It’s Highly Unlikely but Just in Case: Here’s Impeachment 101
Saturday, July 14, 2007 at 11:03 am
- 26 Comments
Article 2, Sec. 4, of the U.S. Constitution says:
“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.”
About 15 House Democrats, led by Ohioan Dennis Kucinich (who is also a presidential candidate) and including Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, are sponsoring a resolution to start impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney. Esteemed colleague Abdi Aynte’s interview with Ellison about the impeachment is here.
The idea seems unlikely to go far. Ellison’s spokester, Rick Jauert, conceded as much, telling the Associated Press that Ellison “has no illusions that this is going anywhere and that’s fine. We’ve got more important things to do that affect people’s daily lives.”
Kucinich has not specified which of Cheney’s many controversial actions he considers to be high crimes and misdemeanors. House Judiciary Chair John Conyers hasn’t committed to holding hearings on impeachment (although he did say on the George Stephanopoulos program July 8 that growing support for impeachment might encourage Bush to be more forthcoming about various matters he is stonewalling).
Still, the idea itself is sensational. Bill Moyers devoted his latest “Bill Moyers Journal” to it. And every development will be covered. So it seems worth reviewing the course outline for Impeachment 101 with these four points to remember:
more inside
1. Be careful of your terminology. The word “impeachment” is often used, incorrectly, to refer to the removal of an office holder. But (as Art. 2, Sec. 4 indicates) you have to be impeached before you can go on trial for your high crimes. And you have to be convicted before you lose your job. Bill Clinton was impeached, but not convicted and therefore served out his term.
Article 1, section 2, Clause 5:
“The House of Representatives… shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”
Translation: impeachment happens in the House, requires a majority vote, but is the equivalent only of indictment in a criminal court.
Article 1, Sec. 3: Clause 6:
“The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments… 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.”
Translation: The trial occurs in the Senate, but requires a two-thirds vote to convict. For Cheney to be removed from office, all of the Democrats plus one third of the Republican senators would have to agree to remove him from office. One is never supposed to say “never,” but this is unlikely. No Democratic senator voted for any of the articles of impeachment against Clinton.
2. The term “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” has never been precisely defined. As a practical matter, any article of impeachment that obtained enough votes for conviction would be adequate to turn an officeholder into a former officeholder (although the Constitution also specifies that losing the job and being disqualified from holding any future federal “office of honor, Trust or Profit”) is the only punishment.
Anyway, the chances are slim to none that the Supreme Court would nullify an impeachment on the grounds that the crime wasn’t high enough.
You may not believe this (no one ever does the first time they hear it) but the crime for which President Andrew Johnson was impeached, and came within one vote of being convicted, was firing a member of his cabinet after Congress had passed a blatantly unconstitutional law
forbidding the president to fire any of his appointees without congressional approval.
3. Impeachment is very rare. In all of U.S. history there have been only 16 federal officials impeached, including two presidents, a senator, a cabinet member, a Supreme Court justice and 11 judges of lower federal courts. Only seven cases resulted in a conviction by the Senate and removal from office, all of them involving the lower court judges.
President Richard Nixon is often mistakenly included on the list of impeached presidents, but he resigned before impeachment came to a vote in the full House.
4. No vice president has been removed or impeached. The closest we can come to vice presidential impeachment cases are:
- Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson’s vice president, got away with murder — the killing of Alexander Hamilton in a New Jersey duel — committed while Burr was vice president. But he stayed out of New Jersey, was never tried for the crime and no effort was made to impeach him. Burr subsequently went on trial (before the Supreme Court, no less) for treason. But this was after his vice presidency, and he was acquitted.
- Schuyler Colfax, vice president for two full terms under President Ulysses S. Grant, was implicated in the same financial corruption scandal that tarnished Grant’s reputation. Colfax did apparently profit corruptly from the case. A bill of impeachment against Colfax failed in a party-line vote, in part because Colfax’s term was almost over. Impeachment scholar Michael Gerhardt of North Carolina State University Law School says that among the reasons the Cheney impeachment idea is unlikely to get traction is that he has just a year and a half to go in his term, and impeachment is usually a long, slow process.
- Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s vice president, resigned his office and pleaded no contest to corruption charges stemming from his pre-vice presidential work in Maryland.
