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ladyvader23 · 4 years

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Darth Vader vs the Stripping Phase

For @masterjinzu who asked to see Vader handle Luke and Leia in their “stripping phase”

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Never, in his entire life, had Darth Vader regretted killing someone as much as he now regretted killing the twins sixth nanny.

There were two very important reasons for this, reasons he didn’t think about until the day after he’d offed her.

First, the following morning when he told the twins that whats-her-name (he’d already forgotten it) wouldn’t be coming back, they’d cried for a good two hours, then intermittently throughout the day. There was nothing--nothing--he hated more than his children crying because of something he’d done.

At least that’s what he thought, until he discovered the second reason to regret killing the nanny.

Apparently, Luke and Leia, his sweet, innocent, just barely turned two year olds, had hit their ‘stripping’ phase.

He hadn’t even known such a thing existed. He didn’t know how long this had been a problem, either. Had it been going on for a while and the nanny just took care of it without saying anything? Or had the twins, in an act of revenge for murdering their nanny, decided to start streaking through the condo naked as the day they’d been born?

He’d discovered the problem one morning after sitting down to work from his home office. With no nanny to watch them, he needed to be near enough to ensure his little ones were safe.

Much to the Emperor’s annoyance.

He’d just posted an ad for another nanny on the holonet when Leia came running in. He looked up to admonish her for interrupting and order her to play somewhere else--but he stopped cold when he realized that the clothes he’d put on her that morning were now mysteriously missing.

“Leia, where are your clothes?” he demanded, going to pick her up. She squealed and evaded his grasp, darting back out into the hallway...where he watched in horror as his equally naked son rushed after her.

He simply stared at the doorway, aghast.

Maybe he hadn’t clothed them properly? But...no, he was sure he had…

He quickly rushed to grab the kids and, while they kicked and squirmed in his arms, he forced them back into their clothes.

But the alarming behavior didn’t stop.

Three more times that same day. Four more the next. Twice the day after that.

Finally, he called their doctor. Surely there was something wrong. There had to be. He was losing his patience, and not a single nanny application had been submitted and he was about to go insane…

“How may I help you, Lord Vader?” Doctor Rawley picked up mercifully quickly.

He was struggling to force Leia back into the black dress he’d picked out for her. He didn’t fail to notice Luke was in the corner already trying to break free of his tunic. “Can you explain why, for Force sake, my children insist on tearing their clothes off every time I have my back turned?!...Leia, stop it right now, young lady!”

She’d thrown herself dramatically on her back and had started trying to kick him. “NO!” She shrieked, glaring at him.

If they were not his children…

Doctor Rawley hesitated, as he always seemed to do before telling the Dark Lord something he didn’t wish to hear. “It’s not uncommon for toddlers, once they figure out how to undress, to do it repeatedly.”

His hands stilled, and he looked at the comm link in horror. “This...is...normal?!”

Admittedly, he said that a lot to Doctor Rawley.

“Yes. It could be for a variety of reasons, but it’s usually a fascination with a new skill.”

Why. Why hadn’t he done his research before deciding to have children?! He was a Sith Lord. Count Dooku never had to deal with this. Neither had Maul, he was certain.

Why? Why him?

“What other reasons doctor?”

“Well, they may like the attention they’re getting when you react…”

“Are you saying I don’t give them enough attention?!”

“N-no, of course not, Lord Vader. I’m simply…”

This time Leia kicked his face--or the helmet--and with a snarl he released her completely. She immediately jumped up and bolted out, a now shirtless Luke hot on her heels.

“What. Other. Reasons?!” He growled at the comm link. The doctor was lucky that he wasn’t on holovid, or he’d be dead for witnessing that.

“...Well, they might not like their clothes…”

He was so close to demanding what was wrong with the clothes provided to them, but he was certain the doctor had a logical explanation and he didn’t want to hear it. It was just more proof of how ill prepared he was for fatherhood.

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Instead of putting them in the same clothes they were wearing, try putting them into a different outfit instead. And if the outfit closes from the back, that’s even better.” The doctor hesitated again, and Vader braced himself. “Or...let them have their naked time.”

Oh, the doctor was very lucky he was not nearby. “That is a completely unacceptable answer…”

“I understand, Lord Vader. I am merely suggesting what has worked on other toddlers with the same, ah, tendencies.”

Vader gritted his teeth. “That will be all.” He snapped, and with a wave of his hand the call disconnected. Seconds later, he had his admiral on the line.

