Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“The American people understand that Donald Trump poses a direct threat to our Constitution and to the rule of law and must be impeached and removed from public office,” said the head of Free Speech for People.

After just 14 months of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, polling released Monday found that a majority of likely US voters support impeaching him a historic third time—which one pollster called “an unprecedented result this early in a presidential term.”

Lake Research Partners conducted the poll March 26-30 for Free Speech for People, a legal advocacy organization that has launched a campaign to “Impeach Trump. Again.” As part of that effort, FSFP gathered more than 1 million supportive signatures ahead of the latest “No Kings” rallies and has publicly detailed over 25 grounds for impeachment.

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First on that list is that “in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, Trump is abusing his role as commander of the US military to commit atrocities that violate US and international law.” The president notably spent the weekend threatening to commit more war crimes in Iran if it doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all ship traffic—which it only closed in response to the joint Israel-US attack on February 28.

Another key argument for impeachment on the FSFP list is that “Trump has militarized and weaponized federal law enforcement, particularly US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to punish the opposition party, disrupt local communities, instill fear in the civilian population, and quell lawful political dissent.”

Pollsters noted both of those grounds in their question, asking respondents: “Several members of Congress have recently come out in support of impeaching President Donald Trump for violating Americans’ constitutional rights and the law, including actions by ICE in the US and the war he started with Iran. Do you support or oppose President Trump being impeached?”

Overall, 52% of all voters said they support impeachment, including 84% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and even 14% of Republicans. Just 40% opposed, including 8% of Democrats, 34% of Independents, and 81% of Republicans.

(Image by Free Speech for People/Lake Research Partners)

“The result is quite striking,” David Mermin of Lake Research Partners said in a call with reporters. “It’s a clear majority. It’s a solid majority. And it reaches across all demographics and across partisan lines as well.”

The 800 respondents represented a variety of perspectives in terms of age, gender, racial identity, education, region, and partisanship. The margin of error is +/-3.5%.

Putting the finding in a historical context, Mermin noted that there were majorities in favor of impeachment in the mid-1970s, when then-President Richard Nixon was approaching impeachment and then resigned, well into his second term. Nearly a quarter-century later, during the proceeding that led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, “most of that period, we did not see majorities in favor of impeaching him, even during that process,” the pollster explained.

“For President Trump, in his first term, there were two impeachment proceedings against him, and in the first one, near the end of 2019… some of the polls disagreed, but there were some polls showing him slightly about 50% approval of impeachment,” he continued. “And then the second proceeding that happened after the January 6th coup attempt, there was a clear majority… during those last few weeks of his term prior to his when he left office in January of 2021.”

As with Clinton, the House of Representatives impeached Trump, but the Senate declined to convict him. Now, both chambers of Congress are narrowly controlled by Republicans who have demonstrated an unwillingness to stand up to the president—including by refusing to advance war powers resolutions challenging his various unauthorized military actions abroad.

Mermin said that “this appears to be the earliest in a presidential term that you’ve seen a majority of Americans in favor of impeachment.”

FSFP co-founder and president John Bonifaz highlighted that the polling comes when there is not even an impeachment proceeding in the House.

Since Trump’s return to office last year, Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas) have introduced articles of impeachment against him, though those efforts have not gone anywhere. However, in the lead-up to the November midterm elections, even Trump has acknowledged that Democrats winning congressional races could lead to him being impeached a third time.

“You gotta win the midterms, ‘cause if we don’t win the midterms… they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told Republicans in January. “I’ll get impeached.”

The new survey shows even higher figures for disapproval of Trump’s job performance: 57% of all voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing, including 92% of Democrats, 56% of Independents, and 16% of Republicans.

Bonifaz said that “this poll confirms what we are seeing across the country: The American people understand that Donald Trump poses a direct threat to our Constitution and to the rule of law and must be impeached and removed from public office.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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