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Impeachment: Past the Point of No Return?
The House voted today to move ahead with a formal impeachment inquiry. In my mind, that means they will have to impeach the president. The vote was on party lines with only two Democrats voting against. It is partisan, it may lack any actual crimes, but it is happening.
Here is the thing: if they do this and then do not impeach, then it will be as if they cleared the president of any wrongdoing. We are coming up on an election year, so I do not believe Democrats will do that. This is no longer about Russia, Ukraine, collusion, or any other issue. This is about politics, period. With or without cause I think we passed the point of no return.
Is there a way this could proceed where the Democrats can get by not impeaching? Endless hearings for political reasons all the way up to the election? Maybe, but if the Democrat candidates look weak that might be too much of a risk. What happens next?
Published in General
Sentencing. Judge Alcee Hastings was impeached and removed from the bench, and later became Congressman Hastings.
Don’t worry about that. Worry about the civil war that will erupt if he’s removed.
I’m not getting how you ask yourself this question but aren’t able to quite fit it properly into your overall point. You support removal of Trump and replacement by Pence but the process does not provide that option in the absence of offenses, unless it is abused. You say we should look to Madison or Hamilton. I see no way, from their words, that either would think political electioneering a proper use of this Constitutional power. So, that leaves you in essentially the same position as progressive Democrats in that you take exception to the result of the process that made Trump the Republican nominee and then POTUS so you support his removal.
You should stop the pretense.
James Madison wrote that if a President were to abuse his authority to pardon someone, this would be grounds for impeachment.
This means that Madison didn’t necessarily think that a president would have to, say, commit armed robbery or treason (a crime) to be impeached.
In other words, Madison believed that if Congress believed that a president misused his powers, even those powers that are granted to the President by the Constitution such as the power to pardon someone, Congress would be within its rights to impeach and remove.
Let’s say some future president were to pardon a whole bunch of captured terrorists who, in the eyes of almost everyone, still posed a threat to Americans because they still wanted to kill as many terrorists as possible. Congress could impeach and remove.
I’m not saying that Trump is in this category at all. I am saying that Madison believed that Congress could use its impeachment/removal power in that way if they chose.
Was Madison right? That’s yet another question.
I say dump Trump. Commence with Pence!!
Think of it this way.
Let’s say Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was president and Joe Manchin was Vice President. Let’s further say, not surprisingly, that AOC was doing things that endangered the country, even though she was doing it using her pardon power or her other Constitutional powers. A GOP congressmen could justify impeachment/removal in order to put the nation in the hands of the more moderate Joe Manchin.
Your discourse makes sense until you draw a conclusion out of thin air with no support for it.
IIRC, wasn’t there was discussion at the founding about including the offense of “maladministration” as another ground to be enumerated in the impeachment clause?
But that was rejected because the prevailing view that impeachment potentially over strong criticism of how a president was executing the office’s powers would transform the new federal government from a constituitional republic to a parliamentary system, such as they had rebelled against in the British model. Seems to me that gives some substance to the requirement of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Correct.
Two ways this plays out that I can think of, but I. neither case is impeachment avoided.
1 Democrats impeach quickly and go with what they have, weak case or not. The Senate takes up the charges and the thing is disposed of. Advantages: Dems get to tell base they did it. People will forget the entire thing in a week—the obscure Colonel, the “whistleblower,” the ambassadors nobody knew existed until 10 minutes ago.
President needs to overhaul entire NSC. From what I heard on Levin program it sounds dysfunctional. The president had a hard time getting security clearances for his own choices for NSC, according to Levin. Cummings was involved in the denials. Now we know why. The whistleblower is believed to be an Obama holdover.
2 Endless hearings and abuse of subpoena power to go on fishing expedition to find more things to “get” the president on. Advantages: Dems get to make the rules and control news cycle, with no pretense of due process. Sabotage the president and make governing impossible right up to Election Day. Risk: country turns against Democrats, they are wiped out in next election. It’s irresponsible and disgraceful, and if there’s a national emergency and the House is viewed as a bunch of Ahabs obsessed with getting the president, it will not end well for them.
Senate Republicans need to protect the President.
Basically, since the case for removal is weak, I’m saying public opinion as measured by polls will drive which way this goes.
The press has the public brainwashed.
Except for those who have been redpilled. But is it enough? There are still a lot of people out there who get their news from the legacy media and don’t realize how much they’re being lied to every damned minute.
Republican Representatives. (Not the Republican Senators.)
Articles of impeachment and conviction by the Senate is the process. I imagine that’s what he was referring to.
The Republicans will control the narrative in the Senate. This is a long process. The Democrats have a temporary advantage right now. But they won’t get the last word. Impeachment wasn’t supposed to be partisan but that’s the situation we are in and that’s the way it will play out. I think.
Except that James Madison believed that a Congress would be within its rights to remove a President who used his pardon power in a way that Congress believed was improper.
So, essentially, even if a President had not gone beyond the powers granted to him by the Constitution, Congress could still impeach and remove, according to James Madison.
I think it makes perfect sense to remove Trump and let Pence fill out the remainder of Trump’s term. It would be good for the country.
Incorrect. It will spark a civil war. Do not discount this. Do not stick your head up your fantasies. The people who see what is going on will see what has happened to their Republic and rebel against this quiet revolution that has created a new government by impeachment. The very least we’ll get is impeachment every time the House is of a different party from the President.
But in that case the President has exceeded his authority. He violated the spirit of the law, but not the letter. He defied common sense to use a power for something it clearly was not intended for. Like a revisionist judge, he has made a mockery of law.
Impeachment may not be pursued for sharp disagreements or general antipathies.
Democrat Representatives (less two): Hold muh beer and watch this.
Same question to you: once you’ve shown the citizen class that you don’t approve of how they voted by tossing the President out of the White House, how do you expect the GOP to entice those voters to vote Republican again?
President Trump was chosen by the voters. You may not think that the President is fit for office, but the measure of fitness belongs to the voters, not a cabal of unelected bureaucrats or Trump-hating bloggers.
Continuing to pretend you can just remove President Trump and everything will go back to normal with the citizen class falling in line behind the GOP just as before — that’s playing make-believe. That’s the stuff of fantasy and wishcasting.
But please do tell us how you plan to manage this.
Forget it Drew, it’s Chinatown.
I can’t speak to the Madison quote, but the way impeachment has evolved, the Senate does not remove absent a high crime (like treason or bribery). Look at the examples of Salmon Chase and Andrew Johnson. A good book on this subject is Grand Inquests by Rehnquist.
You mean like Bill Clinton did with the Puerto Rican terrorists to help his wife get elected to the Senate ?