When he answered, he didn’t even bother with greetings. Instead, he rushed straight to the issue at hand. “Admiral, you will use my funds and you will immediately go to the nearest tailor selling toddler clothes and you will buy every single item in the sizes that I will transmit to you. Spare no expense. I want all of it.”

“...Y-yes, Lord Vader.”

He didn’t care if it made him sound like he was spoiling his children. There was no way he would allow them to run free in their name day suits. No way.

Admittedly, his reputation had taken a hit when he’d found his children and decided to keep them. It was normally not anything he couldn’t make up for in battle or in dealing with his subordinates. But if his children were to be found running around without their clothes on?

He didn’t think he’d recover from that.

And unfortunately, the Force seemed to want to test that theory out.

It was the following day, early in the morning. He’d attempted to dress Luke in a soft, white tunic and black pants, with Leia in an equally soft blue tunic and black pants. So far, neither of them seemed inclined to start stripping--at least not whenever he checked in on them.

So, he went back to his work. Namely, checking the pitiful amount of applicants for the nanny position. Apparently, his reputation for killing nannies had spread, and there were very few who wished to work for him. Yet another reason he regretted killing so many, he decided as he glared at the screen.

It was as he was contemplating his rotten luck that he felt it--the presence of his master.

Coming straight for his front door.

He looked up, and though his skin was already pale beneath the suit, he was sure his face whitened further.

He didn’t even need to ask why the Emperor had bothered to visit him at his home. It was so rare these days for him to leave the palace or the senate. Never, in the last few years, had he bothered dropping by either his home on Coruscant or on Mustafar.

But now? Now he wanted to see what it was that was preventing Vader from leaving the planet to carry out his duties across the galaxy.

Or, rather, he was coming to confirm why.

Hurriedly, he stood, making sure his mental shields were strengthened as he stormed for the front door. The Emperor would not knock. What Vader owned, he owned...at least in his eyes. So, quickly, Vader dropped by the twin’s bedroom and checked in on them.

Mercifully, they were still clothed and playing with the toy ships and stormtroopers he’d given them for their birthday.

“Do not remove your clothes.” He warned, pointing a finger at them.

Both of them blinked at him, and he sent the warning through their Force bond. He didn’t know what good it would do. They were still so young, and who knew how much they understood? He couldn’t exactly express to them why it was imperative that they keep their clothes on while the Emperor of the galaxy was visiting.

He just had to hope they’d understand at least until he could bore the Emperor enough to get him to leave.

As he predicted, the front door hissed open just as he reached it. In stepped the hooded, hunched figure of the Emperor. “Ah. Lord Vader. Just who I wanted to see.”

Obviously. Vader wanted to say, but instead he knelt in front of the man. “I sensed your arrival, Master. How may I serve you?”

Please tell me. Now. So you can leave. Is what he wanted to say, but he kept that carefully shielded from him.

But the Emperor seemed to know he was in a hurry anyway, because he took his time taking in the condo at his leisure. “You keep your home clean, considering that you have two little ones running around. Probably with filthy fingers.”

“They are well behaved.” The answer was automatic, even if it was currently a lie.

“If they are so well behaved, then why have you not found yourself a new nanny? I need you out enforcing my will upon the galaxy, not babysitting.”

Though on the surface the Emperor sounded like an old friend asking him about his troubles, he could detect the disdain hiding beneath his grandfatherly demeanor.

“It would seem it is less about my children’s behavior and more about my reputation for,” he paused, deciding how to word it, “how I choose to reward failure.”

The Emperor scoffed, and finally made a gesture with his hand, allowing Vader to rise. “I will see if I can speed the process up.”

He didn’t love the idea of the Emperor having anything to do with his children, but he was smart enough not to protest. He’d have to find some way to undermine the order.

“I trust your work has…” The Emperor began, but another noise behind him had Vader tuning his master out.

The sound of bare feet pitter pattering across the room…

Please don’t be naked, please don’t be naked, please don’t be naked…

He didn’t dare turn around, even as the Emperor broke off, his golden eyes narrowing at wherever his children had disappeared to.

There was silence, only broken by the sound of his respirator.

“Lord Vader.”

“Yes, Master?”

Oh Force. Force. This couldn’t be happening.

“Did I just...see...two children running through your home...naked?”

It was happening.

He stood there, absolutely still, willing to be back on Mustafar, swallowed up by the lava so he wouldn’t have to face what was currently happening, completely out of his control.

