Great and Dangerous Offences

“Why is the provision restrained to Treason & bribery only? Treason as defined in the Constitution will not reach many great and dangerous offences.”—George Mason on the broad scope of presidential crimes that should fall under impeachment.

Despite being twice impeached in his first term, Donald Trump has behaved even more outrageously in his return to the White House, violating the Constitution, federal law, and ancient behavioral norms almost daily. In Great and Dangerous Offences, Frank Bowman, one of America’s leading authorities on impeachment, considers whether in his second term President Trump has committed impeachable “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” and, if so, whether it is in the nation’s best interest for Congress to make a third try at impeaching and expelling him from office.

In this urgent and necessary book, Bowman discusses the many particular incidents of misconduct for which President Trump could properly be impeached, but contends that the most compelling ground for impeachment is Trump’s comprehensive and accelerating pattern of subverting the constitution and rule of law to establish an autocracy. Bowman concludes by considering whether a third Trump impeachment is a constitutional imperative or might instead prove a fatal distraction from the task of motivating the American electorate to vote for candidates committed to restoring the rule of law and constitutional order.