someoneyouknow
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Back in 1974, it looked and more likely Nixon would have to be impeached. The only problem was, no one knew how to do it or what the standards were for impeaching a president since the last time it had been done was 100 years prior.
The House Judiciary Committee stepped in and set up something called a bipartisan staff effort to determine whether Nixon should be impeached. One of staffers involved in the final 64-page report was none other than Hillary Rodham, then a law school graduate. This report went as far back as 14th Century England to determine what constitutes grounds for impeachment. This was because the Constitution is fairly broad in what is allowable. For example, Andrew Johnson was not impeached because of crimes he committed, but because of his handling of reconstruction after the Civil War.
In the United States, 83 articles of impeachment had been voted out of the House up to that point against a dozen federal judges, one senator and Andrew Johnson, and fewer than a third actually involved specific criminal acts. Far more common, they wrote, was that the House was dealing with allegations that someone had violated their duties, oath of office or seriously undermined public confidence in their ability to perform their official functions.
“Because impeachment of a President is a grave step for the nation, it is to be predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with either the constitutional form and principles of our government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the presidential office,” the House staffers concluded.
This legal reasoning was later used against Hillary's future husband, Bill, during the Lewinski blowjob scandal. Republicans pulled out the report and cited it verbatim, no doubt gleeful that Hillary's own words were being used against her. Republicans were citing campaign finance irregularities involving a Whitewater land deal, a probe of the Clinton's real estate investments, as a possible reason for impeachment, along with obstruction of justice (sound familiar?) and whether Bill Clinton had betrayed the public's trust (ditto).
Fast forward two decades later and the same reasonings Republicans had given for impeaching Bill Clinton are now being applied to the con artist. And guess what report is being used a blueprint for the proceedings. Everything from the con artist's shady financial dealings violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, to his general unfitness for office, are on the table.
Republican Bob Barr cheerfully thanked Hillary for giving lawmakers a “road map” to consider her husband’s impeachment with a report that “appears objective, fair, well researched and consistent with other materials reflecting and commenting on impeachment.”
It will be interesting to hear Republicans tie themselves in knots when this report is used to impeach the con artist as they try to claim there are no grounds for impeachment.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/16/hillary-clinton-impeachment-memo-trump-228107
The House Judiciary Committee stepped in and set up something called a bipartisan staff effort to determine whether Nixon should be impeached. One of staffers involved in the final 64-page report was none other than Hillary Rodham, then a law school graduate. This report went as far back as 14th Century England to determine what constitutes grounds for impeachment. This was because the Constitution is fairly broad in what is allowable. For example, Andrew Johnson was not impeached because of crimes he committed, but because of his handling of reconstruction after the Civil War.
The staffers’ research broke ground by making an accessible argument that a president doesn’t have to commit a straight-up crime for Congress to consider the historic step of impeachment.
“The framers did not write a fixed standard. Instead they adopted from English history a standard sufficiently general and flexible to meet future circumstances and events, the nature and character of which they could not foresee,” the House staffers, including the future first lady, wrote about the ill-defined constitutional working of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“The framers did not write a fixed standard. Instead they adopted from English history a standard sufficiently general and flexible to meet future circumstances and events, the nature and character of which they could not foresee,” the House staffers, including the future first lady, wrote about the ill-defined constitutional working of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
In the United States, 83 articles of impeachment had been voted out of the House up to that point against a dozen federal judges, one senator and Andrew Johnson, and fewer than a third actually involved specific criminal acts. Far more common, they wrote, was that the House was dealing with allegations that someone had violated their duties, oath of office or seriously undermined public confidence in their ability to perform their official functions.
“Because impeachment of a President is a grave step for the nation, it is to be predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with either the constitutional form and principles of our government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the presidential office,” the House staffers concluded.
This legal reasoning was later used against Hillary's future husband, Bill, during the Lewinski blowjob scandal. Republicans pulled out the report and cited it verbatim, no doubt gleeful that Hillary's own words were being used against her. Republicans were citing campaign finance irregularities involving a Whitewater land deal, a probe of the Clinton's real estate investments, as a possible reason for impeachment, along with obstruction of justice (sound familiar?) and whether Bill Clinton had betrayed the public's trust (ditto).
Fast forward two decades later and the same reasonings Republicans had given for impeaching Bill Clinton are now being applied to the con artist. And guess what report is being used a blueprint for the proceedings. Everything from the con artist's shady financial dealings violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, to his general unfitness for office, are on the table.
Republican Bob Barr cheerfully thanked Hillary for giving lawmakers a “road map” to consider her husband’s impeachment with a report that “appears objective, fair, well researched and consistent with other materials reflecting and commenting on impeachment.”
It will be interesting to hear Republicans tie themselves in knots when this report is used to impeach the con artist as they try to claim there are no grounds for impeachment.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/16/hillary-clinton-impeachment-memo-trump-228107