He didn’t know what to say. The Emperor, a master of the Sith, was far less likely to be understanding about children than he ever was.

So he said the first thing that came to mind.

“No.”

The Emperor raised a wrinkled, deformed brow. “Oh?” To Vader’s horror, he realized that his Master felt his misery and was currently reveling in it. “So your children aren’t currently streaking through your home?”

There went his reputation.

“No.”

“I see.” Oh yes, there was definitely dark pleasure in his master’s voice. “Well. It would seem that Luke and Leia need a firm, guiding hand in their lives at the moment. Maybe you should take a few more days to work from home.”

Translation: This is what you get for taking them in. Suffer the tarnishing of your reputation. You brought this on yourself.

“That is most wise, my Master.” He forced out.

“Good.” The Emperor turned, ready to leave, but before he did, he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, and Lord Vader?”

Please just leave. “Yes, my Master?”

A sinister smile revealed rotting teeth. “Do get your children under control. Before I am forced to step in myself.”

And as Vader watched the man leave, only to listen to his children run through the house still naked...something in him broke.

His reputation was gone. Shredded. All that was left was him in his stupid life support suit and his two naked children running around the house.

“Who dat?” Luke asked from behind him.

Vader looked up at the ceiling, cursing the Force for it’s decision to continue to torture him. “The Emperor.” Then, he looked down at his son.

Still naked.

Luke frowned. “Daddy mad?”

Mad? He was beyond that. Well beyond it.

And yet...he didn’t have the energy.

“I’m going to meditate.” He announced. He didn’t know if Luke understood it. Probably not. “Be nice to your sister.”

As he walked away, a tiny voice in the back of his head whispered, Doctor Rawley was right. This once, allow them to have their naked time.

He’d deal with their insubordination later. For now, he would retreat, gather his strength…

And ponder on how he’d gone from a feared apprentice of the Sith to an exhausted father with unclothed twins in less than a week.

#dad vader series #dad vader #luke and leia #toddler luke #toddler leia #vader has zero preparation for this #for a request #@masterjinzu #fanfic #star wars #darth vader

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redshift-13 · 5 years

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Mueller found that Russia was actively interested in electing Trump president, as early as his announcement, if not earlier. Operations began just as Trump Campaign took off. Obvious the two are parallel organizations that occasionally worked together, had the same goals. 2/

Multiple members of the Trump Campaign were approached by Russia. They were receptive sometimes, other times they just proceeded with knowledge that Russia was interfering on their behalf. They were not ignorant of the fact that Russia was interfering, not at all. 3/

Trump and Cohen continued work on Trump Tower Moscow deal while actively misleading the public as to whether he had business in Russia. He knowingly lied to the American public while Cohen worked with people who seemingly thought the hotel and the election were intertwined. 4/

Perhaps the most critical piece of information is that the Trump Campaign knew that the DNC emails were going to be released before they were. They had an active, multi-pronged plan in place to capitalize off the communications stolen by the Russian government. 5/

Mueller found that Donald Trump, himself, knew that Wikileaks had the DNC emails before they were released and was in contact with campaign members and people outside of campaign and planned how to capitalize off their release. 6/

Trump's call for Russia to find Clinton's emails was fruitful. Within hours they followed his call and worked to find them. Despite saying it was just a TV stunt, he repeated the call off-camera. It was collusion in real time and in the light of public. No other way to say it 7/

As for the Trump Tower meeting, Mueller believed that Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner committed crimes, but worried that courts would lose the thread on legal definition of the crime and wasn't sure what the $ value of Clinton dirt was and if it was enough. 8/

Paul Manafort was especially lousy in the collusion front. He obviously had financial incentive and discussed battleground states with Russian individual, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, leading to suspicion that there were targeted efforts or interference. 9/

Manafort discussing battleground states with Russia is really, really unsettling. There's a ton of new ground here to cover and who knows what it led to and what can be proven. You could make an argument that this is possible what turned the election. 10/

In terms of obstruction, it is quite obvious that Mueller was communicating that there were SEVERAL instances of obstruction, SEVERAL instances of attempted obstruction, and that Congress should address the issue. 11/

Trump actively wanted Mueller out of the investigation, said as much repeatedly. He wanted to fire him and worried that his appointment would be "the end" of his presidency. 12/

Trump repeatedly told his subordinates to obstruct justice. He had them contact the principals, including Comey and Flynn, in order to take their temperature and communicate what Trump thought. It was a giant game of illegal telephone. 13/

