Impeachment: Antidote to Trump’s Authoritarian Rule

Interview with John Bonifaz, constitutional attorney, and co-founder and president of Free Speech For People, conducted by Scott Harris

impeachment articles

John Bonifaz discusses Rep. Al Green’s recent introduction of articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, which was tabled by a House vote of 237-140, and what accountability for Trump’s long list of unconstitutional and corrupt actions would and should look like if Democrats win back control of the House and/or Senate in the 2026 midterm election.

SCOTT HARRIS: Right now, I’m very happy to welcome back to our program, John Bonifaz, constitutional attorney and co-founder and president of the group, Free Speech for People. John is co-author along with Ron Fein and Ben Clements of the book, The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump, which was published in 2018. John, thanks so much for making time to come on our program tonight.

JOHN BONIFAZ: Thank you, Scott. Good to be with you again.
SCOTT HARRIS: So I always like to have you briefly tell our listeners about the work you do with, in this case, Free Speech for People. Tell us about the group and we’ll get right into our conversation after that.
JOHN BONIFAZ: Yes, thank you. We were launched more than 15 years ago on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. And we’ve been engaged in multiple fights for our democracy to defend it and to expand it all across the country, including taking on big money in politics, protecting the right to vote and our elections, confronting unchecked corporate power and challenging corruption at the highest levels of our government, including today in the Oval Office.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, John. So certainly since Jan. 20, when Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term in office, winning a slight majority in the popular vote and we have been certainly been seeing an erosion of our democracy, challenges to basic tenants of our Constitution like free speech and the rule of law. Blatant corruption every day, right out in the open. There is a lot of concern about the future of this country. Millions of people came out on successive protest days in April and again in October.

Seven million, in fact, came out on No Kings Day on Oct. 18. We are at a place right now where there’s a lot of commentators, political scientists who predict that our country is really on the precipice of losing our democratic way of life, as flawed as it may be. But our democracy seems to be being destroyed one piece at a time, almost on a daily basis since Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda came into office.

Before we get to some of the latest impeachment moves by Congressman Al Green and some of the things that I know you want to say about the future of impeachment, I want to just get your overview on where we stand in our democracy today here in the U.S.

JOHN BONIFAZ:  Well, I definitely agree that we face an existential crisis with respect to our democracy and the framers created a very remedy in the Constitution for this very situation we face. And that is the Impeachment Clause, Section 4 of Article II. (The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.) And that is why we’ve been pushing to have it be invoked by the United States Congress for the past 11 months and why we’ve launched ImpeachTrumpAgain.org, with more than 1 million people across the country have now joined, signing our petition calling for the impeachment and removal of this lawless president. But there’s no question that this existential crisis is right in front of us and we must all engage and stand up to defend our republic at this critical hour for our nation.

SCOTT HARRIS: So John, Congressman Al Green, I believe he’s from Texas, proposed articles of impeachment against President Trump for a second time this year. Tell us about the articles of impeachment that he brought up and the House vote that tabled the motion, I believe.

JOHN BONIFAZ: Yes. We’ve been proud to work in partnership with Congressman Green and so appreciate his leadership on this critical question. He has introduced, as you highlight, articles of impeachment that focus on two separate abuses of power. First, the threat that Donald Trump made to execute members of Congress. These are members of Congress who produced a video that was a message basically to our armed forces, to members of the military, that they have a duty to only obey lawful orders and not to obey unlawful orders. That’s well understood in the military code of conduct in terms of how they should operate. So they were not saying anything controversial, but Donald Trump decided that based on that video, he would threaten to have them executed. And that is an abuse of power and impeachable offense that was the subject of the first article.

The second article in this same document focused on Donald Trump’s repeated threats to federal judges all over the country, intimidating them and in many cases leading to threats of political violence against them. And that, too, is an abuse of power and impeachable offense and attack on the U.S. judiciary.

