"Impeachment Was Meant to Be an Extraordinary Remedy" - Video

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The Heritage Fountain sat down with Senator Cruz on 17 December 2019, to discuss whether the Trump impeachment had been a legitimate process or only a partisan weapon. It is paramount that a presidential impeachment action be fair and legitimate, with partisanship minimized.

 

What do Americans need to know? How will the Senate trial unfold? Watch the discussion.

 

America’s Founders did not provide for the use of impeachment as a partisan political weapon or as a response by Congress to a President’s policies with which they disagree. Impeachment is a remedy for serious misconduct by the President and other federal officials which renders that individual unfit for the office they hold. 

 

“Impeachment was meant to be an extraordinary remedy.”

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUq3AtM-oB8

 

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Additional Information

 

Impeachment in the United States is the process by which a legislature (usually in the form of the lower house) brings charges against a civil officer of government for crimes alleged to have been committed, analogous to the bringing of an indictment by a grand jury. Impeachment may occur at the federal level or the state level. The federal House of Representatives can impeach federal officials, including the president, and each state’s legislature can impeach state officials, including the governor, in accordance with their respective federal or state constitution.

 

Most impeachments have concerned alleged crimes committed while in office, though there have been a few cases in which officials have been impeached and subsequently convicted for crimes committed prior to taking office. The impeached official remains in office until a trial is held. That trial, and their removal from office if convicted, is separate from the act of impeachment itself.

 

In impeachment proceedings, the defendant does not risk forfeiture of life, liberty or property. According to the Constitution, the only penalties the defendant will suffer upon conviction is their removal from office, and permanent disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

 

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Constitutional provisions

 

According to the U.S. Senate: “If a federal official commits a crime or otherwise acts improperly, the House of Representatives may impeach — formally charge — that official. If the official is subsequently convicted in a Senate impeachment trial, they are removed from office.”

 

There are several provisions in the United States Constitution relating to impeachment:

 

Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 provides:

 

The House of Representatives … shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

 

Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:

 

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.

 

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party [i.e. Individual] convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Article II, Section 2 provides:

 

[The President] … shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

 

Article II, Section 4 provides:

 

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

 

Impeachable offenses: “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”

 

The Constitution limits grounds of impeachment to “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. The precise meaning of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not defined in the Constitution itself.

 

The notion that only criminal conduct can constitute sufficient grounds for impeachment does not comport with either the views of the founders or with historical practice. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, described impeachable offenses as arising from “the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Such offenses were “political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” According to this reasoning, impeachable conduct could include behavior which violates an official’s duty to the country, even if such conduct is not necessarily a prosecutable offense. Indeed, in the past both houses of Congress have given the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” a broad reading, finding impeachable offenses need not be limited to criminal conduct.

 

The purposes underlying the impeachment process also indicate that non-criminal activity may constitute sufficient grounds for impeachment. The purpose of impeachment is not to inflict personal punishment for criminal activity. Instead, impeachment is a “remedial” tool; it serves to effectively “maintain constitutional government” by removing individuals unfit for office. Grounds for impeachment include abuse of the particular powers of a government office or a violation of the “public trust” — conduct that is unlikely to be barred via statute.

 

The standard of proof required for impeachment and conviction is also left to the discretion of individual Representatives (articles of impeachment) and Senators (conviction of impeachment), respectively. Defendants have argued that impeachment trials are in the nature of criminal proceedings, with convictions carrying grave consequences for the accused, and that therefore proof beyond a reasonable doubt should be the applicable standard. House Managers have argued that a lower standard would be appropriate to better serve the purpose of defending the community against abuse of power, since the defendant does not risk forfeiture of life, liberty or property, for which the reasonable doubt standard was set.

 

Congressional materials have cautioned that the grounds for impeachment “do not all fit neatly and logically into categories” because the remedy of impeachment is intended to “reach a broad variety of conduct by officers that is both serious and incompatible with the duties of the office”. Congress has identified three general types of conduct that constitute grounds for impeachment, although these categories should not be understood as exhaustive:

 

(1) improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office;
(2) behavior incompatible with the function and purpose of the office; and
(3) misusing the office for an improper purpose or for personal gain.

 

Conversely, not all criminal conduct is impeachable: in 1974, the Judiciary Committee rejected an article of impeachment against President Nixon which alleged he committed tax fraud, primarily because that “related to the President’s private conduct, not to an abuse of his authority as President.”

 

Several commentators have suggested that Congress alone may decide for itself what constitutes a “high Crime or Misdemeanor”, especially since the Supreme Court decided in Nixon v. United States that it did not have the authority to determine whether the Senate properly “tried” a defendant. In 1970, then-House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford defined the criterion as he saw it: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

 

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Since the inception of the United States Constitution, 19 impeachments have been voted on by the House:

No official has been charged with treason.

 

In 1797, Senator Blount was impeached for assisting Britain in capturing Spanish territory. 
In 1862, Judge Humphries was impeached and convicted for siding with the Confederacy and taking a position as a Confederate judge during the Civil War.

 

Three officials have been charged with bribery. Of those, two proceeded to trial and were removed from office.

 

Judge Archibald
Judge Hastings
Secretary Belknap (resigned prior to trial)

 

The remaining charges against the other 12 officials all fall under the category of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

In drawing up articles of impeachment, the House has placed little emphasis on criminal conduct. Less than one-third of the articles adopted by the House have explicitly charged the violation of a criminal statute or used the word “criminal” or “crime” to describe the conduct alleged. Officials have been impeached and removed for drunkenness, biased decision-making or inducing parties to enter financial transactions, none of which is specifically criminal. Two of the articles against President Andrew Johnson were based on rude speech that reflected badly on the office: President Andrew Johnson had made “harangues” criticizing the Congress and questioning its legislative authority, refusing to follow laws and diverting funds allocated in an army appropriations act, each of which brought the presidency “into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace”. 

 

A number of individuals have been impeached for behavior incompatible with the nature of the office they hold. Some impeachments have addressed, at least in part, conduct before the individuals assumed their positions: for example, Article IV against Judge Thomas Porteous related to false statements to the FBI and Senate in connection with his nomination and confirmation to the court.

 

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From Wikipedia…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States

 

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