Legal Reason for Impeachment

The House of Representatives has launched impeachment proceedings more than 60 times, but less than a third has resulted in complete impeachment. Only eight – all federal judges – have been convicted by the Senate and removed from office. In addition to the 15 federal judges impeached by the House of Representatives, three presidents [Andrew Johnson in 1868, William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton in 1998 and Donald J. Trump in 2019 and 2021], a Cabinet Secretary (William Belknap in 1876) and a U.S. Senator (William Blount of Tennessee in 1797) were also impeached. In only three cases — all with federal judges removed — did the Senate take the additional step of excluding them from a future federal office. Blount`s impeachment proceedings – the first ever conducted – established the principle that members of Congress and senators were not “officials” under the Constitution and, therefore, could only be removed from office by a two-thirds majority to be expelled by their respective chambers. Blount, who had been accused of inciting a Native American uprising to promote British interests in Florida, was not convicted, but the Senate expelled him. In other impeachment proceedings, judges sat on the bench when they were drunk or benefited from their position. However, President Johnson`s trial focused on whether the president could impeach cabinet members without congressional approval. Johnson`s acquittal set a precedent — one that has been debated by the nation from the beginning — that the president can remove appointees even if they need Senate confirmation to remain in office. In the United States, “impeachment” generally refers to a procedure that the legislature can use to charge public servants with misconduct. This power is granted to Congress by Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution.

It`s a unique political and legal process that, unsurprisingly, makes headlines when legislators decide to use it. The implication of the argument that the crimes charged are necessary for impeachment exposes its unsustainability. Suppose that on his first day in office, the president, in his capacity as commander-in-chief, orders the army to hire only Methodists as chaplains and to fire all non-Methodist chaplains. This would not break any laws and is far from the crimes of treason and corruption. Is it plausible to believe that the drafters who, when the First Amendment was passed, thought the nation`s only recourse against a president who violated the amendment was to wait four years and elect a new president? In fact, there is no law that criminalizes the president`s ignoring of a Supreme Court decision. Would the Framers, who, if they agreed on anything about the presidency, would agree that the president was not a king, have written a document requiring the nation to wait four years before impeaching a president who acted like a king? The question is rhetorical, because the answer seems obvious. That is not Professor Dershowitz`s answer. While precedents shape the actual importance of various provisions of the Constitution, impeachment is essentially a single political process that is largely unchecked by the judiciary. Although the meaning of treason and corruption is relatively clear, the scope of serious crimes and misdemeanors has no formal definition and has been expanded over time, perhaps analogous to the common law, by the practice of impeachment in the United States Congress.6 The type of conduct considered impeachable and the circumstances in which impeachment proceedings are an appropriate means of such acts, are thus determined, among other things, by competing political interests, the evolution of institutional relationships between the three branches of government, and legislators` interaction with and accountability to the public.7 The weight of historical practice, rather than precedent, is therefore essential to understanding the nature of impeachment in the United States. When Bill Clinton was impeached in 1999, White House adviser Charles Ruff described a “narrow” interpretation of “high crimes” as “a standard that perpetrators have deliberately set at this extraordinarily high level to ensure that only the most serious offenses, and particularly those that undermine our system of government, would justify the annulment of a popular election.” In 1999, Mark R.

Slusar noted that narrow interpretation seemed to be more common among lawyers and senators. [13] These terms, when used to describe political crimes, have a meaning that is compatible or no longer analogous to their legal acceptance, but nevertheless goes beyond their legal acceptance; Because, as John Quincy Adams said, “the legislature has been vested with the power to prosecute and suppress minor offences in the knowledge of the law.” The meaning in which they are used in the Constitution is made clearer and more precise by the long series of precedents of decided cases found in state trials and historical collections. Selden refers to many of them in his “jurisprudence of Parliament” and Coke in his “institutes,” and Comyns cites more than fifty indictable crimes. These include undermining basic laws and introducing arbitrary power; that an ambassador gives false information to the king; conclude a treaty between two foreign powers without the king`s knowledge; returning cities without the consent of their colleagues; inciting the King to act against the advice of Parliament; give bad advice to the king; that the Speaker of the House of Commons refuse to continue; that the Lord Chancellor threatens the other judges to sign his opinion. While precedents shape the actual importance of various provisions of the Constitution, impeachment is essentially a single political process that is largely unchecked by the judiciary. Although the meaning of treason and bribery is relatively clear, the scope of serious crimes has no formal definition and has been expanded over time, perhaps analogous to the common law, by the practice of impeachment in the United States Congress.6FootnoteII Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 762 (1833) (Because, as we shall soon see, treason, bribery, and other serious crimes and misdemeanors are explicitly included;) but that it has a far-reaching effect and carries out what are rightly called political crimes resulting from personal misconduct or gross negligence or usurpation or habitual disregard for the public interest in the exercise of political functions. These are so different in character and so indefinable in their real implications that it is almost impossible to provide them systematically by positive law.); Id. §§ 795–98. The type of conduct that qualifies as impeachable conduct and the circumstances in which impeachment is an appropriate means of such conduct are therefore determined, among other things, by competing political interests, the evolution of institutional relationships between the three branches of government, and legislators` interaction with and accountability to the public.7FootnoteSee Michael J. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis x–xi (2000). See also Story, op. cit.

cit., footnote 6, § 762. The weight of historical practice, not precedent, is therefore essential to understanding the nature of impeachment in the United States.