Trump repeatedly would call Comey, take his temperature, and try and get him to take it easy on Flynn. He had Reince Priebus contact Flynn, take his temperature, seemingly try and work him in order to keep his loyalty. 14/

Multiple people in Trump's orbit declined to perform actions they thought were obstruction, including Chris Christie, who counseled Trump on how to not obstruct justice and watched him do it anyway. 15/

After it was revealed that Mike Flynn had illicit contact with Russia, Trump shook his hand and told him he'd be taken care of. It seems as if the exchange was a promise that Trump would help him with the fallout.16/

Trump continually and actively addressed those in his orbit to either lie or cover up what they'd done wrong. He was constantly worried people would roll on him and constantly sought to get their stories straight in case of investigation. 17/

In a bizarre situation, Trump said out loud that he wanted an Attorney General who would protect him. He said he believed the AG position wasn't independent. He wanted an individual who would "protect him" and wouldn't mind keeping him illegal(ly) informed of investigations 18/

Trump knew that false testimony had been provided, particularly in Cohen's case. He was aware of a crime being committed and allowed it. 19/

Trump wanted to obstruct even more than he did, but the only thing keeping him from doing so was that those around him didn't want to be accessories to a crime. Don McGahn said he wanted him to do "crazy shit" and refused. 20/

Now, the big, big, big takeaways. Mueller wrote this report in such a way as to send a message that the investigation was not the end all be all of this matter. It's obvious he was keenly aware that there was still much work to do in regards to both collusion and obstruction 21/

IN COLLUSION, MUELLER REPEATEDLY MENTIONS THAT HE WAS HINDERED BY THE TRUMP TEAM EITHER LYING OR ELSE NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION. HE SAID THEY DESTROYED EVIDENCE AND STONEWALLED HIM. THAT'S WHY HE COULDN'T ESTABLISH THE CHARGE IN TOTALITY. 22/

IN TERMS OF OBSTRUCTION, MUELLER WAS CLEARLY PUTTING THE MATTER IN THE HANDS OF CONGRESS. THIS IS A FULL AND EXPLICIT LAYOUT OF IMPEACHABLE, HIGH CRIMES. HE WAS NOT INTENDING BARR TO STEAMROLL OVER THIS THING. NOT AT ALL.23/

What's more, Barr not only lied, it appears he actively obstructed justice by misrepresenting the report in his summary. This wasn't just a partisan structuring, it was an attempt to try and save Donald Trump and the administration. 24/

What William Barr did here is beyond disgusting and beyond shameful. He should be removed from office and there should be ramifications. This is, to put it bluntly, a massive and indefensible act of cover-up a systematic and overwhelming crime. 25/

The Trump Campaign and the Trump Organization are criminal enterprises. The only difference between them and the infamous "mob" is that their crimes are explicitly white collar and international in nature. They acted with an intention to commit crimes, over and over. 26/

It's impossible to read this report and not notice how careful they were to skirt the line of collusion and obstruction. They were obviously aware of what they were doing and that this is even a matter of discussion is an indictment of our political and judicial system. 27/

This last thing, I want to preface by saying I don't say this lightly. It makes me unbelievably sad and depressed that this has happened. But we have a criminal president and he must be removed. It has to happen. 28/

From the moment Donald Trump announced his campaign he engaged in one unethical and criminal act after another. It's in black and white that he and the people around him are happy traitors who put their wealth and power above the country's well being. 29/

Trump and his cronies made a decision to put power and wealth above the country. They actively sought help in undermining our democratic process. They didn't report constant Russian contacts or offers to help. They're traitors. That's it. They're traitors. 30/

We can sit here and parse out legal definitions, but I don't know how you get to anything else. We can talk about the word collusion or obstruction, but they actively sought help from a foreign adversary to interfere in the election of the Presidency of the United States. 31/

The House of Representatives must vote to impeach Donald Trump. I don't care if it won't carry out in the Senate. It's what impeachment exists to do. It's their constitutional obligation to impeach him for high crimes. 32/

Republicans have a duty to remove Donald Trump from office. They can hide behind partisanship all they want, but it's right here in the open that he's betrayed the company and broken the laws. They need to realize that duty is higher than party. And it needs to happen now.33/

We are in a crisis. We have to recognize that. Right now, we have a criminally compromised president. If he's allowed to get through this unscathed, we're never, ever going back. This is a four-alarm fire and we have to treat it as such. Right. Now. 34/

There's no defending this. There's no spinning it. There's no rebuttal that can put this away. This is a massive and unbelievable crime on a scale before unseen. We need to get rid of the Trump Presidency before it destroys us, before it rots us from the inside out. 35/

I take literally no pleasure from this. I'm extremely, extremely disheartened that a crime like this could take place on a scale this large. I really, really wish this would've been a hoax or a witch hunt, but it's massive in scope and consequence. Trump has to go. 36/36

#trump is a criminal #mueller report #us politics

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Unfit for Office

Donald Trump’s narcissism makes it impossible for him to carry out the duties of the presidency in the way the Constitution requires.

