In 1951, only two newly-elected freshman Republican senators were seated in the 82nd United States Congress. One was Richard M. Nixon from California, and the other was my grandfather, Wallace F. Bennett from Utah. 1/

Grandpa and Nixon became fast friends, and their friendship endured even though Nixon soon left the Senate to run with Ike on the 1952 GOP presidential ticket. After Eisenhower won, Grandpa gave him some homemade flies so that Ike could take Nixon flyfishing. 2/

Much later, during Nixon's first year in office as president, Nixon crashed Grandpa's 75th birthday party unannounced and took to the piano to lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday." 3/

That was in November of '73. Less than a year later, on August 7, 1974, my grandfather was one of eight Republican senators who gathered in a private meeting to discuss ways to persuade Nixon to resign from office. 4/

They sent a small delegation led by Sen. Barry Goldwater to the White House to tell the president that his own party would no longer support him, and he had to step down voluntarily in order to avoid the humiliation of a conviction in the Senate. 5/

Nixon resigned two days later.

This all went down about a week before I turned six years old. But I remember it, or at least the mood of it. 6/

I couldn't give you a firsthand account of any of the specifics, but I remember how worried all the grown-ups were, and how solemn an occasion it was. 7/

I didn't know anything about impeachment or the Constitution or much of anything else, but I knew this was a serious event brought on by serious people who did not take their responsibilities lightly.

Where are those serious people now? 8/

Throughout my formative years and for most of my adult life, Richard Nixon was the gold standard for political corruption, and rightly so. He did a great many terrible things that merited removal from office. 9/

But the only reason he was actually removed from office is because serious men like my grandfather were willing to put principle before party. 10/

Had Grandpa and other Nixon loyalists simply buried their heads in the sand and joined a complicit GOP in voting to acquit regardless of the evidence, Nixon would have finished his second term. 11/

All these years later, we have a president who has done so much to merit removal from office that the actual attempt to do so barely scratches the surface of his corruption. 12/

Just today, we discovered that tens of thousands of Americans died needlessly because our corrupt president refused to tell the country the truth about a deadly pandemic. His deliberate dishonesty has contributed significantly to the loss of nearly 200,000 lives. 13/

He should be removed from office because of that.

And also because he tried to blackmail Ukraine to help him win reelection.

And because he's now trying to use the Department of Justice to help him escape the consequences of raping someone. 14/

And because he deliberately flouted federal law in holding a four-day political rally in the People's House.

And because he obstructed justice in the Mueller investigation.

And because he simply ignores the Emoluments Clause.

And on and on and on and on... 15/

But he won't be. Because other than Mitt Romney, there are no serious people in the Republican Party anymore. Should the unthinkable happen and Trump win reelection, his party has already given him a blank check to commit impeachable offenses. 16/

As this latest "last straw" in a long line of last straws shows, there is nothing so depraved that will shake the support of his odious base and the craven, spineless, unserious lawmakers who enable him.

We can't allow this. We have to vote Biden. We need to get serious. 17/