I urge you to immediately begin an investigation into the impeachment of Donald Trump.

According to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, "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." Since entering politics, Trump has committed five acts that qualify as high crimes.

First: Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution reads: "...no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." According to the Associated Press, this forbids Trump from receiving money from foreign diplomats when they stay at his hotels, or accepting payment from foreign governments when they lease office space in his buildings. Trump's real estate holdings are a key part of his income, and his decision to run his international businesses and act as President at the same time has created an unprecedented conflict of interest. Even if Trump divests from his businesses and places his assets in a blind trust -- which he has refused to do -- he has already broken the law by receiving foreign Emoluments. Given the immense scale of Trump's violations, they certainly qualify as a high crime. Every moment that Trump is President, he must choose between betraying the Constitution or undermining his family's income.

Second: The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Likewise, the Fourteenth Amendment reads: "...Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." On January 27, Trump issued an executive order banning all Muslims from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States. The order also permanently banned Syrian refugees from settling in the United States. (Ironically, Trump's order did not ban the entry of anyone whose countrymen had committed terrorist acts in the United States, presumably because Trump does business in those countries.) The order went on to favor immigrants of one religion over immigrants of another religion. This violated the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. The order went into effect immediately, and hundreds of innocent travelers were unexpectedly and unconstitutionally detained at airports because of their religion or nationality. This violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. According to the Huffington Post, customs officials initially refused to obey a court order to allow the detainees access to a lawyer. According to Business Insider, the people detained illegally for twenty to forty hours included a five-year-old child and a couple in their eighties. The child, an American citizen, was considered a "security risk" and handcuffed.

Third: Trump removed the National Intelligence Director and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the National Security Council and replaced them with Stephen Bannon, his chief political strategist. According to Slate Magazine, this is illegal. "According to Title 50 of the U.S. Code, Section 3021, which established the National Security Council, it 'shall be composed of' the president; the vice president; the secretaries of state, defense, and energy; and 'the secretaries and undersecretaries of other executive departments and of the military departments, when appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate...'" Bannon is neither a secretary nor an undersecretary, and has not been confirmed by the Senate. Trump broke the law by giving a political operative a seat on a council meant to be above partisan politics.

Fourth: Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution reads: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Trump may have committed treason by conspiring with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to help him win the Presidency. It is established fact that Putin used cyber-attacks and propaganda warfare to influence the 2016 election.

• When running for President, Trump, on live television, encouraged Russia to break American laws. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing... I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." This was illegal -- a violation of the Logan Act. Moreover, Trump asked hackers beyond American jurisdiction to commit crimes on our soil. As those hackers were working (openly or secretly) for the Russian government, there is no way for American courts to bring them to justice. If Trump's contact with Russia went beyond those words in his press conference, he certainly gave our "enemies... aid and comfort."
• According to Mother Jones and Esquire, NSA Director Michael Rogers concluded that Russian hackers broke into the email accounts of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's allies and published their private correspondence on the WikiLeaks web site in a deliberate attempt to embarrass and discredit Clinton. According to USA Today, sixteen other American intelligence agencies (and the FBI) confirmed this. The New York Times described how this was done -- and how Russia used similar cyber-attacks against their neighbors Ukraine, Estonia and Georgia. (The National Intelligence Director's report concluded that Russia had a de facto alliance with WikiLeaks.)
• According to Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald, the official Russian news agency doctored some of those leaked documents to make them sound incriminating -- and Donald Trump trumpeted those falsified documents as the real thing.
  "This is not funny," Eichenwald wrote. "It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the same manufactured story as truth.
  "Americans should be outraged. This totalitarian regime [Russia], engaged in what are arguably war crimes in Syria to protect its government puppet, is working to upend a democracy to the benefit of an American candidate [Trump] who uttered positive comments just Sunday about the Kremlin's campaign on behalf of [Syrian dictator] Bashar al-Assad."
• According to the Washington Post, the CIA discovered that Russian hackers had stolen emails from both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee. However: the hackers only leaked the Democrats' emails to the public. The CIA -- backed by other intelligence agencies -- concluded that Russia was deliberately helping Trump.
• Daily News Bin, The Daily Beast, and Mother Jones theorized that Russia has been blackmailing Trump and the Republican Party by threatening to release their private emails too.
• According to NBC News and ABC News, Vladimir Putin personally supervised Russian efforts to interfere with the American election. According to The Atlantic, these hacks were typical of Putin's efforts to destabilize and disparage his enemies.
• According to the declassified intelligence report produced by the National Intelligence Director: RT, the Russian government's propaganda machine, produced "news" videos falsely claiming Clinton was in poor health, had stolen all the money from her charity, and had financial ties to the Iraqi-Syrian terrorist group DAESH (the so-called "Islamic State.") RT posted these videos on the Internet to avoid the regulations that govern normal broadcast media. (It is illegal for a television or radio station to broadcast reports they know to be false.) RT's leaders admit that part of their mission is to undermine Americans' confidence in the democratic process.
• According to the New York Post, Trump considered retired General Michael Flynn for the Vice Presidency in July 2016. Flynn soon joined the Trump campaign and gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. According to the Washington Post, Flynn (working for Trump) and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (working for Putin) were in contact throughout the 2016 election campaign. After Putin's efforts to interfere with the election became public knowledge, then-President Obama imposed further sanctions on December 28. The very next day, Flynn spoke to Kislyak, and apparently told him that Trump would lift those sanctions after he was sworn in. As Flynn held no government position at that time, he had no authority to negotiate with Russia, and thus violated the Logan Act. By providing "aid or comfort" to America's enemy, he may have committed treason as well. Trump later made Flynn his National Security Advisor, and it's unthinkable that Flynn spoke for Trump without his friend knowing about it. Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, who knows Flynn, wrote that Flynn would never have done so on his own.
• The New York Times reported that Trump's original campaign manager and at least two others were in contact with Russian intelligence throughout the election campaign.
• According to CNN, Trump regularly praises Vladimir Putin. Mother Jones reported that Trump's admiration for Putin goes back a decade. According to the Washington Post, Trump refused to back down from this position when informed of murders tied to Putin's regime.
• According to the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his government had been in touch with Trump's campaign throughout the election season. According to Slate Magazine, an internet server registered to Trump's business was in constant communication with Russia.
• After spending the election season boasting of his good relationship with Putin, Trump now dismisses the evidence that Russia interfered with the election. If Trump is innocent of conspiring with Russia, why does he want to block the investigation that would exonerate him? As Ambassador John Shattuck wrote in the Boston Globe: "By denigrating or seeking to prevent an investigation of the Russian cyber-attack, Trump is giving aid or comfort to an enemy of the United States."

