The question of Trump’s impeachment and whether students thought it was a good idea was presented in my political theory class.

Only two students raised their hand in favor of impeachment, and around seven were against, with the majority of the class abstaining from voting.

When asked why they were against impeachment one student answered by stating that the Democratic Party has tried to call for impeachment before and nothing came of it, so why waste our time and taxpayer money.

Just this last month, taxpayers were billed $600,000 for limos during Mike Pence’s trip to a Trump golf course.

Another student answered that she felt if impeachment was pursued and didn’t succeed, Trump will be able to do something worse down the line, and it’ll look like the Democratic Party is “crying wolf.”

While I see the reasoning behind their opinions, Trump has broken the law and he does not get a pass because people have those opinions. The highest office in the country should be held to the highest standard.

At this point, our country is so polarized that our opinions blind us from believing the truth. When something doesn’t align with our views we choose to ignore it. This should not be a partisan issue, we should not be forgiving of a president who breaks the law because they identify as the same party as as we do.

Vice President Mike Pence has made statements in the past about this issue — “this is basic stuff. Foreign donors — and certainly foreign governments — cannot participate in the American political process.”

This comment is from the 2016 vice presidential debate and yet it’s more relevant than ever.

Impeachment has been an impossible topic to avoid, yet many don’t know what exactly happened. The whistleblower’s report is available to read online, they state in the report: “The White House officials who told me this information were deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call…that they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain.”

Foreign aid was given to Ukraine by Congress, the money was already theirs. Trump withheld the funds and pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Trump claims that Hunter Biden was being investigated by a Ukrainian prosecutor and Joe Biden had the prosecutor fired to stop the investigation. There is no evidence that Joe Biden had anyone fired and even more importantly there is no evidence Hunter Biden was under investigation to begin with.

Trump also pressured the Ukraine President to assist him in “uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).”

After the call was finished, the whistleblower writes: “White House officials told me that they were “directed” by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored.” White House officials moved the call to a separate electronic system that is used to store classified information. They write that by doing this a White House official described it as “an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.” They were trying to cover it up.

As with most things in American politics this situation can seem extremely complicated. We can doubt the claims made in the whistleblower report, but Trump himself has admitted to some of the accusations in the call. He told reporters on the South Lawn at the White House: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with — with Ukraine.”

It seems that Trump thinks he can commit an impeachable offense on national TV, then it doesn’t count.

He is trying to act like everything he is doing is out in the open, so then it must not be illegal. Foreign countries are to never be treated with the benefit of the doubt when it comes to national security. They always have their own interests in mind. That is why it’s dangerous to ask a foreign country for help investigating your political rival.

We need to put our political preferences aside and recognize that we have a president who does not have America’s interest as his top priority.

Trump is in it for himself and he will do anything to further his personal agenda.

Natalie Casey can be reached at [email protected].