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My Working Theory on the Impeachment Covfefe
Since the House has “sole power” to impeach, they have the power to decide whether impeachment is just an accusation or is rather a process of accuse-and-send-to-trial. So Trump has been impeached because the House bill disambiguated impeachment by proclaiming that Trump “is impeached.”
As a corollary, since the Senate has “sole power” to do the trial, the House has no power to stop them once the President has been impeached. So the Senate does not have to wait for the House to deliver the accusation. They can start the trial of Trump whenever they feel like it.
Oh, the covfefe!
Your opinions? Objections? Concerns?
Update: See comments #s 27-32 below for more–possibly better–analysis!
Published in Law
That explains it.
My understanding is that the current Senate rules require the House to submit Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, along with the list of House impeachment managers (essentially prosecutors) before the Senate takes up the rules of the trial. If McConnell decides he wants to proceed with a trial with the House “in absentia”so to speak, he would have to bring the Senate forward to vote on new rules, which requires a simple majority to pass. Personally, I would prefer he do this, providing Pelosi continues playing games with the process after they return from Recess. The Senate may be a tricky wicket, as opposed to the House. Holding all the R’s together when he’s got some slimy characters to deal with on his own side of the aisle, could require considerable skill and toughness on McConnell’s part.
What I just wrote may be totally repetitive. I didn’t read every comment before posting this.
If the Senate changes hands, it wouldn’t be until after the 2020 vote. Trump might not even be President anymore. If he is, without either branch of Congress, he’s a lame duck anyway. That is why I think McConnell should change the Senate rules ASAP to get this trial, along with Trump’s acquittal, accomplished promptly after return from Recess. There are too many more judges that need to be appointed. The Senate needs to clear its calendar and get to work.
Given the ambiguity, why would it be advantageous to allow Pelosi to hold the Articles in her back pocket, like a sword of Damocles over Trump. As long as the House has made up the rules as they pleased, it’s now the Senate’s turn to take some lesser liberties, but liberties none the less, to aquit Trump and let the country move on.
Could of fooled me.
Announce a trial date and then proceed with whatever the House has given them. Let Trump’s counter, vote, acquit.
To me there is no ambiguity. If the a prosecutor draws up the paper to charge you with a crime, but never delivers it to the court, have you been charged? No. Can the court have a trial based just because the judge read in the newspaper that you drew up the charges? No.
No trial, no impeachment.
I think Nancy Pelosi thinks so too. What else is the point of not delivering the papers? That was a deliberate act to change the normal course of events.
I tend to agree with this view. There needs to be a way to nullify the House action of voting impeachment by having an expiration occur at some stale date beyond the adoption after which no further action occurs except by a new House vote. Maybe this can be done by making it a requirement in the Senate rules on impeachment.
I disagree. It’s a quibble. The analogy to criminal law is imperfect. The House has powers and prerogatives independent of the Senate. As the source of impeachment, the House defines high crimes etc. The House determines the manner and method to arrive at an impeachment.
Question. If the House does not comply with Senate rules and fails to deliver the impeachment AND the Republicans regain a House majority in November of 2020, can the new House seated in January 2021, void the impeachment?
Imperfect Precedent.
Andrew Jackson was censured by the Senate in 1834. In the last months of his Presidency, Jackson’s supporters had his censure expunged.
Everyone commenting in this group is correct, IMHO. The problem is, there are really no rules to be correct about. it’s all gamesmanship to create political advantage. Everyone–Trump, Pelosi, McConnell-all have their own personal need. Trump doesn’t want Pelosi to have the power to drop those articles on the Senate whenever she wants for her own advantage. I am not sure exactly what McConnell’s game is, but I am sure he has one. We’ll just have to see who ends up sitting and who is standing when the music stops playing.-
On that we agree.
I don’t agree that it is a quibble, but I agree the analogy to criminal law is imperfect.
The question is not whether the House has the sole power of impeachment. That is incontrovertible. The question is what impeachment means. The analogy was used merely to illustrate the idea.
The evidence for me lies primarily in what was mean but the word impeachment at the time it was written. I did a couple of hours’ research just before Christmas which lead be to believe two things:
First, that the word impeachment had a common meaning to the Framers. Why else did they choose not to define it in the constitution? And Hamilton did not adequately define it in the federalist papers.
Second, that whatever the world meant to the Framers, it was more than simply to write up or agree on charges, or to call in to question the integrity of someone or something.
Webster defined impeachment as bringing charges before an appropriate tribunal. That implies two things: that the charges are drawn up, and that they are brought to a jury or court. Only one of those two things has happened.
You’d think the “But muh norms!” crowd would be upset about this.
I’m not convinced that NancyBear actually thinks that. I think she thinks (generally correctly):
Most people have no idea what impeachment is, nor how the process should go.
A goodly chunk of the people out there think Trump should be thrown out of office by any means necessary.
A more goodly chunk of people have no idea what Trump said on that phone call, and will never know, and will just believe whatever the media tells them.
That same goodly chunk of people will believe it when we tell them that this has been nonpartisan in the House, but the partisan Senate will not do things fairly.
…thus…
We drag this out as long as possible in order to have a negative impact on Trump’s campaign specifically, and Republican campaigns in general.
And what you have listed is all correct. One thing Pelosi understands is a goodly chunk of people get mostly superficial information before voting. If she can keep the word ‘impeachment’ connected to the President and media coverage going about a potential trial in the Senate and keep that theme active in the next year Presidential campaign, she is winning. I think action needs to be taken to put this to rest quickly and that will be McConnell and Republicans in the Senate.
Agreed.
That’s a pretty good assessment of the populace. I’m tickled by the small group of people that think Trump has already been kicked out of office by the impeachment vote. Cheers to them! Going in our favor, however, is the fact that the truth manages to make its way out there to enough of the voting public to make a critical election swing in our favor. We only have to convince about 5% of voters to make a huge difference. Just look at the radically high approval ratings Trump is getting from Blacks despite being a supposedly “White Supremacist Bigot who is like Hitler and hates Black people.”
I remember back before the 2016 election when some of my conservative friends were all tied up in knots because “nobody will ever learn about Hillary’s corruption with her e-mails and Benghazi and such,” because of the mainstream news bias, and they were convinced that she would win the election (so was I, but I was not worried that the truth about her could be buried for long). Luckily due to the vast reduction in people trusting or even viewing traditional left-wing news sources, many Democrats and Lefties did indeed “get the news” on Hillary and left her with a crumbling reputation, even among the Democrat base.
Sure, like all analogies. But that just means it’s an inductive rather than a deductive argument–the premises make the conclusion probable, but not certain.
Spin also has two other arguments.
Assuming there is an ambiguity in whether impeachment includes delivery. Spin’s arguments indicate there is none.
When the Constitution is ambiguous and the House has power, the House has power to figure out what makes an impeachment. If the Constitution is not ambiguous, the House has no power in this matter.
Either way, though, the House cannot both impeach and delay the Senate from dealing with it.
Either impeachment includes delivery to the Senate (meaning unless they are delivered, there is no impeachment) or it does not.
If the former, fine. Trump has not been impeached. Say it loud and clear for all to hear.
If the latter, fine. Schedule the trial for Jan 7 (same day Clinton’s started) and let NancyBear know that’s when she and her peeps should be over. Ignore the histrionics: “You comin’ over? Or not?” Let her not show. Let the President present his case. Vote. Done.
Yes!
This either-or is the big point.