This past Wednesday, December 6^th, the House voted 364 to 58 to table a resolution, authored by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, that would have initiated impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Of Washington’s 10 U.S. House members, only Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle voted for the measure; none of Oregon’s representatives did. Green said Trump had associated his presidency with efforts rooted in bigotry and racism, citing the president’s blaming both sides for violence at white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville in August, and his recent retweets of videos that purported to show violence being committed by Muslims. “Whether we like it or not, we have a bigot in the White House who incites hatred and hostility,” Green wrote in a letter to colleagues Tuesday. “What are we going to do about it?”

In an emailed statement after Wednesday’s vote, Jayapal said Trump has committed violations of the Constitution, including the Foreign Emoluments clause that prohibits presidents from receiving payments from foreign governments. “His administration is reckless and dangerous, and we owe it to the American people to at least begin a discussion about how to hold him accountable for the many ways in which he is undermining our democracy and engaging in violations of our Constitution. Our focus in Congress should be on fulfilling our duty to conduct strong oversight over this administration, and it’s past time for Republicans to join this effort and put country over party.”

I’ve ignored the various movements calling for impeachment so far, thinking they had little chance of success. Then I listened to an interview on “Democracy Now” in which, on December 1^st, Amy Goodman spoke with constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, co-founder and director of Free Speech for People. Bonifaz convinced me that, whatever its chances of success, we need, as citizens, to push for impeachment. And, despite the vote in Congress 12-7, the movement is growing at the grassroots level, with 17 communities on record across the country calling for impeachment proceedings to begin, and millions of Americans signing petitions at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org and action.needtoimpeach.com. We don’t have to wait for the Mueller investigation into whether the president and/or his allies have committed criminal offenses, since, as Bonifaz notes, impeachment can be non-criminal – a matter of “whether the president has abused his power and the public trust.”

Bonifaz’s group, RootsAction, launched its impeachment campaign on the day of the inauguration “because the president had refused to divest from his business holdings all across the world in defiance of the anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution.” These are the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. “The Foreign Emoluments Clause makes clear that no federally elected official, including the president, shall receive any payments or financial benefits of any kind from any foreign governments. The Domestic Emoluments Clause applies only to the president and says he shall not receive any financial benefits or payments of any kind from the federal government or the state government other than his federal salary. This is a president who has 111-plus business interests all over the world, many of which involve illegal foreign government benefits to him personally, through his company, the Trump Organization, as well as having properties all over the United States that involve state government benefits and the federal government, through the leasing of the Post Office Square in Washington, D.C., the place where the Trump International Hotel resides. So, what we’re dealing with here is a president who was warned by constitutional scholars, prior to taking the Oval Office, that he needed to divest from his business interests in order to comply with those anti-corruption provisions. He refused to, and is now engaged in treating the Oval Office as a profit-making enterprise at the public expense.”

Bonifaz added that since January the list of impeachable offenses “that require an impeachment investigation in the U.S. Congress parallel to the Mueller investigation” has grown. “This isn’t a question of having to wait and see whether or not the federal criminal investigation that’s proceeding turns up violations of federal criminal law by the president or any of his associates. That’s a separate question. The question here involves crimes against the state. That’s what impeachment is about – abuse of power, abuse of the public trust, and not only through the violations of the anti-corruption provisions. There is now, of course, evidence of obstruction of justice. There’s evidence of potential conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 elections and violate federal campaign finance laws, among others. There is now evidence of abuse of the pardon power in the pardoning of former Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. There’s recklessly threatening nuclear war against a foreign nation. There’s misuse of the Justice Department to try to prosecute political adversaries. And there’s the giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. All of this deserves an impeachment investigation in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Goodman said that “in response to some Democratic leaders warning against calls for impeachment before Robert Mueller’s investigation has been completed, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer defended his $20 million ad campaign to impeach President Trump, saying in a TV ad that ‘he’s brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed justice at the FBI, in direct violation of the Constitution taken money from foreign governments, and threatened to shut down news organizations reporting the truth. If that isn’t a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become?’ Can you talk about what Steyer is attempting to do in the Need to Impeach campaign and whether you’re working with him, John Bonifaz?”

Bonifaz: “We’re in communication with Tom Steyer and his team about collaborating, since he’s helping to elevate the national conversation and we agree with what he’s saying about the need for an impeachment process to move forward in the House of Representatives. The more voices that come forward from the American people all over the country to help push that forward in Congress, the better. Six members of Congress introduced five articles of impeachment on November 15^th. Prior to that, two members of Congress, Al Green from Houston, and Brad Sherman from Los Angeles, had introduced articles of impeachment around obstruction of justice. The newer articles include that, as well as the violations of the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses and the president’s continued attacks on freedom of the press and the independence of the judiciary. What’s significant here is that these articles have been introduced by members of Congress despite continued opposition by their own party’s leadership. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has made clear that she doesn’t think impeachment should move forward at this time, and yet they’re going ahead and asking other members of Congress to join them. Americans, all across the country, should also push for an impeachment investigation and urge their members of Congress to take the same kind of action.”

