Impeachment timing
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A lot of insider baseball here:
https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/16/when-is-an-officer-impeached-v/
The House has voted to impeach and has approved an article of impeachment, and Pelosi has even named a team of managers to prosecute the impeachment case. But Pelosi has once again decided to sit on the articles and to not formally notify the Senate that the president has been impeached. This time it might have more substantial consequences.
On the upside, the delay does provide an opportunity for the House to improve its case. The House could adopt additional articles of impeachment or rewrite the one it has already improved. The Speaker could appoint additional managers or remove some who have already been named. The House can spend the time preparing for its prosecution, time that might be particularly valuable since the impeachment itself proceeded on an expedited schedule without hearings.
On the downside, the House's slow process has weakened its own rhetorical framing of the need for impeachment. I thought the House should have impeached Trump immediately after the riot, before the electoral count even resumed. If the president posed an immediate danger to the republic and the Congress, then there was no time to waste. Instead, the House chose to waste time—an entire week—to impeach a president who only had two weeks left in his natural term of office. If you believed that Trump was fomenting an insurrection from the White House, this is not how you would react. There are still good reasons to impeachment and convict the president, but the House needs to take care in how it explains the case in order to deemphasize the immediate threat and emphasize the long-term principle.
More significantly, the House risks handing the Trump defense team unnecessary legal arguments. It will already be difficult to persuade two-thirds of the senators that a former president can be put on trial and convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. I believe that the House can impeach a former president and that the Senate can try a former president, but the textual case is stronger for the latter than the former.
But if you are of the view that the Senate can try all constitutionally valid impeachments, even when the officer has left the office, but an impeachment is only constitutionally valid when the impeached individual is a current officer, then the timing of the impeachment matters. Some of what Judge Luttig has written suggests that he is of this view. This might be the one circumstance in which, under the federal constitution, the question of when an officer is impeached has actual constitutional consequences.
If you take that possibility seriously—and some senators might—then it matters a great deal when exactly the House used its impeachment power to formally impeach Trump such that it can validly authorize the Senate to hold an impeachment trial. As I observed in the earlier posts, the traditional understanding of the impeachment power in the United States up until the early twentieth century was that the "impeachment" occurs when an authorized member of the lower chamber appears on the floor of the upper chamber and "impeaches" an officer by formally leveling an accusation and demanding a trial. Starting in 1912, the House has taken the view that the "impeachment" occurs when the House votes to adopt a resolution of impeachment. Under the modern view, Trump has already been impeached, and so there should be no question about whether the Senate can start a trial whenever the House gets around to exhibiting articles of impeachment. Under the traditional view, Trump has not yet been impeached and will not be impeached until the House formally notifies the Senate.
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All theater.
Want to absolutely screw up Biden 's agenda? Throw an impeachment trial on the Senate floor.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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I think that's the way it should be. It's serious business and should be treated as such.
Not this silliness we've seen in the last few years.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@george-k said in Impeachment timing:
@jolly said in Impeachment timing:
It's serious business and should be treated as such.
You can bet that it won't be. What do you think the odds are that, if/when the GOP takes the House they won't impeach Biden?
Ukraine, you know....
China, you know...
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@george-k said in Impeachment timing:
@jolly I found it interesting that, until 1912, the president was not considered impeached until the articles had been delivered to the Senate floor.
That makes sense. Kind of like the courts system. Until the charge is formal, etc. it is not official.
I think the Democrats are starting to realize that maybe it is okay just to have President Trump leave office in kind of a "disgrace". The impeachment will, I think, just cause problems that nobody wants.
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Can a President be impeached for things that he did prior to becoming President?
Even if he were a private citizen?
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@taiwan_girl said in Impeachment timing:
Can a President be impeached for things that he did prior to becoming President?
Even if he were a private citizen?
The better question is whether a President can be impeached for things they did as VP...
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I think you should do away with Presidents. They're a bloody liability.
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@lufins-dad said in Impeachment timing:
The better question is whether a President can be impeached for things they did as VP.
AFAICT, The Constitution doesn't specify "High crimes and misdemeanors" while in office.
"“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.”"
I think this means whatever the House of Representatives wants it to mean.
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Now, Senate Republicans are also, apparently, beginning to realize the issues involved in the impeachment of a former president. They are reportedly adopting the position that an ex-president cannot be impeached. The idea is that impeachment is the Constitution's method for removing a president found guilty of a certain set of offenses -- "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." The important thing is that it is a method for removal, and you cannot remove a president who has already left office.
Democrats argue that there can still be an impeachment trial for former President Trump because the Constitution says that a convicted president can also be disqualified from holding "any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States" -- that is, any federal office, like the presidency or member of Congress. But here is the thing: The Constitution says that "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." Who did the framers mean when they referred to "the president"? Did they mean the President of the United States? There's only one of them at a time. Or did they mean anyone who has served as president? It seems obvious they meant the president in office. The text of the Constitution is pretty clear: Impeachment is for the serving president. Donald Trump is not the president now.
By the way, The Speaker still has not delivered articles of impeachment to the Senate.
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Assuming the scenario that 17 GOP senators will never convict what is the benefit of going through with this. Can someone explain the rationale in my scenario? Also assuming same how does this tie to the Unity vision and mission statement?
To be clear this is not a rhetorical question.
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@loki said in Impeachment timing:
Assuming the scenario that 17 GOP senators will never convict what is the benefit of going through with this. Can someone explain the rationale in my scenario? Also assuming same how does this tie to the Unity vision and mission statement?
This is the question what was asked in January. No one, afaik, came up with a satisfactory answer, other than, "It was cathartic, sort of like taking a huge dump."
"Unity?" Fuggheddabodit!
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@loki said in Impeachment timing:
Assuming the scenario that 17 GOP senators will never convict what is the benefit of going through with this. Can someone explain the rationale in my scenario? Also assuming same how does this tie to the Unity vision and mission statement?
To be clear this is not a rhetorical question.
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Throwing red meat to the rabid masses on both sides.
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Sleight of Hand... Look at my assistant in the lingerie while I tie this mirror up with fishing line....
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Teach a lesson to any outsider that they will utterly destroy you if you don’t play the game.
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Circus Maximus
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@george-k said in Impeachment timing:
@loki said in Impeachment timing:
Assuming the scenario that 17 GOP senators will never convict what is the benefit of going through with this. Can someone explain the rationale in my scenario? Also assuming same how does this tie to the Unity vision and mission statement?
This is the question what was asked in January. No one, afaik, came up with a satisfactory answer, other than, "It was cathartic, sort of like taking a huge dump."
"Unity?" Fuggheddabodit!
So unity falls apart on the first flight. I think Biden has used the word too many times to duck this.
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