George T. Conway III | Published October 3, 2019 | The Atlantic | Posted October 3, 2019 |

Part 2 of 2

Indeed, Trump’s view of his presidential powers can only be described as profoundly narcissistic, and his narcissism has compelled him to disregard the Framers’ vision of his constitutional duties in every respect. Bad faith? Trump has repeatedly used executive powers, threatened to use executive powers, or expressed the view that executive powers should be used to advance his personal interests and punish his political opponents. Thus, for example, he has placed restrictions on disaster aid to Puerto Rico in apparent response to criticism of him and his administration; directed the Pentagon to reconsider whether to award a $10 billion contract to Amazon because its CEO owns The Washington Post, whose coverage he doesn’t like; threatened to take “regulatory and legislative” action against Facebook, Google, and Twitter, because of their supposed “terrible bias” against him; tried to get White House staff to tell the Justice Department to try to block the merger between AT&T and Time Warner in order to punish CNN for its coverage; attacked his first attorney general for allowing the indictment of two Republican congressmen who had supported him; and ordered the revocation of the security clearance of a former CIA director who had criticized him.

And now, in just the past two weeks, we’ve seen the pièce de résistance of bad faith, the one that’s brought Trump to the verge of impeachment: Trump’s efforts to use his presidential authority to strong-arm a foreign nation, Ukraine, into digging up or concocting evidence in support of a preposterous conspiracy theory about one of his principal challengers for the presidency, former Vice President Joe Biden. As one political historian has put it, Trump’s use of his Article II authority to pursue vendettas is “both a sign of deep insecurity … and also just a litany of abuse of power,” and something no president has done “as consistently or as viciously as Trump has.”

Profit? Self-dealing? Look at the way Trump is using the presidency to advertise his real-estate holdings—most notably and recently, his apparent determination to hold the next G7 summit at the Trump Doral resort in Florida. Ultra vires? Trump has made the outrageous claim that the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president.” Consistent with that view, he has repeatedly suggested that, by executive order, he can overturn the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship—an utterly lawless assertion. His core constitutional obligations flow from Article II’s command that he faithfully execute the laws, yet he has told subordinates not to worry about violating the laws. According to one former senior administration official quoted in The New York Times, Trump’s “constant instinct all the time was: Just do it, and if we get sued, we get sued … Almost as if the first step is a lawsuit. I guess he thinks that because that’s how business worked for him in the private sector. But federal law is different, and there really isn’t a settling step when you break federal law.” Federal law is also different, one might add, because he’s in charge of upholding it.

Facing the approach of the 2020 election with not a single new mile of his border wall having been built, Trump, as reported in The Washington Post, has urged his aides to violate all manner of laws to expedite construction—environmental laws, contracting laws, constitutional limitations on the taking of private property—and “has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing” they commit along the way.

A duty of diligence and carefulness? Trump is purely impulsive, and incapable of planning or serious forethought, and his compulsion for lying has enervated any capacity for thoughtful analysis he may have ever had. He apparently won’t read anything; he himself has said, in regard to briefings, that he prefers to read “as little as possible”—despite occupying what David A. Graham calls “one of the most demanding jobs in the world” precisely because its “holder is expected to consume, digest, and absorb prodigious amounts of information via reading.”

And then there’s the question of honesty. Fiduciaries must be honest. The Framers understood, based upon the law of public officeholding in their time, that “faithful execution” of the laws requires “the absence of bad faith through honesty.” In the private realm, fiduciaries owe a duty of candor, of truth-telling; the standard of behavior was once memorably described by the renowned jurist Benjamin Cardozo as “not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive.” Today, in my own practice area of corporate litigation, corporate officers and directors, as fiduciaries, owe duties that include a duty to disclose material information truthfully and completely. Trump, whose lawyers wouldn’t dare allow him to speak to the special counsel lest he make a prosecutable false statement, couldn’t pass this standard to save his life.

