DEVASTATING ARGUMENT presented by Rep. RASKIN, et al, on DAY 2 of SENATE IMPEACHMENT

What would those be for the Senate other than senators taking an oath, the CJ of the SCOTUS presides, a guilty verdict requires a 2/3 vote, and impeachment will not extend beyond removal from office and disqualification to hold future offices? Other than that the Senate makes the rules. Article I, Sec. 3 gives the Senate quite a lot of discretion on the process.

 

Absolutely.

 

But that was the question!!!!!

 

Lol
Fortunately the Senate makes the decision regarding impeachment trials so your silly notions have been overridden more than once. Goodbye!

 

A senate impeachment trial is most assuredly a judiciary process. Every trial is a judiciary process. "Judiciary" means judiciary (DUH); it does nor mean residing in the executive branch's department of justice.

 

Then, for starters, the CJ did not preside, did he?????

 

Dream away to your heart's content.

 

No one reads your posts beyond "terrorist racist president" other than the truly depraved. You like have more ridiculous claims, but no one is reading it that is sane.

 

Is that why I got so many likes on my last post?
Once again off topic irrelevant nothing but burning hatred toward me and no substance. And your Putinesque president has completely failed.

 

lol... there is not a single like on that post at this time. Dude... you can have your own reality, but not your own facts. You are just spewing TDS hyperbole.

 

Another post choked up with so much fear and rage there is not even a single attempt to refute the facts of a failed Putinesque president. You supported Trump even as he made an ass out of himself loosing 60 court cases and was told by the justice department that there were no irregularities in the election. You're clinging on to a savage right wing myth that Trump will come back to destroy democracy and create another posse of right wing malcontents to take over the country in your favor.

 

You don't offer facts. You offer rants that sound like they came from DailyKos.

 

Thanks for showing everyone the actual language; I was thinking that I was going to have to find it, myself. I will still match up your quotes with the Article & Section #s, given us by Bob0627, to be sure there isn't anything else that can be added.

Your quoted passages go to the suspicion that had been growing in me that the language was not specific enough to eliminate all wiggle-room, allowing for the two opposite interpretations.

I had already been thinking about what I would write, once I did my research, if the text turned out to be at all obscure, & I was going to give an example of an unambiguous description as, "the Senate has sole authority over impeachment trials." The actual text you reproduced, here, says essentially that: "the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." To me, that supports the view that the Senate can set any rules they want (as a power involved in trying an impeachment) -- in my prior post's, extreme example, I should have said that Senators could vote to convict, on whatever impeachment articles were sent them from the House, based on the president having a poor fashion sense. While I'll admit the Constitution could have doubled-down, to make it more expressly clear, I think the implication is that Senate trials are not subject to judicial review. I take it, you read that passage differently.

The Constitution, though, is a document that is light on intricate rules, being more of a general guide-- which is why precedent comes so prominently into play. And precedent, from the very first impeachment in 1799, as I believe I earlier related (Senator Wm. Blough), is that Senate trials of officials can be considered & can take place, even after they are out of office. This means that, in practice, the founders of our country & writers of the Constitution took the phrase, "Judgment...shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold (future office or position)," to mean that those are the only two punishments: this thing, and that thing. It's impossible to square prior precedent, with the reading that the word, "and," means that the first item on the list must precede employment of the second item. Think of a waiter telling you your choices are chicken and steak; that wouldn't mean that they only come together.

Moving in the direction of your side of the ledger, is the passage, "When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside..." But the other side makes the case that Trump, no longer is President (I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts ever made a statement regarding this). Granted, this gives some weight to your argument that Donald Trump is now a private citizen (& therefore can't be tried), except for the prior precedents; as well as the fact that only the Senate can impose the punishment of disqualification from future office. This means, to me, that the crux of the argument for a post-departure, Senate trial, is that the House impeachment occurred while Trump was still President.

In the final analysis, while I think the quote you provided more strongly supports the other posters' argument, I'll give you that it could be written more clearly. Take the last sentence you quoted, "The trial of ALL CRIMES, EXCEPT in cases of IMPEACHMENT, shall be by jury;..." You must read this to mean that impeachment must be of an offense that is a crime; & I can see how it would be easy to get that impression. But if you think about it, you'll realize that is not necessarily the case. What it really says is that WHEN a crime is also an impeachable offense, it will be tried by Senatorial impeachment, not by a jury. Actually, though I don't know what the missing text says, the fragment here suggests that the impeached person's criminal offense will be tried by the Senators, who cannot impose criminal punishments, in lieu of a jury trial. But the idea that Trump is still subject to federal criminal prosecution seems universal, on both sides of the aisle.