So both of these articles were presented in early December, Dec. 11, and there was a vote forced on those articles. Any member of Congress, under what is known as House Rule IX, can invoke that rule to force a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives on an impeachment resolution. Impeachment is considered to be a privileged resolution under House Rule IX for which any member can force a vote. And he did just that. He introduced the articles and then he invoked House Rule IX. And what happened then was really extraordinary given the breadth and strength of this movement that has now been going on for 11 months because 140 members, including Congressman Green, voted to advance those articles.

There was a motion to table presented by a Republican member of Congress and that motion to table meant that if you were voting “no” on it, you were voting to advance the article. You didn’t want to have them tabled. A “yes” vote was to vote against advancing the articles. And then there are those who decide to vote “present.” So 140 members voted to advance the articles. They voted no untabling. Twenty-three some members of the Democratic Caucus voted with all the Republican members to table.

So it won and the motion was granted. But what’s significant here is that that 140 number is a 77 percent increase from when Congressman Green forced a vote in June on articles of impeachment dealing with the illegal and unconstitutional bombing of Iran, which we also worked with him on. There are only 79 members of Congress and now we had a jump all the way to 140 and also significant 47 members in this last vote appeared “present.” They refused to vote no or yes. On the motion, they voted present. And what that I think demonstrates is that there are a number of members that were too scared, frankly, to go back to their constituents and have to explain why they voted against advancing articles of impeachment.

So really when you put it together, there are 187 members of Congress who refused to stop these articles and say “no” to having them be advanced. And that’s a significant development and demonstrates that this movement is being built from the grassroots up and people’s voices are being heard.

SCOTT HARRIS: John, how do you respond to people who don’t have a lot of faith in impeachment? Because as they see it, and I think there’s certainly many of our listeners in that camp who look at the requirement for conviction in the U.S. Senate, which is where a trial would take place if the House does vote out articles of impeachment. It takes two-thirds of all the senators to convict a president who’s going through the impeachment trial, but that seems a high bar, difficult to attain in any near future composition of the Senate. How do you respond to the idea that an effort to push forward articles of impeachment is really symbolic and really could not take out Donald Trump?

JOHN BONIFAZ: We have three responses to this. We have heard this argument. First, we either have a Constitution or we don’t. We either have an impeachment clause or we don’t. If we’re not going to invoke the impeachment power at this critical moment for our nation, then we might as well say we’re giving up on the Constitution. We refuse to give up on the United States Constitution.

Number two, we normalize this conduct when we do not name it for what it is. These are high crimes against the state and Donald Trump needs to be labeled for engaging and committing these high crimes. We must not normalize this conduct. And third, members of Congress take the very same oath that Donald Trump took on Jan. 20, 2025 to protect and defend the Constitution. They have a duty, a sworn duty to defend the Constitution at this critical hour and invoke the impeachment power.

Yes, it’s true that the bar is high in the U.S. Senate, but the first place that this must begin is in the House and members of Congress have a duty to advance articles of impeachment. And we do not know and cannot predict what the situation will be like by the time those articles are passed and sent on to the U.S. Senate. But what we do know is that if we don’t even build this case, if we don’t even invoke this power, then we’re effectively ceding it in this very environment where we have a wanna-be tyrant in the White House and we’re giving up this critical remedy that the framers placed in the Constitution to deal with a rogue, lawless president like this one.

SCOTT HARRIS: We’re speaking with John Bonifaz, constitutional attorney and co-founder and president of the group, Free Speech for People. And we’re talking about articles of impeachment that were introduced by Texas Congressman Al Green back in December and a vote took place. John, I did want to ask you about the Epstein files and I want to get to some more questions of accountability before we run out of time. But I did want to ask you about the Epstein files given that there’s a lot of concern that overwhelmingly the House and the Senate all voted, I think all but one legislator voted for the Epstein Files Release Act. And the Justice Department that was due to produce these files on Friday failed miserably, right? A lot of redactions, hundreds and perhaps thousands of pages redacted and only 5 percent of the files, I just read this today, have been released.

