One path that the coup plotters appear to have been contemplating was using the 25th amendment to remove PDJT from office after the firing of James Comey. The 25th amendment was originally passed to provide a framework for replacing, either temporarily or permanently, a President who became incapacitated and was unable to discharge his duties as President. President Wilson’s stroke in 1919 is one example of the situations that might occur. Another example was President Reagan on the operating table after being shot and also for shortly thereafter. There had been discussions of this nature after President Kennedy’s assassination. These discussions led to the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1965.
Section 4 of the Amendment has the pertinent language.
The problem for the plotters is that no infirmity existed with PDJT. There is no rational person who would believe that PDJT is physically or mentally incapacitated. The plotters were contemplating turning the amendment into a political weapon to effect PDJT’s removal from office. It was never intended for such a purpose. Clearly they were still trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election. This was an election they thought PDJT would never win since they were actively working to undermine his candidacy.
In this case they were “counting noses” among department heads to see who might be with them. The fact that they even thought for one moment at the beginning of this process (and apparently it was more than one moment) that they could get the VP, a majority of the Cabinet heads and two-thirds of each branch of Congress to agree to this shows just how far disconnected from reality they were. Apparently their rage and hatred towards the President truly blinded them.
Blinded or not, their actions betrayed the very offices that they held. In his 60 Minutes interview McCabe did admit that he and others were looking to oust PDJT by concocting a criminal case against him. Of course, the plot to take PDJT down did not begin with the firing of Comey. As The Hill has previously noted: “It is no longer in dispute that they held animus for Donald Trump, who was a subject of their Russia probe, or that they openly discussed using the powers of their office to “stop” Trump from becoming president.”
This was nothing short of attempting to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. In other words, they were planning a coup. The fact that they were thinking this way shows just how corrupted these people were. They, and only they, thought they knew what was best for America.
This harkens back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover. Not since old J. Edgar was blackmailing politicians, including presidents, has the agency been so damaged by the misconduct of its most senior officials. At least Hoover was only blackmailing them. The plotters were hoping to stop a presidential candidate and, when that failed, to overturn the results of an election.
Pocahontas has jumped in to support the plotters. In betraying just how disconnected from reality she is, she stated that there were “a whole lot of people who do see him every day, who evidently were talking about invoking the 25th amendment.” A question for Pocahontas is “the plotters and who else?”
It seems that someone who appears to have falsified her background to get into school and to gain fame, jobs and money does not understand the basic framework of the Constitution and its Amendments. Would this plus her support for the coup plotters be evidence of a mental infirmity that should lead to invoking the 25th amendment if she were ever elected to the Presidency?