Moreover:

• According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, since becoming Russia's President seventeen years ago, Putin has banned freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of the press. He engages in torture and persecutes religious minorities. Putin conquered territory from his southern neighbor Georgia in 2008 and his western neighbor Ukraine in 2014. According to Politico, psychological and propaganda warfare were key to Putin's victories. According to Slate Magazine, Putin has long supported anti-government movements in Western democracies, and funded fringe secession movements in both Texas and California. Putin is a tyrant who wishes to weaken, discredit, and ultimately destroy the United States.
• According to Newsweek and Mother Jones, Trump has extensive financial ties to the Russian government.
• According to MSNBC and Politifact, Trump has the most pro-Russian foreign policy in living memory. Trump has taken extremely pro-Putin positions that endanger the United States and betray our allies. For instance, according to the Washington Post:
  • "Trump's most shocking, pro-Kremlin proposal is to 'look into' recognition of Crimea [conquered from Ukraine in 2014] as a part of Russia. [Then-]President Obama and nearly every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, have rejected that idea vigorously.
  • "Trump also has made clear his disdain for the United States’ alliances around the world. Demonstrating his misunderstanding of how NATO works, Trump has demanded that other NATO members essentially pay us for protection, making many of our allies, especially in the eastern part of Europe, nervous about his commitment to defend them.
  • "Trump has also disparaged our allies in Asia, creating new opportunities for Russian influence.
  • "On trade, Trump's promises to disrupt our agreements also play right into Putin's agenda.
  • "Trump's threats to stop paying our debts also would radically undermine our credibility as a lender, another desirable outcome for Putin.
  • "Trump advocates isolationist policies and an abdication of U.S. leadership in the world. He cares little about promoting democracy and human rights. A U.S. retreat from global affairs fits precisely with Putin's international interests."
• According to The Atlantic, Trump says the United States should withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO, the seventy-year alliance between America, Canada, and European democracies, is the most successful defensive alliance in world history. The NATO alliance won the Cold War and rallied to America's side after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. According to CNN, Trump calls NATO "obsolete." According to The Express, Putin wants to expand Russian influence over American allies in eastern Europe, and Trump's indifference is exactly what he wants.
• According to the New York Times, Trump says he would not defend our allies Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania if Russia invaded them.
• Trump nominated Rex Tillerson and Ryan Zinke, two Putin sympathizers, to key government positions. Tillerson is head of ExxonMobil and Putin's close ally. Putin personally awarded him Russia's Order of Friendship. Moreover, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the United States responded by imposing sanctions. Unsurprisingly, Tillerson wants to drop those sanctions. According to the New York Times, "the giant oil company... has billions of dollars in deals that can go forward only if the United States lifts sanctions against Russia." Now that Tillerson has been confirmed, his close ties to Putin effectively put the Russian dictator in charge of American diplomacy.

Congressman, you and each of your colleagues swore an oath to uphold the Constitution upon taking office. Make no mistake: if there was even the remotest possibility that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama had conspired with Vladimir Putin to use a propaganda campaign and cyber-attacks to influence an election, Congress would investigate it for years. If the Clintons or Obama had broken the Emoluments clause, engaged in campaign finance violations, illegally appointed a political operative to the National Security Council, or had an advisor resign amid treason accusations, an impeachment trial would already be underway.

Congressman, the Constitution requires that government officials be impeached if they commit high crimes and misdemeanors. Donald Trump has broken the law. Impeaching Trump and removing him from office is your legal obligation.

Yours Sincerely,

C. Colvin