The GD thread on Attorney General Gonzales has a reference to the possibility of impeachment, which got me thinking?
Has a Cabinet secretary ever been impeached? gone to trial? been removed by the Senate?
Two presidents and a Supreme Court judge have been impeached, but not convicted, and I think about a dozen or so federal court judges, but I can’t think of a Cabinet secretary being impeached?
William Belknap, President Grant’s Secretary of War, was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1876 for financial impropriety. He resigned shortly afterward, but the Senate still proceeded with the trial. The Senate did not convicted him, apparently because enough senators thought they had lost jurisdiction on account of his resignation.
Even if the impeached resigns before being removed the Senate can still bar him/her from holding any US government office.
And to clarify, Belknap is the only Cabinet officer ever to be impeached. For those keeping score at home, the impeachment roster includes:
2 Presidents
1 Cabinet Secretary
1 Senator
13 Federal Judges
Wait, what? Since when are members of Congress subject to impeachment?
Since the beginning:
No limitations at all on who can be impeached, either. Since the only punishment listed is removal from office and a ban on holding further office, the application is limited to Federal government officials (I would assume a Federal impeachment a state official would be considered overreaching into a state’s prerogatives). Since most appointed officials can be dismissed at any time, there’s no reason to impeac them, which further restricts it to elected officials and things like judges where people are appointed for life.
But Article I, section 5 states
No impeachment required to remove members of Congress, only concurrence of two thirds of the members of the particular House with no involvement from the other House.
Right. However, expulsion only removes the offender from office. With impeachment and conviction, the Senate has the power to add disqualification from holding future office.
The Constitution extends the power of impeachment to all “civil officers of the United States”, so to answer RealityChuck, clearly a state official would not be subject to the process. There is some disagreement as to whether members of Congress are properly considered “civil officers”. In the one case where the House did impeach a Senator, the Senate (after expelling the offender, William Blount) dismissed the charges, without making clear its grounds for doing so.
very interesting - thanks for the info, everyone.
I am not certain this is a valid statement. It appears that only three impeached officers resigned in advance of the resolution of their Senate trials: Secretary Belknapp, Judge Mark H. Delahay (1873) and Judge George W. English. Judge English’s case was dismissed by the Senate after the resignation, and though I cannot find confirmation, it appears the same was true in Judge Delahay’s case. Thus, there is no precedent in favor of your position, and there is arguably precedent against it (Secretary Belknapp).
I would argue Belknap’s case in the opposite direction. A majority of the House of Representatives voted to proceed to trial despite Belknap’s resignation, and a majority of the Senate voted not to dismiss the charges. He was ultimately acquitted, because more than one-third of the Senate felt impeachment of a former officer was inappropriate, but majorities of both Houses believed otherwise.
Obviously, we won’t resolve this until an officer resigns and is then convicted and disqualified, for which we may wait many centuries. In the vast majority of cases the House drops impeachment proceedings when the target resigns, not because they must, but out of prosecutorial discretion. And even when the House impeaches and the Senate convicts, disqualification is rare; it has been enforced only twice in American history (against West Humphreys and Robert Archbald).
Nevertheless, the Constitution does allow for disqualification, and I hold that allowing offenders to escape its reach by resigning minutes before conviction would defeat its purpose. Throw 'em out and keep 'em out, I say!