Trump’s incapacity affects all manner of subjects addressed by the presidency, but can be seen most acutely in foreign affairs and national security. Presidential narcissism and personal ego have frequently displaced the national interest. Today, the most obvious—and stunning—example is his conduct toward Ukraine: While trying to pressure the Ukrainian president to restart an investigation against Biden, Trump ordered the withholding of vital military aid to that country, thus weakening its ability to withstand Russian aggression and undermining the interests of the United States. But the list goes on: Last summer, in a narcissistic effort at self-aggrandizement, Trump told the Pakistani prime minister about a conversation he had with the Indian prime minister—leading India to deny, indignantly, that any such conversation had ever taken place. Trump reportedly even lied about trade talks with China—announcing that phone calls had occurred that never occurred and that the Chinese denied took place—in an apparent attempt to pump up the stock market and take credit for it.

Trump’s penchant for vendettas also doesn’t stop at the water’s edge—American interests be damned. When confidential cables sent by the United Kingdom’s ambassador to his government were leaked, and were revealed to contain uncomplimentary (but obvious) observations about Trump’s ineptitude and emotional insecurity, and the dysfunction of his administration, Trump went on an extended Twitter tirade against the ambassador, calling him “wacky” and “a very stupid guy,” “a pompous fool,” and ultimately declared: “We will no longer deal with him.” When reports surfaced that Trump was interested in having the United States purchase Greenland from Denmark, and the Danish prime minister understandably described talk about such a purchase as “an absurd discussion” in light of Greenland’s position on the matter, Trump canceled a visit to Denmark, and then attacked the prime minister, calling her comments “nasty”; for good measure, he also attacked some of America’s NATO allies.

At the same time, Trump happily succumbs to flattery from America’s enemies; he received “beautiful … great letters” from North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, and therefore “fell in love” with him, and rewards him with kind words and meetings even as North Korea continues to develop new nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, Trump once said on television: “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him.”

Putin, of course, did more than say great things about Trump, which brings up what was, until the Ukraine scandal surfaced, the most significant way in which Trump’s extraordinary narcissism influenced his presidency—the Russia investigation. Trump made that investigation about himself, and in the course of doing so, committed what appear to be unmistakably criminal acts. At the outset, the Mueller investigation wasn’t about what Donald Trump had done during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. It was primarily an investigation about what the Russians had done to interfere with that election and to help the Trump campaign. At its core, it was a counterintelligence investigation—an effort to protect the country, to defend our democracy. An effort to find out exactly what a hostile foreign power had done to attack the United States, so that our nation could fight back, and so that it could take measures to ensure that such an attack never happened again.

Read more: What the Mueller report actually said

But Trump didn’t see it that way. The Mueller report repeatedly describes Trump’s self-obsession, and his disregard for the national interest. Trump viewed “the intelligence community assessment of Russian interference as a threat to the legitimacy of his electoral victory.” He is said to have “viewed the Russia investigation as an attack on the legitimacy of his win.” He thought it would “tak[e] away from what he had accomplished.” The Washington Post has now reported, moreover, that in the Oval Office in May 2017, Trump told the Russian foreign minister and ambassador that he was unconcerned with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

And so, contrary to his obligation to act in the nation’s interests rather than his own, and contrary to the criminal code, he repeatedly tried to obstruct the investigation—and therefore, ironically, put himself in the crosshairs of the investigation. Thanks to Trump’s narcissism, the special counsel was forced to devote an entire volume of his report—some 182 pages of single-spaced text—to Trump’s repeated and persistent efforts to derail the investigation. And persistent, Trump was. He tried to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the investigation, to violate ethics rules and unrecuse himself, so that he could get rid of the special counsel and limit the investigation to future election interference only. Trump tried to get his White House counsel to have the acting attorney general remove Mueller on a ridiculous pretext, prompting the counsel to threaten to resign. Trump tried to encourage witnesses to refuse to cooperate with the very government that Trump himself heads. As I’ve argued elsewhere, in his efforts to derail the Mueller investigation, Trump “did much more than this, but all of this is more than enough: He committed the crime of obstructing justice—multiple times.” Trump even obstructed justice about obstructing justice when he tried to get the White House counsel to write a false account of Trump’s efforts to remove Mueller.

