Has President Trump been impeached? No!
As a college professor teaching the Constitution for 40 years, I am disturbed when those in power demonstrate constitutional illiteracy. Such is the time in which we live.
Impeachment means an accusation. Three presidents — Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton — were impeached (accused); none was removed from office in a subsequent Senate trial. Nixon removed himself by resigning, and the other two continued in office, filling their terms.
The House alone formulates the charges (Art. I, Sec. 2, Cla. 5), which must be treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors (Art. II, Sec. 4). Constitutionally, no other charges are impeachable. The House cannot make up any offense that is not clearly one of these as “obstruction of justice” or “obstruction of Congress.” “The Senate has the sole power to try all Impeachments” and the Chief Justice presides (Art. I Sec. 3, Cla. 6). The Senate cannot add to the list of charges … constitutionally simple and practiced the last 231 years — until now.
If House leadership chooses to discontinue the impeachment process by not passing its listed charges to the Senate — even after a positive vote on the charges was taken — it has not finished its process. In effect, Trump has not been charged, because the House is the only body constitutionally allowed to bring charges. The accused cannot be said to have been impeached. The charges are effectively dropped. The moment that House leadership passes the baton to the Senate, Trump will join the others aforementioned as having been accused (impeached) and will finish his term in office unless the Senate votes to remove him, which has never happened to any president. It would be unconstitutional for the Senate to go into House chambers and, in effect, take the impeachment baton from them.
Nancy Pelosi, had no authority to turn the accusation process, normally done by the whole House, into the appearance of a trial in two House committees — which she did. It confused voters: “If tried and convicted, why is Trump still president?”
The founders wanted one body to accuse and a separate body to try. Any crime by a president is a crime against the people, thus the larger-numbered and more frequently elected House should be the one listing the accusations. This is why the House of Representative has “sole Power of Impeachment” (Art. 1, Sec.2, Cla. 5), meaning sole power to initiate the accusing process.
Why was the House purposely forbidden from doing more than accuse? Alexander Hamilton, the frequently cited founder of the Democratic Party, understood the greater emotion and passions of this body, which made it the perfect body to originate the complaints but not to deliberate them. He wrote in Federalist Paper No. 65 that they would be “too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny” — think Chairmen Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler. Remember that Democratic leaders were calling for the impeachment of Trump before he was inaugurated and have thereafter unsuccessfully searched for a crime.
Hamilton prophetically continued, “In such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.” Remember that in the House “trial,” the president, his lawyers, and Republican colleagues were denied due process and even calling witnesses.
Why was the Senate, given six-year terms rather than two and then elected by their state legislature, thought by the Constitutional Convention to be “the most fit depositary of this important trust?” Because, Hamilton explained, it was “least hasty in condemning” and “will be most inclined to allow due weight to the arguments which may be supposed to have produced it.”
Hamilton asked: “Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel CONFIDENCE ENOUGH IN ITS OWN SITUATION, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an INDIVIDUAL accused, and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?” As the Senate is not so emotionally charged as is the more frequently elected House, reason can prevail. Notice that the Democrats cannot wait 10 months for the people to vote again, so emotionally charged are they as exemplified by Democratic Majority Whip James Clyburn reportedly saying, “Give the President a fair trial, then hang him.”
Still, Hamilton warned, “it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction [political party] will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, not satisfied with the two House charges — neither being a crime or listed in the Constitution as impeachable offenses — remains in search of a crime, forever demanding more witnesses. Even if one were found, the Senate could not constitutionally add to the list of accusations given it by the House.
Again, if House leadership chooses to discontinue the impeachment process by not passing its charges to the Senate — even after a positive vote on the charges was taken — it has not finished its process. The charges are in effect dropped by the only body constitutionally empowered to bring charges. It has stopped the process, and the accused — President Trump — cannot be said to have been impeached because the charges were dropped.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
How to submit an article, guest opinion piece, or letter to the editor to The Independent
Do you have something to say? Want your voice to be heard by thousands of readers? Send The Independent your letter to the editor or guest opinion piece. All submissions will be considered for publication by our editorial staff. If your letter or editorial is accepted, it will run on suindependent.com, and we’ll promote it through all of our social media channels. We may even decide to include it in our monthly print edition. Just follow our simple submission guidelines and make your voice heard:
—Submissions should be between 300 and 1,500 words.
—Submissions must be sent to editor@infowest.com as a .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf file.
—The subject line of the email containing your submission should read “Letter to the editor.”
—Attach your name to both the email and the document file (we don’t run anonymous letters).
—If you have a photo or image you’d like us to use and it’s in .jpg format, at least 1200 X 754 pixels large, and your intellectual property (you own the copyright), feel free to attach it as well, though we reserve the right to choose a different image.
—If you are on Twitter and would like a shout-out when your piece or letter is published, include that in your correspondence and we’ll give you a mention at the time of publication.
Thank god that you bullsh!t artists are a dying breed.
Trump* was impeached by the House on Dec. 18, 2019.
The Constitution did its job, you quack. Tough crap if you don’t like it.