Goodman: “What Democrats like Pelosi are saying is that this isn’t the way to retake the House in 2018, that if you disagree with the president, the way to deal with that is through elections. Explain why you see impeachment as key.”

Bonifaz: “We’re a nonpartisan organization – not involved in the political strategy of any party. We’re focused on defending the Constitution and our democracy, and don’t think it’s acceptable to kick the can down the road and wait until after an election cycle to lay the groundwork for impeachment proceedings. They may not happen tomorrow or next month. But we need to be laying the groundwork and making this call now. Members of Congress, whether they’re Democratic, Republican, independent, or what have you, need to be stepping up to protect and defend the Constitution. That’s the oath they and the president took – to protect, defend and preserve the Constitution. And the other point on this, Amy, is that Nancy Pelosi has been saying that we don’t have the facts out, we don’t have the Mueller investigation completed. But we already have the facts about what this president has done with respect to the emoluments clauses, with respect to obstruction of justice and many other impeachable offenses.”

At this point in the discussion, Goodman mentioned the warning issued by Roger Stone, one of President Trump’s oldest advisers, in August that any politician who voted to impeach President Trump would face a violent response. She played a clip in which Stone said, ‘Just try and impeach him. You’ll have a spasm of violence in this country like you’ve never seen. This isn’t 1974. The people won’t stand for impeachment. A politician who votes for it would be endangering their life. I’m not advocating violence, but I am predicting it.” Bonifaz called Stone’s words “outrageous,” and added that “we can’t allow fear to dictate our response to this lawless president. We can’t say that we’re going to stay on the sidelines while the Constitution is being shredded, because of claims that Roger Stone or anyone else might make.”

Asked how the impeachment process would work, Bonifaz said, “the House of Representatives would need to pass a resolution that would advance to the House Judiciary Committee the question of an impeachment investigation or articles of impeachment. The Committee would then have subpoena power and hear witnesses. People say, ‘Well, the Republicans control the House Judiciary Committee. They control the House of Representatives. They control the Senate. Where do we think this process could actually go?’ But there were plenty of people who argued on the day that we launched this campaign, on Inauguration Day, that there was no way people would be standing up to demand this, and now we see millions of Americans doing just that, along with 17 communities, and seven [now 58] members of Congress. And the facts continue to build that this president is defying the rule of law.”

Asked how he would “lay out the articles of impeachment,” Bonifaz said, “We’d start with the violations of the two anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution: the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. Then you have obstruction of justice in the firing of FBI Director James Comey for not letting go of the Flynn investigation and seeking to stop similar investigations in the Senate. The potential conspiracy with the Russian government, potential collusion, to violate federal campaign finance laws and other federal laws and to interfere with our elections, is an impeachment as well as a criminal question, and the House Judiciary Committee should take it up. Then we have the abuse of the pardon power, a presidential power that isn’t unlimited. What the president has done with the pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has undermined the due process rights of the thousands of people in Arizona impacted by Arpaio’s illegal actions. This is the sheriff who was found in criminal contempt of court for refusing to stop his illegal practices of detaining people based on the color of their skin, and the president used the pardon power in a wrongful way to pardon him. Then we have the giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists – not just what the president said after the Charlottesville tragedy, but also his most recent retweets of inflammatory anti-Muslim videos. Then there’s recklessly threatening nuclear war. He may be commander-in-chief, but the president doesn’t have the power to initiate a war. That’s established under the War Powers Clause, despite the fact that we’ve seen violations of it in the past. But Trump is taking it to a whole new scale by recklessly threatening nuclear war against a foreign nation. That reckless and wanton disregard for the established norms, putting millions of lives at stake, is an impeachable offense. Finally, most recently, the president has talked about how he’d like to see the Justice Department prosecute Hillary Clinton and other political adversaries. This attempted misuse of the Justice Department to prosecute political adversaries would be another impeachable offense worthy of investigation.”

When Goodman asked Bonifaz how much support he has around the country, he said that “over 1.3 million have signed our petition, and over 3 million so far have signed Steyer’s. And some members of Congress have said that they’ve been responsive to what they’re hearing from their constituents. So I think people are ready to stand up, and they need to, because this is an urgent matter. This isn’t something we can wait till 2019 or 2020 to deal with. We need to lay the groundwork now for the call for impeachment proceedings against this president.”

I’m going to sign all the petitions urging impeachment and contact my senators and representatives. There’s too much at stake to wait.