All in all, Trump sought to impede and end a significant counterintelligence and criminal investigation—one of crucial importance to the nation—and did so for his own personal reasons. He did precisely the opposite of what his duties require. Indeed, he has shown utter contempt for his duties to the nation. How else could one describe the attitude Trump expressed when, sitting next to Vladimir Putin in late June, he was asked whether he would tell Putin not to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election? Trump smirked, wagged his finger playfully at Putin, and said, “Don’t meddle in the election.” Putin smirked too. The Russian president was in on the joke—the punch line being how Trump treats America’s interests versus his own.

What constitutional mechanisms exist for dealing with a president who cannot or does not comply with his duties, and how should they take the president’s mental and behavioral characteristics into account? One mechanism discussed with great frequency during the past three years, including within the Trump administration, is Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. That provision allows the vice president to become “Acting President” when the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” But it doesn’t define what such an inability entails; essentially, it lets the vice president and the Cabinet, the president himself, and ultimately two-thirds of both houses of Congress decide.

Certainly it would cover a coma. Had the amendment been in effect in 1919 through 1921, it presumably could have been used to deal with President Woodrow Wilson. A severe stroke had rendered Wilson paralyzed on the left side, but he could still speak, and he could still sign documents with his right hand. Nevertheless, although Wilson had “relatively well preserved intellectual function,” the stroke rendered him “subject to ‘disorders of emotion, impaired impulse control, and defective judgment.’”

Sound judgment, of course, is what a president’s job is all about. And as Jeffrey Rosen has explained, “nothing in the text or original understanding of the amendment” would prevent the vice president, the Cabinet, or Congress from deciding that Trump has disorders of emotion, impaired impulse control, defective judgment, or other behavioral or psychological issues that keep him from carrying out his constitutional duties the way they were meant to be carried out.

The problem is one of mechanics. Section 4, quite understandably, was designed to be extremely difficult to implement. The vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can determine that the president isn’t able to carry out his duties; if so, the vice president immediately becomes acting president. But if the president doesn’t agree—and you know what Trump’s view will be, no matter what—then a constitutional game of ping-pong starts: The president can certify that he is capable, and he can reassume his authority after a four-day waiting period, unless the vice president and the Cabinet, within that period, recertify that the president can’t function. (As a new book on Section 4 explains, this waiting period exists in part because “a deranged President could do a lot of damage if he could retake power immediately,” and, in particular, he “would also be able to fire the Cabinet, which would prevent it from contesting his declaration of ability.”) If that happens, the vice president continues as acting president, and the whole matter gets kicked to Congress, which must assemble within 48 hours and decide within 21 days: If two-thirds of both houses agree that the president can’t function, then the vice president continues as acting president; if not, the president gets his authority back.

No matter how psychologically incapable of meeting his constitutional obligations Trump may be, that route is virtually certain not to work in this case. Would a vice president and department heads who have shamelessly slaked Trump’s narcissistic thirst at Cabinet meetings by praising his supposed greatness, and who of course owe their jobs to Trump, dare incur his wrath by sparking a constitutional crisis on the basis of what they must surely know about his unprecedented faults? Doubtful, to say the least. They would know full well that, if their decision weren’t sustained by Congress, the first thing that Trump would do after reassuming power would be to fire every department head who sought to have him sidelined. (He can’t fire Vice President Mike Pence, of course.) Which brings up the ultimate question upon which successful invocation of Section 4 would turn: whether two-thirds of both houses of Congress would vote to remove Trump. That’s harder than impeachment, which requires only a simple majority of the House in order to bring charges of impeachment to a trial in the Senate (which in turn can convict on a two-thirds vote).

And so it turns out that impeachment is a more practical mechanism for addressing the fact that Trump’s narcissism and sociopathy render him unable to comply with the obligations of his office. It’s also an appropriate mechanism, because the constitutional magic words (other than Treason and Bribery) that form the basis of an impeachment charge—high Crimes and Misdemeanors, found in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution—mean something other than, and more than, offenses in the criminal-statute books. High Crimes and Misdemeanors is a legal term of art, one that historically referred to breaches of duties—fiduciary duties—by public officeholders. In other words, the question of what constitutes an impeachable offense for a president coincides precisely with whether the president can execute his office in the faithful manner that the Constitution requires.

