CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is part of a 21-state coalition asking the U.S. Senate to reject two articles of impeachment against President Trump.
The coalition, in a 14-page letter sent Jan. 22, say articles adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives are legally flawed and factually insufficient, inherently destructive to the separation of powers and are contrary to the framers’ vision of impeachment powers.
“This partisan political effort undermines the democratic process, both now and in the future,” Morrisey said in the writing. “The House unilaterally re-writes the Constitution, without the people’s consent to amend it. It weaponizes a process that should only be initiated in exceedingly rare circumstances and never for partisan purposes.
“This purely partisan attack on President Trump will damage democracy in America in the worst possible way: it will forever weaken the separation of powers – the very edifice upon which our democracy stands,” he continued in writing.
Morrisey is separately sending copies of the coalition’s letter to West Virginia's U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican.
The coalition’s letter explains why the group believes the the articles fail legally and explains why it thinks the Senate must reject the unconstitutional theories of “corrupt motives” and “unilateral control” that provide a foundation for the articles.
The letter also examines the historical meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and claims the House caused irreparable harm to the nation through its month-long delay in delivering the articles.
The coalition also claims its letter carries out the special duty of state attorneys general to defend the integrity of votes cast by their citizens and electors in the 2016 presidential election.
West Virginia joined the letter – led by South Carolina, Louisiana and Utah – with attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.