Donald Trump ‘Presidency’ Must Be ‘Annulled,’ Impeachment Is Not Enough, Says Top Economist Robert Reich

One of the United States’ leading econominsts, who also served in the adinsitrations of three U.S. presidents including a term as Secretary of Labor, called on Saturday for Donald Trump to be removed from office — and for his entire presidency to be declare null and void, as if it never happened.

“Impeachment isn’t enough,” wrote Robert Reich, in an article published in Eurasia Review. “It should be annulled.”

According to Reich, if Russia investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller presents “overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to rig the 2016 election,” then Trump’s 2016 election could be declared unconstitutional — and all of Trump’s official actions, including his court appointments, executive orders, and any legislation he has signed would then be declared unconstitutional as well, Reich wrote in a shorter version of his article that he posted to his Facebook page. Even Vice President Mike Pence would be removed from office under an “annulment” of the Trump election win and subsequent term in the White House.

“Impeachment would not remedy Trump’s unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president, White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency,” Reich wrote.

In Reich’s piece, also posted to his widely-read blog, the author of the upcoming book, The Common Good, argues that even though the U.S. Constitution does not contain any provision for the annulment of an election victory and entire presidency along with it, “read as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy,” if an election victory is found to be unconstitutional.

But following the admission in open court on Tuesday by Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen that Trump conspired with him to make “hush money” payments to two women who said they had adulterous sexual relations with Trump, and that, as Inquisitr reported, Cohen said that he and Trump made the payments “for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” Reich is not the only prominent political commentator calling the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency into question.

“Trump is an illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud,” conservative commentator Max Boot wrote earlier this week in the Washington Post.

“There is growing evidence that the president is, to use the word favored by Richard Nixon, ‘a crook.’ Even buying the silence of his reputed playmates could by itself have been enough to swing an exceedingly close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states,” Boot wrote. “Trump certainly would not have authorized the payments unless he thought it was politically imperative to do so.”