Bringing this up to a higher level, what’s with he conservative hand-wringing on the fragility of our government if, heaven forbid, a duly-elected Vice President take over?
I mean, we’ve had presidents who were assassinated and while I want that to never happen again, our system of government has been robust enough to solider on (and even be improved over time). The idea that the Constitution becomes mortally wounded if a President is lawfully removed because a supermajority of politicians decide he’s no longer serving the country is such a Chicken Little argument that it is hard to do anything but point and laugh.
This. The notion that somehow impeachment reverses the results of an election is just plain ridiculous.
Sure, there would be a new President. But the party in power would not change. The party of the President would not change. In fact, the new President would be the very person who is the President’s handpicked successor in case should anything happen to him during his term.
In terms of political power, as little is changed as one can, given the need to remove from office a President who has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
I, for one, am shocked, SHOCKED!, you would agree with Trump’s latest headline chasing attorney. Want to play the Dershowitz v. Dershowitz game?
Dershowitz when it was Clinton: "“It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime. If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime.”
Which is why the words and descriptions of Alexander Hamilton, reported above, are important. They tell you what is required.
Or, we could do a textualist approach. The Impeachment Clause says: “High Crimes AND misdemeanors”. If you believe someone can only be impeached on the basis of crimes, there is no reason whatsoever for the Constitution to include “and misdemeanors”. And, lest we take a tangent into a definition of misdemeanors, I’ll point you to another founder, John Adams, who said: "If an office be granted to hold so long as he behaves himself well in the office, that is an estate for life, unless he lose it for misbehaviour; for it hath an annexed condition to be forfeited upon misdemeanor, and this by law is annexed to all offices, they being trusts; and misdemeanors in an office is a breach of trust.”
And, if your concern for vagueness is so important, it might help to remember that, during the discussion of Impeachment Clause, one founder, George Mason, wanted to add “maladministration” to the list of impeachable offenses. James Madison objected to that language, for the same reason you just did: " “so vague a term [as maladministration] will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.” So the language was changed to “other high crimes and misdemeanors". which set a standard above “maladministration”, but clearly did not require a crime. Madison said as much when he objected the the term misdemeanors as too vague. Yet it passed and got into the Constitution. Showing, clearly, that crimes are not necessary.
We can also ask Constitutional scholars: "This argument is constitutional nonsense,” Mr. Bowman said. “The almost universal consensus — in Great Britain, in the colonies, in the American states between 1776 and 1787, at the Constitutional Convention and since — has been that criminal conduct is not required for impeachment.”
““They had to go outside the realm of constitutional lawyers and scholars to a criminal defense lawyer to make that argument because no reputable constitutional law expert would do that,”
Hell, even William Barr said: [the president] “is answerable for any abuses of discretion and is ultimately subject to the judgment of Congress through the impeachment process means that the president is not the judge in his own cause."
And, if you get a second, I’ve asked this of you before, and still haven’t gotten an answer, UltraVires: "Just so I understand your position, if President Trump withheld Congressionally approved aid in a blatant attempt to get Ukraine to announce an investigation for purely political motives and then had people lie and refused to cooperate with the investigation or respond to lawful subpoenas, it would still be unimpeachable.
Oh, darn. Looks like the Trump team’s lawyers aren’t very good at interdepartmental coordination:
Long story short: Starr kept referring to the Senate as a court, in contrast with the DOJ which has been arguing that the impeachment is a legislative proceeding, and not a court proceeding. By using this argument, the President officially granted the House Democrats their (correct) argument.
I’ll also note a further, more real world argument.
Let’s say that the President decides on a policy of Christian extremism, blatantly flaunting the 1st Amendment, directing FBI agents to get out in the streets proselytizing, telling the IRS to ignore the tax obligations of anyone who identifies themselves as a Christian, etc.
Congress impeaches and removes the President for violating the Bill of Rights.
Post-removal, the President files a lawsuit against Congress arguing that “Violation of the Bill of Rights” isn’t a crime and he can only be impeached and removed for crimes.
Who here believes that the Supreme Court would overturn the conviction?
If 51% of the House and 2/3rds of the Senate decide they can’t stand you, can somehow tie your conduct to the deliberately vague “high crimes and misdemeanors”, would much prefer working with your VP, and are willing to throw out someone duly elected by the voters and thenown up to that decision with their constituents at the next election, what is the problem here?
If Obama’s tan suits were enough to anger 2/3rds of the senate to a degree that they all agree to put VP Biden in the top spot, and those same 67 senators all thought that their constituents would support such a decision (many of whom voted for Obama in the last election), well isn’t it better for the country that Biden is president at that point? Obviously the country just doesn’t trust people in tan suits.
A new poll just came out that says 75% of Americans want witnesses in the impeachment trial. When was the last time 75% of Americans agreed on anything?! Come on, McConnell. It’s just a basic fact, a trial needs witnesses.
“Congress can’t define “free speech” for First Amendment purposes; if it could, it could censor everyone’s speech just by defining free speech narrowly. The definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” doesn’t depend on federal legislation either. It’s a constitutional category, not a statutory one. And so it’s been understood for a very long time.”
On the more practical side of things, it’s sounding like trading Hunter for Bolton is, indeed, now on the table and likely the only way forward.
It shouldn’t be necessary and is about as useful to the matter as if a public defender decided to bring a clown in to make balloon animals for the jury, but I’d say go for it.
(One might also note that, purportedly, Giuliani is the one who got the goods in Ukraine. If they think that Hunter is guilty, bringing him up, without any evidence with which to hit him and no previous direct questioning, they’ll basically be shooting in the dark and have zero leverage to push him into admitting to anything. As far as actual investigation go, they’re shooting themselves in the foot - and that will probably be pretty obvious when they go to question him.)
Their questions won’t really have anything to do with Hunter. The goal will be to hint at all the nefarious things Joe might have done. They get no mileage from either Hunter or Joe saying “no, I didn’t do that.” They get lots of mileage from Hunter saying “I don’t know” when he’s asked about all the stuff his dad might have done.