And there were files that were, I guess, posted on the DOJ website and then taken down. I mean, there was a lot of defiance in terms of the law. And I know there’s been discussion about holding Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt or maybe trying to impeach her. But as a constitutional lawyer, what do you think is appropriate in this moment, given there’s so much bipartisan concern about the Epstein files and a lot of folks on both sides, Democrats and Republicans who want to see that act complied with?

JOHN BONIFAZ: Yes. I think members of Congress need to move rapidly in introducing articles of impeachment, not just against Attorney General Pam Bondi, but against Donald Trump as well. This is, as you have highlighted, direct defiance of a federal law that’s been passed overwhelmingly 427 to 1 in the House, unanimously in the U.S. Senate that requires the full release of the Epstein files by Dec. 19. They have failed miserably in abiding by that law. The deadline has passed and those articles need to be introduced and not only should they be introduced, but a vote should be forced on the floor against Pam Bondi and Donald Trump.

There’s no excuse, frankly, for members of Congress not to proceed in that way. Anything short of it is effectively again, ceding this very remedy that’s in the Constitution to address this kind of defiance of the law. Inherent contempt is a good thing to try as well, but look, we cannot avoid the major question before us, which is that this is a president and his administration who believe they can get away with anything.
They can trample on the Constitution. They can trample on the rule of law. They can attack the United States Congress and defy laws that Congress passes, and we have to put an end to it, and that’s the way we deal with that—is through the impeachment process. So I hope and believe there will be more and more voices coming forward to demand that the impeachment process begin against this president with respect to this failure in terms of abiding by the law, but so many other abuses of power that we’ve identified at ImpeachTrumpAgain.org.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, John. We’re speaking with John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of the group, Free Speech for People. This is WPKN in Bridgeport. My name is Scott Harris, the program is Counterpoint. John, just a final question for you, if you could. If Democrats win control of the House and maybe the Senate, what are the opportunities for holding Donald Trump and his administration accountable for violations of the Constitution and rule of law, as well as some very disturbing allegations of blatant corruption. Apart from impeachment, what are some of the tools you would like to see a Democratic majority pursue in terms of violations of our democracy?
JOHN BONIFAZ: Well, certainly I would put impeachment as a number one remedy they need to invoke and not just against Donald Trump, but other members of his Cabinet who’ve engaged in abuses of power. But I also think very strong oversight with respect to investigating and uncovering all of the rampant corruption that’s occurred so far with respect to this second Trump administration and making clear that this will not be allowed going forward. So having further guardrails put in place, there’s an amendment that’s been introduced, a constitutional amendment to limit the pardon power and that’s been introduced by Congressman Cohen from Tennessee. But there’s also talk from Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal doing that on the Senate side. I think that very idea needs to be advanced and go forward. And we also have to deal with the shenanigans that are happening in a number of states where Donald Trump is trying to rig the congressional districting process mid-decade by effectively trying to redraw the districts to add more Republican seats.
And we have to recognize the threat that this poses to our democracy. So more legislation that deals with protecting the right to vote is critical as well. But at the end of the day, we’re dealing here with a lawless administration and they need to be confronted with that impeachment power and there needs to be a willingness on the part of those in the opposition to not be afraid to invoke the I-word. We have heard far too many of these members of Congress say, “We can’t talk about this. We need to move on. We need to talk about other things.” And our argument is we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can have our policy debates, but we must invoke the impeachment power and defend our democracy at this critical hour. We must build that case for impeachment now.
SCOTT HARRIS: All right. Well said, John. Thank you for all you do and for joining us tonight. Please leave our listeners with a website for your organization, Free Speech for People.
JOHN BONIFAZ: Yes. We welcome people joining us at FreeSpeechforPeople.org. You can learn about all of our work and you can join our impeachment campaign at ImpeachTrumpAgain.org.
SCOTT HARRIS: John, much appreciation again for your hard work on these important critical issues for our democracy and for spending time with us tonight. Thank you.

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