Steve Cohen is a lame duck, a Democrat basically gerrymandered out of his comfy Memphis seat by the Republican legislature after 20 years in Washington.
But unlike former Congressman Jim Cooper of Nashville, similarly remapped into oblivion a few years back, Cohen is not going gentle into that good night. Last month he introduced impeachment articles – or charges – against President Donald Trump. A lot of impeachment articles. Twenty-six.
Listing all of them would be tedious, but here are a few that might ring bells with you:
• Undermining democracy by sowing doubt in elections
• Abuse of power through extrajudicial killings at sea
• Defying court orders on immigration and demolishing the East Wing of the White House
• Illegally profiting personally from office
• Waging war in Iran without congressional approval
• And so on and so on
You can probably imagine others.
I’m old enough to well remember the impeachment effort against President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. The federal government still functioned in those days, and reputable Republicans like Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott helped convince Nixon to turn tail and run rather than face inevitable votes to impeach by the House and to convict by the Senate.
Reputable Republicans, in whatever office, are in short supply of late. Extinct, almost.
Then came Bill Clinton’s circus of an impeachment over an, uh, indiscretion with a White House intern. That effort somehow resulted in higher approval ratings for Clinton after the Senate’s failure to convict on the two impeachment articles. It probably also contributed to Al Gore’s defeat when trying to succeed him.
And then Trump’s two impeachments, affirming one of Cohen’s assertions when filing the new articles: “Trump is clearly the most impeachable president our country has ever endured.” He practically asks for it with his actions.
But those two Trump impeachments also resulted in zero Senate convictions, which allowed Trump to run for president again in 2024. And, implausibly and lamentably, to win again. So what’s the point of trying for a third time?
The track record shows that no president has ever been both impeached and convicted. The closest margin for conviction was for Tennessee’s own Andrew Johnson, who avoided removal by a single vote in 1868.
The House has begun impeachment proceedings more than 60 times, usa.gov reports, but has held only 21 actual impeachments. Only eight of those led to Senate convictions – and every one of those involved federal judges.
I’m a bit puzzled by that, but them’s the facts. (Cohen, by the way, has also introduced impeachment articles against Chief Justice John Roberts, but that’s a different topic.)
I should also note that Cohen’s recent Trump impeachment effort is not his first. He filed articles in 2017, too, though only five of them that time. Perhaps he just put more thought into the resolution this time. Or, as seems more likely, Trump has been busy since then committing more impeachable offenses.
You decide. You can guess what I think.
That 2017 resolution, filed in a House controlled by Republicans, was assigned to committee and went nowhere. This year’s effort, also filed in a House controlled (barely) by Republicans, faces a similar fate. It would have to be reintroduced in the next session of Congress to survive, and Cohen won’t be there to do that.
So why bother?
Cohen himself has addressed that question. It’s sort of a “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” answer.
“That the sycophantic Republican majority in Congress is derelict in its duty does not mean that I must abandon my responsibilities,” he said in a statement. “I took an independent oath to support and defend the Constitution. That commitment compels me to introduce this resolution today. When historians write about this period, and our constituents ask who stood up to President Donald Trump’s lawlessness, this resolution is the answer.”
Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Congressman.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.