Although it wasn’t an impeachment, the Agnew case might have a slight whiff of the Cheney case about it. The investigation of Agnew’s crimes were coming to a head as the Watergate scandal was building against Nixon. Getting Agnew safely out of the vice presidency in case Nixon faced impeachment was surely a factor that added urgency, to spare the nation the crisis of having the president and vice president simultaneously under clouds.
In the Cheney case, it works a bit differently. Many who want to impeach Cheney would also like to impeach President Bush. (Ellison told Aynte that he isn’t ruling that in or out.) But removing Bush while Cheney was next in line would strike the Cheney impeachers as unappealing. So, going after Cheney first…
By the way, if Cheney was impeached, the very modern (ratified in 1967, responding to the JFK assassination) 25th Amendment would authorize President Bush to nominate a new VP, subject to confirmation by a majority of both houses of Congress. If you enjoy contemplating a series of mind-bending what-ifs, start thinking about that one.
Two final Constitutional quirks worth mentioning:
- Although the chief justice is required to preside over presidential impeachment trials, the trial of lesser officials is refereed by the presiding officer of the Senate. The vice president normally has first claim on that assignment.
Professor Gerhardt says Senate rules provide for the Senate’s president pro tem to take over that job; he doesn’t believe Cheney would try to claim the right to preside over his own trial; and if Cheney tried, a majority of senators would surely insist otherwise, the professor believes.
- In light of the recent Scooter Libby commutation, this final, seldom-mentioned clause: Article 2 of our sometimes very prescient Constitution gives the president the “power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT.
26 Comments
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
Impeach Cheney The impeachment of Cheney is what the whole appalling Bush Era has been building towards—it is the fate of our nation. It’s what the Founders would expect us to do given Cheney’s intentional crimes and absurd constitutional “arguments” supposedly justifying why the executive branch can dispense with the rule of law in instance after instance.
The country is now aware that the Bush administration is a cesspool of lawbreaking. Many are aware or suspect that Cheney is behind all of it, which is why his approval rating is around 12%. Many may not be aware that Cheney is the de-facto “president”—not elected to that position, of course, but exercising it nevertheless.
Knowing what we now know, if we do not place Cheney’s executive branch on solemn trial before the nation for its decision to ignore the rule of law, then the constitution and our view of our government as one of laws and not men wil have suffered a grievous, irreparable blow. Intelligent people will know that our constitutional system utterly failed us and there would no earthly reason to have confidence in it again.
The impeachment of Cheney could begin to unify this country, which has been bitterly and intentionally divided by Bushco. It would allow us all to focus on what has been undertaken in secret by this band of lawbreakers. It would allow the malignant tumor within the executive branch to be at least examined, if not excised. And with the final vote, it would show whether the Repub party stands with the constitution as we have historically understood it, or with the new version of the lawless “primary executive” as Cheneyism clearly envsions it.
Shouldn’t the citizens get to know whether the Repubs side with Cheney and his constitutional depredations, or with the republic?
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
ok…tell us parthian..what laws has cheney broken? what treason has he committed? what high crimes… what misdemeanors……you dont think that Slick Willie polarized the country?…willingly?….an impeachment would further split the country….which would be a good thing..Good (us) verses Evil.(the looney left? Cheney has done what is neccesary to keep us secure…..if left up to the panty waist Demoncrats wewould all be toast…… Oh I cannot wait for Hillary to run the show…it will be hilarious keeping up with her corruption
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
Forget impeachment for second …but this is highly scholarly research.
Thanks Eric for shedding some light on an often murky issue.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 9:24 am
We agree then… “an impeachment would further split the country…which would be a good thing.”
We are in agreement, then, that the impeachment of Cheney would be good for the country. Please call your Repub representative and request that s/he support the impeachment of Cheney. Thanks!
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 9:37 am
Our future Cheney and Bush are right now desperately engaged in trying to make sure that their oceans of lawbreaking do not become known, and remain secret. Hence their taking of “executive privilege” claims to heights (depths?) undreamt of by Nixon.
