The Impeachment Trifecta

Below, I posted an article from the far right calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush, and a response/call to arms from a great friend of this site.

Now it is my plan to bore you to tears with a discussion of the law of impeachment.

The founding fathers, gotta love ‘em. We had that whole ugly 3/5ths compromise thing, and let’s face it folks, they weren’t really into specifics when they crafted some of those wonderful phrases. The whole “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble” could have been fleshed out a bit, and my high school grammar teacher will NEVER forgive them for “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Dependent clause, independent clause, who knows?

But anyway, that is another story for another time.

My focus is on that awkward bit of phrasing in Article Two, Section 4: 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.

Hmm, “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors?” Thanks for the help there, guys!

We can probably trace that back to James Madison and George Mason (isn’t he the guy that usually loses by 50 to Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament?). The records indicate that while Madison was fine with treason and bribery terms, he thought that didn’t go far enough. This constitution, unlike the English parliamentary system, established a government for a set number of years, one that was not subject to votes of no confidence. So therefore, something beyond treason and bribery was necessary.

It appears that Madison crafted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Thanks for that, Jim-really. OK, so you knew what it meant then? Could you have left us a cheat sheet?

The term “High crimes” appears to mean just that, SERIOUS criminal offenses, while the term “misdemeanors” does not refer to what a misdemeanor is today (taking a leak on someone’s yard in Wrigleyville). It refers to a serious breach of the expected level of behavior, such as negligence well beyond being just bad in the performance of official duties or official corruption.

The impeachment power granted by the constitution has been applied twice against a sitting president, and to my mind misapplied both times. Once was against a sad, sorry president, Andrew Johnson, who had no business being where he was and the other the shameless political attack against Bill Clinton because of his libido and because people liked him! Richard Nixon would have been impeached, for very legitimate reasons, had he not resigned.

While there is no agreed-upon standard, scholars generally break down the reasons for impeachment into 1) serious criminal violations, 2) abuses of authority and 3) the most problematic, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper No. 65, a "violation of public trust."

I am a strong Hamiltonian on this one. Can one imagine a greater violation of the “public trust” than waging war on false pretenses? But anyway, back to the boring stuff.

In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee stated that impeachment was not limited criminal law violations. The committee used an old English definition of “an injury to the state or system of government” and invoked the legendary Justice Story's use of "offenses of a political character."

Have we not seen, if not high crimes (Iraq?) then certainly “misdemeanors” from this administration? This president stood by and WATCHED A CITY DIE. Think about that, the head of our “federal union” did NOTHING while New Orleans, where Benjamin Butler had “Our Federal Union, It Must Be Preserved” carved into the base of Andrew Jackson’s statue during the Civil War, died.

A misdemeanor? If I could, I would ask 18th-century CONSERVATIVE Edmund Burke about this administration, as he once said that the official should be judged "not upon the niceties of a narrow jurisprudence, but upon the enlarged and solid principles of morality."

Hmmm..principles of morality…..