Federalist Society co-founder says Trump's tweet about delaying election is grounds for impeachment

He voted for President Trump in 2016 and opposed his impeachment earlier this year, but Steven Calabresi, co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society, believes Trump took things too far by tweeting about delaying November's election.

In an op-ed published Thursday afternoon by The New York Times, Calabresi, a professor at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law, wrote that he was "appalled" by Trump's tweet. "Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats' assertion that President Trump is a fascist," he added. "But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president's immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate."

Through wars, the Great Depression, and general upheaval, the United States has never canceled or postponed a presidential election, Calabresi said, and Trump's fears over increased mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic is no reason to consider doing so this year. Each state, he wrote, will decide "whether to allow universal mail-in voting and Article II of the Constitution explicitly gives the states total power over the selection of presidential electors."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Now is the time for every Republican in Congress to stand up to Trump and let him know he "cannot postpone the federal election," Calabresi said. "Doing so would be illegal, unconstitutional, and without precedent in American history. Anyone who says otherwise should never be elected to Congress again." Read the entire op-ed at The New York Times.