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Banned
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Originally Posted by politicophile
The President is effectively immune from criminal prosecution for as long as he is in office. Thus, he could not be indicted for a crime, much less convicted of it. What I am trying to point out is that there are some crimes for which one can be indicted that one should not be impeached for. This list would include a host of minor offenses. On top of that, some crimes are impeachable offenses but are not indictable. In this category, I would put procedural idiocies such as vetoing every single bill passed by Congress, effectively paralizing the government.
So, what I meant was not that Bush should first be convicted of a crime and then be impeached: I meant that, even if it turns out Bush committed an indictable offense, that does not automatically prove that he has committed an indictable offence.
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Those of us who are convinced that Bush and Cheney deliberately concocted reasons to invade Iraq, knowing that the reasons were contrived, misleading, and inaccurate, and that Iraq posed no serious or imminent military threat to it's neighbors, much less to the U.S., as Bush, Cheney, et al, repeatedly declared, also must accept that neither will face impeachment, or even a vote to investigate grounds for impeachment. This potential could only change, IMO, if control of the house of rep. changed hands in the congressional election that will be held 53 weeks from now, and with a corresponding shift to a democratic majority in the senate.
An impeachment trial would then be possible, if Gerald Ford's 1960 quote, below, still holds true. Bush's public opinion polling would also need to fall to a level at the time of an actual senate trial, to influence 17 or 18 republican senators to vote for conviction on the impeachment charges. We could witness a process similar to the one that Clinton was put through, but I doubt that the senate would muster 67 votes in favor of conviction and removal from office, especially if Rove was still in place to administer a TP "Op".
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http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/...hment_Role.htm
..........There was also considerable debate at the convention in Philadelphia over the definition of impeachable crimes. In the original proposals, the president was to be removed on impeachment and conviction "for mal or corrupt conduct," or for "malpractice or neglect of duty." <b>Later, the wording was changed to "treason, bribery, or corruption," then to "treason or bribery" alone.</b> Contending that "treason or bribery" were too narrow, George Mason proposed adding "mal-administration," but switched to "other high crimes and misdemeanors against the state" when Madison said that "mal-administration" was too broad.<b>A final revision defined impeachable crimes as "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
In the Constitution, the House is given the "sole power of impeachment." To the Senate is given "the sole power to try all impeachments." Impeachments may be brought against "the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States." Conviction is automatically followed by "removal from office."
While the framers very clearly envisaged the occasional necessity of initiating impeachment proceedings, they put in place only a very general framework, leaving many questions open to differences of opinion and many details to be filled in.........
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Quote:
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/...ent_Role.htm#1
....... Definition of Offenses
Another question, the one debated most hotly by members of Congress, defense attorneys, and legal scholars from the first impeachment trial to the most recent trial of President William Clinton, concerns the issue of what exactly is an impeachable offense. The task of definition left to future legislators by the framers has proved perplexing. Treason and bribery, the two constitutionally designated impeachable crimes, were clear cut. But what were "high crimes and misdemeanors?" Were misdemeanors lesser crimes, or merely misconducts? Did a high crime or misdemeanor have to be a violation of written law? Over the years, "high crimes and misdemeanors" have been anything the prosecutors have wanted them to be.<b>In an unsuccessful attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1960, Representative Gerald Ford declared: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."</b> The phrase is the subject of continuing debate, pitting broad constructionists, who view impeachment as a political weapon, against narrow constructionists, who regard impeachment as being limited to offenses indictable at common law.
Narrow constructionists won a major victory when Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase was acquitted in 1805, using as his defense the argument that the charges against him were not based on any indictable offense. President Andrew Johnson won acquittal with a similar defense in 1868. But the first two convictions in the twentieth century, those of Judge Robert Archbald in 1913 and Judge Halsted Ritter in 1936, neither of whom had committed indictable offenses, made it clear that the broad constructionists still carried considerable weight. The debate continued during the 1974 investigation into the conduct of President Nixon, with the staff of the House Judiciary Committee arguing for a broad view of "high crimes and misdemeanors" while Nixon's defense attorneys understandably argued for a narrow view........
.............. William Clinton
On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President William J. Clinton, claiming the president had "willfully corrupted and manipulated the judicial process." The Senate trial began on January 14, 1999, and once again arguments focused on the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors." Falling short of the necessary two-thirds vote on either article of impeachment (Article I, 55 to 45; Article II, 50 to 50), the Senate acquitted President Clinton on February 12, 1999.
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