This week, following the House’s approval of articles of impeachment charging President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the prominent magazine Christianity Today came out with an opinion piece from the editor-in-chief proclaiming support for removing Trump from office. The president — forever unable to take even the slightest measure of criticism — promptly freaked out, but editor Mark Galli fiercely dug into his anti-Trump position in a follow-up appearance on CNN. If Trump’s previous meltdowns are any indication, Galli is getting under the president’s skin.
He explained that although his magazine often stays away from politics, he felt this situation deserved a public statement.
As he put it:
‘There are times, of course, when there are issues that transcend politics. So this — to me, this is one of them… I grant that the Democrats have been partisan in their efforts to remove the president and at times I think have been unfair… The question is, when does his behavior which is described as immoral accurately rise to the level where he’s no longer fit to serve office. and to me, we crossed that line with the impeachment hearings.’
In his original piece, Galli had argued that the final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation did not make such a compelling, straightforward case for Trump having abused his power. Mueller did explicitly stay away from final proclamations about guilt or innocence based on the evidence that he collected. Citing Justice Department precedent against indicting a sitting president, he explicitly kicked the issue to Congress — and they’ve acted.
In his angry response, Trump asserted that Galli’s magazine — which was founded by the late Billy Graham but is no longer led by the Graham family — is a left-wing publication, but that does not match their actual behavior. Trump just prefers sticking to vilifying his opponents with whatever extreme public derision that he can come up with. In response to Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell’s support of impeachment, he even suggested her late husband John (who was also a Congressman) could be in hell.
Galli explained:
‘I disagree with him on seven or eight different levels. His characterization of us as being far left is far from accurate. We consider ourselves and most people consider us a pretty centrist magazine in the evangelical world. It’s factually inaccurate we’re far left. We rarely comment on politics unless we feel it rises to the level of some national or concern that is really important, and this would be a case.’
Watch:
With his editorial, Galli brought his publication into a group of many other major outlets that have come out in favor of impeachment. Although Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that the polls are on their side, the country is about evenly split on impeachment, according to poll data.
The case is now at the stage of awaiting a hearing in the Senate. Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Democrats have indicated that they’re not immediately willing to actually transmit the case to the Senate without provisions for a fair trial, which Senate Republicans have so far refused to provide.