If they are able to escape being confronted with their lawbreaking while still in office, if their their absurd constitutional “arguments” escape formal examination and they do not suffer public ignominy for their actions, then future presidents will absolutely attempt the same duplicitious actions, erect the same regimes of secrecy and shadow lawbreaking under the spurious guise of the “commander-in-chief” power.
Cheney’s intentional, willful lawbreaking must be confronted by us or we will further degenerate as a nation, a people and a democracy.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Demoncrats have assured our degeneration parthian..dink… i only agree that polarization is good…. firing 8 prosecutors..or commuting a sentence do not fall in the category of impeachable offenses…guess what, too bad so sad, Bushco will be around for quite awhile yet
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
I honestly have forgotten or never knew For which dispute or disputes has Cheney invoked his various definitions of where his office does or does not fit?
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
Then there’s the Truth I’m old enough to remember a time when a mere accusation against someone with whom we disagreed was not considered enough to make it so.
Lamentably, times seem to have changed. Still old school, however, I find it tiresome to read bloggers over and over again taking accusations, converting them instantly into supposedly known facts, and then proposing draconian measures as REQUIRED by their newly found “truth.” And I find it even more exasperating to see words of those who forget (in the words of one of my old professors) that “the false is never so false as when it’s almost true.”
Incidentally, citing other partisans — even dozens of them — in my mind does NOT make an accusation true.
Neither does the simple(carefully edited to avoid lawsuits) repetition of the accusations by headline hungry media. The last I heard, “Trial by Media” was not in our Constitution.
Since this type of tar-and-feathering has been around a long time, we can go back thousands of years and find the notion that the truth cannot be ascertained simply by taking the untested words of one who has an ax to grind (see Susanna’s story, and our trial by jury system).
One of the reasons I find EB’s articles (like this one) so refreshing is that they take me back to that remembered time when accusations did not make something true, let alone basis for punitive actions.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
The most recent was Cheney’s claim that his office was not bound either to follow the existing executive order on handling classified information or report on his handling of it to the National Archives, as required of all executive agencies. For these purposes he claimed he was not part of the executive branch, hence the “jokes” about Cheney being a “Fourth Branch of Government”.
Check out the recent Tom Tomorrow cartoon for a very funny skewering of this recent Cheneyist insanity.
This issue also arose in the litigation over Cheney’s Energy Task Force and his refusal to provide access to any documents involving it, I believe (can’t remember for sure anymore). Assuming these documents have not already been destroyed, it will be interesting (one fine day) to see the “plans” for Iraq’s oil certainly contained therein.
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 9:44 am
Ignorance… …of the truth does not make it untrue. That fact that you’re unaware or suspicious of the mountains of reporting from all across the political spectrum on the cesspool of Bushco lawbreaking does not mean that it hasn’t occurred or isn’t “true”.
Try reading something other than National Review. You might learn something. But mosy likely you probably just don’t want to know. And wish others were ignorant as well.
The “proof” would come in the Impeachment Inquiry hearings. I presume you oppose such proceedings. Why? Afraid of what you (and others) might find out?
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 11:27 am
Cheney’s broken several laws Here’s a quick and by no mean complete list:
– The only reason Cheney isn’t on trial right now for obstruction of justice and/or ordering Scooter Libby to out Valerie Plame is because he sealed Scooter’s lips with the “commutation” of a sentence that had yet to be served. By commuting the sentence instead of issuing a full pardon, Cheney preserved his former employee’s ability to plead the Fifth if he were ever called to tesitfy under oath about Cheney’s role in the Plame outing. (And yes, despite what Rush Limbaugh, the FOX screechers and their fellow travelers in the right-wing blogs say, Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame.)
– Since 2003 he’s refused to comply with
Executive Order 12958, which prescribes a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding and declassifying information.
– He very likely broke the law on 9/11, seizing control and issuing orders while claiming to have been given Bush’s OK to do so — a claim most of those in the know seriously doubt.
– Remember how y’all were having conniptions in 2001 over Scooter Libby’s OTHER former employer, Marc Rich, being pardoned by Clinton for having oil dealings with Iran over twenty years before? Interestingly, none of you conservative Republicans made so much as a squeak when Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney was flouting Clinton’s own 1995 Executive Order forbidding American companies for dealing with Iran. Cheney broke this law all throughout the 1990s and even to this day, getting around the rule with shell companies that are Halliburton subsidiaries yet technically based overseas.
