the summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in
this crisis, shrink from the service of his country;
but he that stands up now, deserves the love and
thanks of man and woman. Thomas Paine, 1776
Nancy Pelosi has directed the House Judiciary
Committee to open an impeachment inquiry against
President Trump. This is not how things are usually
done. In other - and there have been many - impeach-
ment inquiries the whole House votes to open the
inquiry. The House of Representatives may
open an inquiry at any time, it may also file
Articles of Impeachment at any time. It is
usual, however, to defer to the Speaker of the
House. It may surprise you to know that certain
Representatives attempted to bring impeachment
proceedings against; John Tyler, Grover Cleveland,
Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman Ronald Reagan, and
G. H. W. Bush. All of these attempts failed to get out of
Committee and on to the whole House. Only three succeeded;
Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and, had he not resigned,
Richard Nixon. So, we should not get that excited about
yesterday's events we still have a long way to go.
Perhaps it would behoove us to get some background
on just what impeachment is. Impeachment was first
established in Britain in the thirteen-hundreds. Britain
has no formal constitution, so impeachment, as such,
was an unwritten law. When the framers were writing
our Constitution, there was considerable discussion
about including impeachment at all. The biggest
roadblock was the wording of just what constituted
an impeachable offense. In the end they settled on
'treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misde-
meanors'. It is the second half of that statement which
legal scholars still argue over today.
Let us define impeachment; impeachment is a process
by which a legislative body levels charges against a
government official. Impeachment is written into the
the constitution of twenty-five nations, among then
are Russia, South Korea and of course the United States.
Impeachment is delineated in Article 2, Section 4, it
simply says: The President, Vice President, and all
Civil Officers of the United States shall be removed
from Office on impeachment for, and conviction of
Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors. Thirty-one words, that's all, nothing
more.
The House of Representatives and the Senate each set
their own rules regarding impeachment procedures,
as none were set down by the framers. The procedure
begins with the Judiciary Committee of the House of
Representatives, they hold hearings, take evidence, and
hear testimony. After which time the Committee may
formulate Articles of Impeachment - which may contain
one or more counts - then the Committee takes a vote.
If the Articles pass the Committee, they are referred to the
full House, which will then debate the matter and take a vote.
If the House votes to impeach, the Articles go onto the
Senate. The Articles of Impeachment may die at any
point from the Judiciary Committee to the full House,
as six of the Articles we noted did.
The Senate is judge and jury in the case of prosecution
of impeachment, but if the officeholder charged is the
President, then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
sits as judge, as William Rehnquist did during the
Clinton trial. There are attorneys for each side as in a
regular court proceeding. After both side present their
case, the Senate debates the issues and votes. It requires
a 'super majority', or two-thirds of the Senators present
to convict the President. The word present is stressed here
as any Senator voting abstain, would be counted as a vote
against impeachment. It is thought, a vote to impeach
would trigger a Constitutional crisis, in that; would the
convicted president have the right to appeal - and if so -
to whom would they appeal.
The question has been, for years, what is an impeachable
offense? Some jurist say; any bad act, though not necessarly
a crime, however they also say, not all crimes are impeachable.
In 1970, then Representative Gerald Ford said this, in part,
"what ever the majority of the House of Representatives
considers it to be at any given moment". This would mean that
impeachment is not a legal proceeding, but a political one.
This is what the framers feared, that the president would then
be serving at the pleasure of the Congress. James Wilson, one
of the delegates to the Constitutional Congress and later one of
the first Supreme Court Justices, argued that impeachment
procedures are "of a political nature. . . confined to political
characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to
political punishment".
And so here we are today, there are those who rejoice that their
wish has come true, those who wanted from day one to impeach
Donald Trump. Christopher Lewis Peterson, Professor, College
of Law, whose main body of work is banking and lending, wrote
extensively on the subject. He feels strongly that Trump should
have been impeached on the day he was sworn in, based on his
prior bad acts, i.e. bank and insurance fraud. I, myself, am torn.
There have been presidents whose politics I disagreed with, and
some that I didn't feel were up to the job, even some I disliked
personally, but never have I ever felt this strong a dislike about
a president. It is visceral, I cannot watch him on television. and
the sound of his voice is like fingers on a blackboard. Everyday
when I wake up, I think it can't get any worse, but it does.
It will be a long road going forward, and I fear for the country.
I fear even if, and that is a big if, Trump is convicted, he will
not go quietly. He has intimated as much on more than one
occasion. When the House of Representatives voted for the
Article of Impeachment for Richard Nixon, he did the right
thing for the country, he resigned. Nixon knew a trial in the
Senate would be very harmful for the country, especially in
light of the outcome of the Viet Nam war. His first thoughts
were for America. Donald Trump has ho such compunction,
he only sees things in relation to himself. He does not believe
he could be convicted. When things begin to go bad for him,
he instructs his lawyers to 'buy them out'. Well, Donald, buy
yourself out of this!
I'm just sayin'
No comments:
Post a Comment