The phrase high Crimes and Misdemeanors was dropped into the draft Constitution on September 8, 1787, during the waning days of the Constitutional Convention. The discussion before the Convention’s Committee of Eleven was extremely brief. The extant version of what became Article II, Section 4 provided for impeachment merely for treason and bribery. George Mason objected, and proposed adding “maladministration.” Elbridge Gerry seconded Mason’s proposal, but James Madison objected that it was too vague. Gouverneur Morris chimed in, arguing that having a presidential election “every four years will prevent maladministration.” Mason moved to add, according to Madison’s notes, “other high crimes & misdemeanors (against the State).” The motion passed, eight to three. And so, as a result of that brief exchange, Article II of the Constitution of the United States provides that “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

As Yoni Appelbaum has observed in this magazine, “constitutional lawyers have been arguing about what counts as a ‘high crime’ or ‘misdemeanor’ ever since.” One of the most compelling arguments about the meaning of those words is that the Framers, in Article II’s command that a president faithfully execute his office, imposed upon him fiduciary obligations. As the constitutional historian Robert Natelson explained in the Federalist Society Review, the “founding generation [understood] ‘high … Misdemeanors’ to mean ‘breach of fiduciary duty.’” Eighteenth-century lawyers instead used terms such as breach of trust—which describes the same thing. “Parliamentary articles of impeachment explicitly and repetitively described the accused conduct as a breach of trust,” Natelson argues, and 18th-century British legal commentators explained how impeachment for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was warranted for all sorts of noncriminal violations that were, in essence, fiduciary breaches.

Just as the Framers viewed the presidency as fiduciary, they understood the offenses that might disqualify the incumbent as breaches of that fiduciary duty. And that may well be why the discussion of Morris’s suggestion was so brief—the drafters knew what the words historically meant, because, as a House Judiciary Committee report noted in 1974, “at the time of the Constitutional Convention the phrase ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’ had been in use for over 400 years in impeachment proceedings in Parliament.” Certainly Alexander Hamilton knew by the time he penned “Federalist No. 65,” in which he explained that impeachment was for “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

What constitutes such an abuse or violation of trust is up to Congress to decide: First the House decides to bring impeachment charges, and then the Senate decides whether to convict on those charges. The process of impeachment by the House and removal by trial in the Senate is thus, in some ways, akin to indictment by a grand jury and trial by a petit jury. In other ways, it is quite different. As Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz explain in their recent book on impeachment, “the Constitution explicitly states that Congress may not end a presidency unless the president has committed an impeachable offense. But nowhere does the Constitution state or otherwise imply that Congress must remove a president whenever that standard is met … In other words, it allows Congress to exercise judgment.” As Tribe and Matz argue, that judgment presents a “heavy burden,” and demands that Congress be “context-sensitive,” and achieve “an understanding of all relevant facts.” A president might breach his trust to the nation once in some small, inconsequential way and never repeat the misbehavior, and Congress could reasonably decide that the game is not worth the candle.

So the congressional judgment in the impeachment process necessarily includes the number and seriousness of offenses, and even extends well beyond those calculations. Congress must also, in particular, weigh the chances of recidivism; that possibility is precisely why the Constitution provides for removal as the principal sanction upon conviction on impeachment charges. As Charles Black Jr. explained in his classic 1974 book on impeachment, “We remove him principally because we fear he will do it again.” Or as George Mason put it during the Constitutional Convention, “Shall the man who has practised corruption … be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt?”

In short, now that the House of Representatives has embarked on an impeachment inquiry, one of the most important judgments it must make is whether any identified breaches of duty are likely to be repeated. And if a Senate trial comes to pass, that issue would become central as well to the decision to remove the president from office. That’s when Trump’s behavioral and psychological characteristics should—must—come into play. From the evidence, it appears that he simply can’t stop himself from putting his own interests above the nation’s. Any serious impeachment proceedings should consider not only the evidence and the substance of all impeachable offenses, but also the psychological factors that may be relevant to the motivations underlying those offenses. Congress should make extensive use of experts—psychologists and psychiatrists. Is Trump so narcissistic that he can’t help but use his office for his own personal ends? Is he so sociopathic that he can’t be trusted to follow, let alone faithfully execute, the law?

Congress should consider all this because that’s what the question of impeachment demands. But there’s another reason as well. The people have a right to know, and a need to see. Many people have watched all of Trump’s behavior, and they’ve drawn the obvious conclusion. They know something’s wrong, just as football fans knew that the downed quarterback had shattered his leg. Others have changed the channel, or looked away, or chosen to deny what they’ve seen. But if Congress does its job and presents the evidence, those who are in denial won’t be able to ignore the problem any longer. Not only because of the evidence itself, but because Donald Trump will respond in pathological ways—and in doing so, he’ll prove the points against him in ways almost no one will be able to ignore.

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