As I said, this is by no mean complete. But these are all things that if any one of them had been done by a Democratic Veep, you’d have rushed to Blair House with a noose in one hand and an effigy of said Veep in the other.
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 11:30 am
By the way, Eric Congrats on the move, again! You sound like you’re having fun, and that’s good. Keep up the good work!
Comment posted July 17, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
What’s the National Review? I’m aware of a lot of accusations being thrown around by partisans on both sides. Not so much aware of any of them being proven to be true, unless one subscribes to the theory I lament, that if “everyone” is saying it, it must be true.
Goebbels (Hitler’s propagandist) employed that technique with great success.
As for wanting to know only what one wants to know, I say “people who live in glass houses…”
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 11:36 am
Impeach Cheney The impeachment of Cheney is what the whole appalling Bush Era has been building towards—it is the fate of our nation. It's what the Founders would expect us to do given Cheney's intentional crimes and absurd constitutional “arguments” supposedly justifying why the executive branch can dispense with the rule of law in instance after instance.
The country is now aware that the Bush administration is a cesspool of lawbreaking. Many are aware or suspect that Cheney is behind all of it, which is why his approval rating is around 12%. Many may not be aware that Cheney is the de-facto “president”—not elected to that position, of course, but exercising it nevertheless.
Knowing what we now know, if we do not place Cheney's executive branch on solemn trial before the nation for its decision to ignore the rule of law, then the constitution and our view of our government as one of laws and not men wil have suffered a grievous, irreparable blow. Intelligent people will know that our constitutional system utterly failed us and there would no earthly reason to have confidence in it again.
The impeachment of Cheney could begin to unify this country, which has been bitterly and intentionally divided by Bushco. It would allow us all to focus on what has been undertaken in secret by this band of lawbreakers. It would allow the malignant tumor within the executive branch to be at least examined, if not excised. And with the final vote, it would show whether the Repub party stands with the constitution as we have historically understood it, or with the new version of the lawless “primary executive” as Cheneyism clearly envsions it.
Shouldn't the citizens get to know whether the Repubs side with Cheney and his constitutional depredations, or with the republic?
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
ok…tell us parthian..what laws has cheney broken? what treason has he committed? what high crimes… what misdemeanors……you dont think that Slick Willie polarized the country?…willingly?….an impeachment would further split the country….which would be a good thing..Good (us) verses Evil.(the looney left? Cheney has done what is neccesary to keep us secure…..if left up to the panty waist Demoncrats wewould all be toast…… Oh I cannot wait for Hillary to run the show…it will be hilarious keeping up with her corruption
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 4:51 pm
Forget impeachment for second …but this is highly scholarly research.
Thanks Eric for shedding some light on an often murky issue.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 4:24 am
We agree then… “an impeachment would further split the country…which would be a good thing.”
We are in agreement, then, that the impeachment of Cheney would be good for the country. Please call your Repub representative and request that s/he support the impeachment of Cheney. Thanks!
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 4:37 am
Our future Cheney and Bush are right now desperately engaged in trying to make sure that their oceans of lawbreaking do not become known, and remain secret. Hence their taking of “executive privilege” claims to heights (depths?) undreamt of by Nixon.
If they are able to escape being confronted with their lawbreaking while still in office, if their their absurd constitutional “arguments” escape formal examination and they do not suffer public ignominy for their actions, then future presidents will absolutely attempt the same duplicitious actions, erect the same regimes of secrecy and shadow lawbreaking under the spurious guise of the “commander-in-chief” power.
Cheney's intentional, willful lawbreaking must be confronted by us or we will further degenerate as a nation, a people and a democracy.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 5:27 am
Demoncrats have assured our degeneration parthian..dink… i only agree that polarization is good…. firing 8 prosecutors..or commuting a sentence do not fall in the category of impeachable offenses…guess what, too bad so sad, Bushco will be around for quite awhile yet
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 7:47 am
I honestly have forgotten or never knew For which dispute or disputes has Cheney invoked his various definitions of where his office does or does not fit?
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 8:17 am
Then there's the Truth I'm old enough to remember a time when a mere accusation against someone with whom we disagreed was not considered enough to make it so.
