We’ve discussed this ad nauseam. McConnell has no role in bringing the vote to the floor. It would be the Chief Justice of the United States (if the Prez or VP is on trial) or the VP (if anyone else).
You are correct. Cite would be the Senate Rules on Impeachment Trials.
NO! The Senate Majority has no more power than any other senator during the trial.
The 2/3 of the Senate needed to convict and remove the President from office “hurdle” is one that seems almost insurmountable.
Even back when Clinton was on trial the Senate vote was 50/50. All 45 Democrats voted against conviction and they were joined by five Republicans. In other words, it wasn’t even close. The vote was 17 Senators short of conviction.
Today there are only 47 Democrats in the Senate, meaning that 20 Republican Senators would have to cross the aisle and that’s just not going to happen in today’s hyper-partisan political climate.
Which is strange considering many of those Senators voted to convict Walter Nixon of effectively the same thing (lying to a grand jury, Articles I and II).
cf. Clinton’s Article of Impeachment I
It raises interesting questions
Are Senators loathe to convict the President on minor breaches of the law despite convicting judges of the same thing? Or as Henry Hyde put it
Were the Democratic Senators voting for political reasons rather than on the facts of the case? But then explain the 10 Pubs that voted for acquittal on the perjury charge.
Was it a successful obfuscation by Slick Willie that he was impeached for getting a blowjob so that most Americans never realized that it was about perjury and the Senate went the way of popular opinion? (after all their only job is to get re-elected)
[Moderating]
Again, references specifically to the current political situation are off-topic for this thread and this forum. Any further such will receive a Warning.
For those interested, the discussion of the powers the Senate Majority Leader may or may not have in an impeachment trial is in page 2 and 3 of this thread.
ETA: I hope it’s not junior modding or violating Chronos’ note to redirect the hijack to the appropriate thread. If it is, mods feel free to cornfield this post.
Note that in 1868, the House voted twice to impeach Andrew Johnson. They voted on 9 articles of impeachment on March 2 and two articles of impeachment on March 3. On May 16, the Senate voted to acquit on one article and on May 26 it voted to acquit on two other articles. Then on May 26 it voted to adjourn “as a court of impeachment” and did not vote on the remaining articles.
There was a legion of right-wing political commentators, including most of the ones who are still on the air and in print today, who pounded the point day and night that Bill Clinton was a perjurer, a liar, a justice obstructor and every other thing. (They also pointed out he was a sinner, but the voters had pretty much heard all that as early as 1992.)
I think the proper way to phrase it is to say, “most Americans didn’t believe committing perjury about a blow job rose to the level of an impeachable offense.”
So whether or not perjury is impeachable depends on what you’re lying about? Or is it that conviction depends on public opinion and not the facts of the case with prior precedent?
Remember Judge Nixon was convicted overwhelmingly by many of those Senators for lying to a grand jury about talking to DA Paul Holmes about a case Nixon’s friend was involved in. So the point still remains: is the level of crime needed for a conviction higher for the President than other civil officers? Recent history would indicate yes.
In a word, yes. Just like there’s a difference between dropping conventional bombs all over Tokyo during World War II, and dropping a single nuclear bomb over Hiroshima.
But now we’re turning from General Questions into something better suited for Great Debates.
Would he have a choice if the House impeaches? I thought the Senate vote was obligatory at that point.
Sorry guys- i didn’t read far enough to realize the question was answered repeatedly.
Mea culpa.
I’m going to also guess that (a) a judge serves for life, so this is not something where “oh well, he’ll be gone next year regardless” and (b) judges deal with the law 100% day in day out, not political stuff, so he really ought to have known what not to do in his line of work and (c) it’s not as earth-shattering an upset to the political system to fire a judge as to fire a president.
Remember that Johnson apparently escaped impeachment by 1 vote; and supposedly that put an end to the concept of impeachment as a political tool (a sort of election do-over) rather than the means of dealing with offenses.
Point A is a good point. I’m already hearing some reaction to the impeachment investigation of Trump that is effectively “let the voters decide”.
Yes to both of the questions in your first paragraph. It isn’t necessary for a President to be found to have committed a criminal offense in order to be impeached. And nobody would argue that any President who has committed any crime whatsoever needs to be impeached. It’s a political decision, and it’s appropriate for public opinion to be taken into consideration.
In Clinton’s case, he did perjure himself, but it was in front of a grand jury that should never have been convened in the first place. His political enemies made up some imagined crimes and then used the “investigation” thereof to engage in a massive fishing trip looking for something they could use as an excuse to impeach.The blowjob was the best they could come up with. It would have been a huge miscarriage of justice to remove him from office over that. The situations of Nixon and Trump are not remotely comparable, because they did actually commit serious crimes.
It has been explained to you in multiple threads that the Walter Nixon case is not remotely analogous to any Presidential impeachment. nixon had already been indicted and convicted and was in prison when he was impeached. It would have been pretty extraordinary if he* hadn’t* been impeached. I’m not sure why you keep trying to pretend this is some sort of relevant precedent.
And Federal judges are merely appointed, while Presidents are elected by the people. It’s certainly appropriate for the bar to be much higher for Presidential impeachment, which effectively overturns the result of an election.
Because the Articles of Impeachments were effectively the same (perjury to a grand jury about a personal nature) for both so it is a relevant precedent. IF people want to argue that the trial of a President is somehow political in nature rather than a equitable evaluation of the facts (viz, holding Presidents and judges to the same standards) then I am perfectly fine with that - but then that side can’t complain about how the OTHER side is politicizing the trial of their President. And I’ll say it again, Nixon was acquitted of the charge of being imprisoned and the Senate made it clear being imprisioned was irrelevant to the conviction.
And you are mistaken I believe. The comparison of perjury charges you may be thinking about is Harry Claiborne. He was convicted of perjury but in reality it was about tax evasion and perjury was the technical charge.
I’m sure he could still do an infrastructure week…
The Chief Justice (thanks for getting the title right, BTW) only presides if the President is on trial. Art. I, Sec. 3, cl. 6.
If the VP is on trial, things could get a little dicey, because the VP is President of the Senate and could insist on presiding over his own trial. I’m sure an overwhelming majority of the senators would insist that the President pro tem or some other officer preside, under the longstanding legal principle that no man should be the judge of his own case, and because duh. For more: https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=469027001114068023102122070071123018103005090054068023064127011110067084100068068124042114059014058028043067114120097081071070050058063013093103100020123115005023106073083086004090102105008118091111064008092025031098004103026009110075019064091017103115&EXT=pdf
EXCEPT the Senate Rules on Impeachment (Rule IV specifically) state the the CJOTUS presides over the trial of the Vice President. If the issue were forced by the VP then I assume a Constitutional amendment would pass Congress and 3/4 of the states before SCOTUS could hear arguments.
Rule IV only has the CJ presiding over a Senate trial for a VP “upon whom the powers and duties of the President shall have devolved,” not if he or she is simply serving as VP: impeachment | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Also, there are allowances in Parliamentary Law that the presiding officer does not always preside. For example if the presiding officer wishes to debate they must have another preside. It is not a stretch to hold that a presiding office cannot preside over their own trial and I believe Ballin would allow for SCOTUS to decide Senate Rule IV on Impeachments is constitutional.