 

You supported Trump even as he made an ass out of himself loosing 60 court cases and was told by the justice department that there were no irregularities in the election. Trump sent tweets to his terrorist mob to show up on Jan 6 claiming "it will be wild". Then he viscously riled up the crowd telling them the election had been stolen from them and that it was a "fraud" and to "fight, fight, fight" and this will be "trial by combat" and t to "stop the steal". Trump had been tweeting for months that the election was a total fraud., You live in an alternate reality of right wing fantasies. But the idea of a strongman right wing president is you idea of democracy, So lets have another one of your posts that has no substance all pure anger rage and smoldering hate..

 

The Senate just voted to have a conviction trial. What dreaming. Are you nuts?

 

A Senate impeachment trial is a legislative process, not a judicial one. I'll leave out the "DUH". Lose the snark or I'm done here. Try replying as if I were sitting across a table from you.

 

DEVASTATING ARGUMENT presented by Rep. RASKIN, et al, on DAY 2 of SENATE IMPEACHMENT

However there was no devastation.

 

A lot to comment on....... very good.
"the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." means simply that the senate and only the senate can try an impeachment; it does not mean that the senate has the power to follow any process that it desires or rules that it devises. It does of course make its own rules of impeachment trials, but those rules cannot preclude the constitution dictates. You are correct that there is no judicial review of a trial, except if the trial was conducted contrary to the constitution's few dictates.

An overriding principle with the writing of the constitution was that the more explicit (beyond what was clearly necessary) and detailed and lengthy it got, the more watered down it became and the more it would constrain the future functioning of the government. The constitution lays down fundamental principles and avoids excruciating detail except where deemed necessary, as for example in the enumerated powers and the process of electing presidents. Along those lines the framers probably stewed more over impeachment than any other precept. They were deathly afraid (and realistically so) that impeachment might be used by the congress to gain political power over the executive branch thus destroying a linchpin of a constitutional republic, namely the separation of independent three branches of government. But they could find no way to assure against that short of another hundred or so pages, so they did the best they could knowing full well that the risk of misuse will be in there someplace. They had no guarantee that the constitution would succeed forever. As Franklin quipped when asked what kind of government the convention came up with, "A republic, if you can keep it."

If a waiter says your choices are [sic] steak and chicken, that means you can have steak and chicken -- one choice.. If you could order steak or chicken the proper syntax would be "you can have steak or chicken.

The framers were very adamant to exclude the possibility of impeaching a private citizen, which was acceptable and done under English law. "Impeaching" includes the actual impeachment and the trial of the impeached person. The opposing argument is moot and invalid because the senate cannot try a private citizen for any impeachment, former president or not. Chief Justice Roberts was very astute in not explicitly saying anything that might be construed as an out of bounds SCOTUS ruling. He simply said he ain't coming and left it at that. Prior precedents (especially Senator Wm. Blough whose impeachment was a messy tangled bowl of pasta, and the senate eventually decided that they didn't have the jurisdiction to try) are dicey at best. IIRC there has been damn few if any impeachments nor their trial adjudicated. However, I am asserting clear and plain precepts in the constitution, but that is not a prediction as to how SCOTUS might rule. A standard axiom in legal circles is that the probability of a judge's ruling is always 50-50 no matter the laws or the facts of the case presented.

I didn't show the full phrase because the rest is unrelated. (For the record the phrase is "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed;......." This does state that impeachment is a trial of a crime, but not in the context usually presented. A civil officer can be impeached for actions that do not violate any criminal code to be sure, and the phrase in the constitution doesn't abrogate that. After all, when the constitution was written and ratified there were no federal crimes

 

You still can't keep judicial and judiciary separate. Sorry about that (no snark intended). I'll leave you be.

 

The impeachment was neither judicial nor judiciary. It was a legislative process performed solely by the legislative branch of government. Neither the Justice Department, which is part of the Executive branch, nor any court of law, were involved.

I DO know the difference.

ju·di·cial
/jo͞oˈdiSHəl/ adjective

1. of, by, or appropriate to a court or judge.
   "a judicial inquiry into the allegations"

ju·di·ci·ar·y
/jo͞oˈdiSHēˌerē,jo͞oˈdiSHərē/ noun

1. the judicial authorities of a country; judges collectively.
   "the independence of the judiciary"