guilty on August 21, 2018.  The prosecution’s filing (called a criminal information) details how the Trump Organization conspired with Cohen to violate federal campaign finance law and evade regulatory scrutiny through a fraudulent scheme of concealing “hush money” payments and campaign expenses.

“Cohen’s guilty plea is just the latest evidence piled on top of a mountain of alleged violations by the Trump Organization,” said Ron Fein, Legal Director for Free Speech For People. “The New York attorney general should use her legal authority to file a lawsuit to dissolve the company and revoke its corporate charter.”

“Never in our nation’s history, until now, has a business corporation been effectively merged with the presidency of the United States to enable the president and his family to use the presidency to enrich themselves.  We now know from the sworn statements and guilty plea of Michael Cohen that Donald Trump also used the Trump Organization to carry out and conceal campaign finance violations to help him win the election.  The use of the Trump Organization to facilitate this criminality and corruption is contrary to New York law and it is incumbent on the Attorney General to investigate and take appropriate action,” said Ben Clements, Free Speech For People Board Chair, partner in the Boston law firm of Clements & Pineault, former federal prosecutor, and former Chief Legal Counsel to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

“The integrity of our democracy and public institutions are at risk,” said Jonathan Abady, co-counsel on Free Speech For People’s letters issued today and a founding partner of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady. “The overwhelming evidence of criminal conduct involving the Trump Organization demands an immediate and thorough investigation by the New York attorney general.”

“The New York Business Corporation Law is quite clear,” said Jennifer Taub, Professor of Law at Vermont Law School, Board Member of Free Speech For People, and co-counsel on the letter to the New York attorney general.  “The attorney general can dissolve any New York corporation that conducts its business in a persistently fraudulent or illegal manner. We now have a guilty plea by former Trump Organization, Inc. Vice President, Michael Cohen, implicating the corporation in a criminal conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws. This is just the latest in a long list of allegations of illegality by the Trump Organization. A corporate charter is a right, not a privilege. It’s time to explore dissolution.” 

“New York gives its Attorney General special powers for special cases of rampant fraud. Those powers go back centuries in England, but they are especially appropriate for this case. We have more and more evidence that the Trump Organization is built on a foundation of fraud. The question is just how far that fraud goes, and we need the New York Attorney General to help the public find out through civil investigation,” said Jed Shugerman, Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law and co-counsel on the letter.

Free Speech For People had sent three previous letters to Eric Schneiderman, the former Attorney General of New York, detailing the long history of alleged illegal conduct by the Trump Organization, both before and after President Trump’s inauguration. This new letter provides yet more fuel for that investigation. (As a New York state court held in a previous case, violations of federal law can be grounds for corporate charter revocation because “[f]ederal law is as much a law of [New York] State as any specific law enacted by the State Legislature.”).

Free Speech For People is encouraging members of the public to sign a petition urging the Attorney General to pursue this investigation, and to contact her office to voice support: https://www.impeachmentproject.org/dissolvetrumpinc/

Click here to download the press release. 

Free Speech For People Legal Director Ron Fein joined Congressman Al Green and Democracy Now to discuss the  latest in the legal case for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, including our newest ground for impeachment, illegal hush money payments made in violation of the Federal Campaign Finance Act at the request of Trump, per Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Cohen confessed to the payments while pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and a number of other charges.

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