Former GOP congressional candidate calls on Trump to resign 'for the good of the nation'

A longtime conservative columnist and onetime GOP congressional candidate called on Donald Trump to resign in a new column.

Alabama conservative Quin Hillyer wrote in a Washington Examiner editorial that although there isn't yet sufficient evidence for impeachment, "for the nation’s good, [Trump] should follow Richard Nixon’s example, and resign."

Hillyer noted that this isn't the first time he's called on a president to resign in an effort to preserve America from further upheaval.

"Just more than 20 years ago, that was the essence of what I wrote in a column directed at Bill Clinton: There was a 'stain on the presidency' that was 'public, and embarrassing, and tawdry.'"

"'It makes America look cheap and base and trashy," that late 90's column read. "'The worst part is, the stain may be the least of the problems. Underneath it is a rot that's eating away at the fabric.'"

According to Hillyer, "the same message applies today to President Trump."

The president's "hush money" payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal were "bizarrely inverted [examples] of money laundering," the columnist argued.

"What usually happens when somebody hides payments is that he is trying to disguise (to pretend he is making it clean) the legally dirty nature of the transaction," he wrote. "Here, Trump was turning a legally (but not morally) allowable transaction into a technically illegal one, without appearing to know it was illegal."

While the payments to the adult performers were dishonorable but not impeachable, Hillyer argued, "we don’t even know what else Trump is hiding."

"His former attorney Michael Cohen says he has much more damning material on tape," he wrote. "So does former aide Omarosa Manigault. Plus, who knows what information Vladimir Putin actually has on Trump’s business conduct, or when Putin may feel Trump has outlived his usefulness?"

"Trump could get out while the getting is good," Hillyer concluded, before addressing the president directly.

"Take away the public stain," he wrote. "Declare victory, and go home."