Friday on CNN’s “The Arena,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said President Donald Trump committed an “impeachable offense” with his response to a video featuring Democratic lawmakers telling military members about refusing illegal orders.
Host Kasie Hunt said, “You mentioned this question of sedition and the Democratic lawmakers who made that video that urged U.S. troops to not follow illegal orders from the president. Now, the president seemed to walk back the statements that he made yesterday about how they should be subject to execution or death as a punishment for their sedition. When he did a radio interview this morning, he suggested, in that interview he said, times now are softer, but that the Pentagon should be looking into, or he suggested, the Pentagon is looking into whether or not there could or should be punishments for these lawmakers. Now you’re a constitutional law scholar. Can you help us understand if there is anything to this? I mean, could they use the UCMJ?”
Raskin said, “Everything he said was complete nonsense. I mean, not only was their speech protected by the First Amendment and by the speech and debate clause, all of it was completely true. All that they stated was that members of the military have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders. That’s been established. In fact, it’s even been conceded by the president’s defenders here. So I think he’s very quickly running away from those vague threats of assassination and death that he was making.”
He added, “It’s an utter outrage. So I’m glad he’s been completely isolated, and the whole country has turned against that. It’s very important for everybody across the board, in the military and in the rest of civilian America, to denounce these comments. And if he doesn’t essentially retract them and get rid of them, this is a completely impeachable offense.”
Hunt said, “Do you think that the president posting that the actions that they took could be punishable by death is something he could be impeached for?”
Raskin said, “I would say it’s an impeachable offense for the president to say that members of Congress can be punishable by death simply for stating that everybody is subject to the Constitution, and that people have an obligation to disobey orders.”
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