Lamentably, times seem to have changed. Still old school, however, I find it tiresome to read bloggers over and over again taking accusations, converting them instantly into supposedly known facts, and then proposing draconian measures as REQUIRED by their newly found “truth.” And I find it even more exasperating to see words of those who forget (in the words of one of my old professors) that “the false is never so false as when it's almost true.”
Incidentally, citing other partisans — even dozens of them — in my mind does NOT make an accusation true.
Neither does the simple(carefully edited to avoid lawsuits) repetition of the accusations by headline hungry media. The last I heard, “Trial by Media” was not in our Constitution.
Since this type of tar-and-feathering has been around a long time, we can go back thousands of years and find the notion that the truth cannot be ascertained simply by taking the untested words of one who has an ax to grind (see Susanna's story, and our trial by jury system).
One of the reasons I find EB's articles (like this one) so refreshing is that they take me back to that remembered time when accusations did not make something true, let alone basis for punitive actions.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 8:44 am
The most recent was Cheney's claim that his office was not bound either to follow the existing executive order on handling classified information or report on his handling of it to the National Archives, as required of all executive agencies. For these purposes he claimed he was not part of the executive branch, hence the “jokes” about Cheney being a “Fourth Branch of Government”.
Check out the recent Tom Tomorrow cartoon for a very funny skewering of this recent Cheneyist insanity.
This issue also arose in the litigation over Cheney's Energy Task Force and his refusal to provide access to any documents involving it, I believe (can't remember for sure anymore). Assuming these documents have not already been destroyed, it will be interesting (one fine day) to see the “plans” for Iraq's oil certainly contained therein.
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 4:44 am
Ignorance… …of the truth does not make it untrue. That fact that you're unaware or suspicious of the mountains of reporting from all across the political spectrum on the cesspool of Bushco lawbreaking does not mean that it hasn't occurred or isn't “true”.
Try reading something other than National Review. You might learn something. But mosy likely you probably just don't want to know. And wish others were ignorant as well.
The “proof” would come in the Impeachment Inquiry hearings. I presume you oppose such proceedings. Why? Afraid of what you (and others) might find out?
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 6:27 am
Cheney's broken several laws Here's a quick and by no mean complete list:
– The only reason Cheney isn't on trial right now for obstruction of justice and/or ordering Scooter Libby to out Valerie Plame is because he sealed Scooter's lips with the “commutation” of a sentence that had yet to be served. By commuting the sentence instead of issuing a full pardon, Cheney preserved his former employee's ability to plead the Fifth if he were ever called to tesitfy under oath about Cheney's role in the Plame outing. (And yes, despite what Rush Limbaugh, the FOX screechers and their fellow travelers in the right-wing blogs say, Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame.)
– Since 2003 he's refused to comply with Executive Order 12958, which prescribes a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding and declassifying information.
– He very likely broke the law on 9/11, seizing control and issuing orders while claiming to have been given Bush's OK to do so — a claim most of those in the know seriously doubt.
– Remember how y'all were having conniptions in 2001 over Scooter Libby's OTHER former employer, Marc Rich, being pardoned by Clinton for having oil dealings with Iran over twenty years before? Interestingly, none of you conservative Republicans made so much as a squeak when Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney was flouting Clinton's own 1995 Executive Order forbidding American companies for dealing with Iran. Cheney broke this law all throughout the 1990s and even to this day, getting around the rule with shell companies that are Halliburton subsidiaries yet technically based overseas.
As I said, this is by no mean complete. But these are all things that if any one of them had been done by a Democratic Veep, you'd have rushed to Blair House with a noose in one hand and an effigy of said Veep in the other.
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 6:30 am
By the way, Eric Congrats on the move, again! You sound like you're having fun, and that's good. Keep up the good work!
Comment posted July 17, 2007 @ 8:57 am
What's the National Review? I'm aware of a lot of accusations being thrown around by partisans on both sides. Not so much aware of any of them being proven to be true, unless one subscribes to the theory I lament, that if “everyone” is saying it, it must be true.
Goebbels (Hitler's propagandist) employed that technique with great success.
As for wanting to know only what one wants to know, I say “people who live in glass houses…”
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