Off The Editor’s Desk – 10-30-2019
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Impeachment explained!
I came across a very interesting piece about the impeachment process that I would like to reprint for your information. Ella Nilsen, Li Zhou, and Matthew Yglesias wrote the article. They work for Vox News, which “is a general interest news site for the 21st Century. Its mission is simple, explain the news. This article was first released on September 28, 2019.
“For the fourth time ever in American history, the House of Representatives has launched an impeachment inquiry into a sitting president.
“Nancy Pelosi officially announced the House’s plans to dial up its investigations into President Donald Trump after the president pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business ties of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, and allegedly withheld federal military aid from Ukraine in order to make it happen.
“Impeachment technically refers to a vote by the US House of Representatives to charge a high-ranking government officer with misconduct and begin the process of removing him or her from office. All kinds of officials can be impeached, and in practice the bulk of impeachment proceedings (15 out of 19) have been directed at federal judges.
“But what most people mean when they talk about impeachment is the overall process of removing a president from office. The Constitution says a president may be impeached and removed over charges it describes as ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’
“This is a process that is spelled out in the United States Constitution, it requires a majority vote of the House to impeach followed by a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict and remove, but there aren’t a lot of details provided as to exactly how it needs to work or what constitutes an impeachable offense. It’s fundamentally a political process built on the fly by political actors and only rarely used over the course of American history.
“But critically, even though impeachment is political, it is universally understood to be something akin to a judicial process. In parliamentary systems, by contrast, it’s broadly understood that it’s appropriate and indeed necessary for the legislature to topple a prime minister over policy disagreements. Not every disagreement necessarily leads immediately to a government collapse or a vote of no confidence, but prompting a collapse is considered a perfectly appropriate thing for a parliament to do.
“Impeachment isn’t like that. It’s meant to be a punishment for some kind of wrongdoing, ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ is not defined in the Constitution in any way but it’s something other than a basic disagreement about policy or legislation.
“If members of the House believe the president has committed something that falls into one of the categories of ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,’ they have the ability to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. In modern times, formal inquiries were launched against two presidents, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Nixon ultimately resigned before the full House voted on impeachment and the Senate acquitted Clinton.
“Generally, the opening of the official inquiry marks one of the first steps in the impeachment process and consists of House lawmakers gathering evidence, subpoenaing witnesses, and reviewing information about the president. It usually begins in the House Judiciary Committee. Interestingly, the chair of that committee, Jerry Nadler, has insisted the House is already undergoing an official inquiry. But the big difference is that this process is now officially sanctioned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Once House lawmakers’ investigation is complete, we don’t yet know when that will be, they can decide whether or not to recommend articles of impeachment, or charges to be specifically brought against the president. The house Judiciary Committee would vote on these charges and then advance them to a vote by the full House. The House then decides if it officially wants to charge the president on these counts, a move that requires a simple majority to pass.
“If those articles pass or those charges are brought forth, the Senate can hold a trial to decide if they want to convict or acquit the president. It is also possible, however, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will decline to do anything about those charges.
“To convict the president and remove him from office, two-thirds of Senators, or 67 of them, would have to vote to do it. Thus far, the House has impeached two sitting presidents but the Senate has not convicted either of them.
“Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both charged with articles of impeachment but acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned before the House had the opportunity to charge him.
“All three presidents faced impeachment for very different reasons. Johnson was charged with 11 articles of impeachment that centered on his firing of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in 1868 and ongoing disagreements he had with Congressional Republicans over Civil War Reconstruction. (Interestingly, one of the articles of impeachment also called out Johnson for delivering remarks, ‘with a loud voice, certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues,’ and argued that his behavior was unbecoming of a president.)
Clinton, meanwhile, was charged with two articles of impeachment citing obstruction of justice and perjury in 1998. These charges followed testimony he had given when he claimed he had not had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a statement he later changed.
“In Nixon’s case, the House began an impeachment inquiry in 1974 and the Judiciary Committee ultimately approved three articles of impeachment that focused on the president’s obstruction of the Watergate investigation. After the committee passed the articles, Nixon resigned before they could be considered by the full House.
“Across the impeachment inquires that have been launched into presidents in the past, a common thread has been concern about the abuse of executive power. Johnson was seen as violating the Tenure of Office Act (a measure that has since seen repealed) and ignoring Congress when he fired Stanton. Clinton was seen as obstructing justice in his conduct related to the Lewinsky investigation. Nixon was seen as misusing government resources for his own political gain.
Now. “The big thing that changed was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got on board. She previously viewed impeachment as something that could hurt vulnerable moderate Democrats.”
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton