LA Times editorial board calls for Trump’s impeachment

The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times called for President Trump’s impeachment in a Saturday op-ed after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) this week said that committee chairmen should begin drafting articles of impeachment. 

The paper’s board, in a piece titled “We’ve seen enough. Trump should be impeached,” argued that the evidence produced during the House’s probe is “more than sufficient to persuade us that he should be impeached.”

The board first noted that it was “reluctant convert to the impeachment cause” because of its possible divisiveness and the likelihood that Trump will be acquitted by the Senate. 

“But those concerns must yield to the overwhelming evidence that Trump perverted U.S. foreign policy for his own political gain,” the board stated. “That sort of misconduct is outrageous and corrosive of democracy. It can’t be ignored by the House, and it merits a full trial by the Senate on whether to remove him from office.”

The board specifically expressed concerns that Trump was “abusing his office, apparently to obtain a benefit for himself.”

The piece comes after weeks of public and closed-door impeachment testimony in which witnesses described President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and the withholding of military aid to the country. 

Democratic sources have told The Hill that House Democrats could introduce articles of impeachment against Trump next week. 

If Trump is impeached by the House, he would then face a trial in the Senate, during which two-thirds of the GOP-held chamber would have to vote for his removal in order for him to be removed from office. 

Trump has denied wrongdoing, calling the impeachment proceedings a “hoax” and a “sham.”