Can impeachment be legitimate if no laws are broken?

Impeachment is the House saying, "This politician sucks and we want to fire him, does the Senate agree?" It's not a legal proceeding at all so the breaking of laws is irrelevant. This is why there are no legal consequences attached to 'conviction'.

Impeachments happen all the time and it's usually a question of morality or incompetence rather than criminality. But some judge in a small town getting the pink slip doesn't warrant national headlines so the term ends up attached to the likes of Clinton or Nixon and thus the Presidency in people's minds.

 

I see what you're saying but can't agree. Bribery, treason and "other high crimes and misdemeanors" are all crimes. I think only two presidents have been impeached, Clinton having been charged with perjury. Johnson was impeached in the House for several things that don't look like crimes to me, but he wasn't convicted in the Senate.

Of course Congress "can" impeach for any reason, criminal or not, but that's just a function of their power. I don't see how you can square it with the constitution, which doesn't list "you suck" as one of the grounds.

 

It doesn't list crimes either. It's vague for a reason and as I said, Impeachment is something that happens to lower officials on the regular and normally not for criminal actions.

 

Exactly.

they can impeach him for the color of his tie if a Majority of the House agrees.

Obviously, REMOVAL has a much higher standard.

 

It is sadly obvious that TrumpCo has no defense when they decided to avoid sending the lawyers they demanded...capitulation of guilt?

 

It's sadly obvious that CommieCo has no case and impeachment handed Trump 2020 on a plate.

Eric Cairamella says hi

 

the right thinks so

"Lindsey Graham: A president who doesn't comply with Congressional requests for information is subject to impeachment."

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1181682899424350209

 

yep, bribing a government to effect a future election they will be in, Trump knows he doesn't stand a chance, so he resorts to cheating.... sad!

 

fact is, if any member of Congress did this they would be charged with a crime.. only because Presidents can't be indicted is he not

impeachment is the only remedy to prevent this

kinda like the stormy ordeal, his lawyer is in prison, Individual one gets a pass

 

PF is an echo chamber for the intellectually weak and pointless

 

Oh, now we're gonna start the 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' routine? Fine! Then I'll add another contribution -- "Messiah" Obama SHOULD have been impeached and removed for breaking the law no less than three times when he was president!

I've been over this a hundred times, starting with the first of his crimes -- the deliberate breaking of the War Powers Act in 2011 when he used U. S. military forces to overthrow the legitimate government of Libya. On and on and on....

 

Are you wearing yours right now?

 

thanks for telling us, but

it's against the rules to use those 3 letters here, people from both sides have found out the hard way from the mods

 

You probably can name a loads of laws that Donald didn't break. What matters is what laws he did break.

Last time I checked,.... Donald was busy with a corrupting trade deal for his own personal political gain.

Wikipedia is a valid source in online debate. I haven't spotted you disputing the law is fake. According to the source:
Because the Act concerns the intent of the bribery rather than the amount, there is no requirement of materiality. Offering anything of value as a bribe, whether cash or non-cash items, is prohibited.

I don't care about laws in Ukraine that Donald might have broke. This is about American law.

 

Yes. One example of a law Trump didn't break is the very one you cited. I explained why.

I have no objection to Wikipedia at all. I do have an objection to citing it without analyzing its substance

Unfortunately, you are obligated to "care about" Ukrainian law, because the law you are invoking specifically establishes an affirmative defense requiring consideration of Ukrainian law. I cited that defense above.

You can't cherry pick sections of a law, especially when using it to depose a President.

The utter inapplicability of title 15 is the reason that no one in a position of responsibility is talking about charging Trump under it.

Of course, there are a lot of people in this world who don't care about what they call legal loopholes, (meaning laws), so to be clear, I do not at all predict what they will do.

 

You are wrong about this statement. Article 2 of the Constitution clearly lays out the procedures for electing a president and removing the president. Article 2 established definitions of the president's powers and his responsibilities.

Section 4 of Article Two establishes that the president and other officers can be removed from office through the impeachment process. The writers of the U.S. Constitution and the Articles were very precise about articles of impeachment, there was little ambiguity in their guidelines.

Section 3: Presidential responsibilities
Clause 5
The president must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."[35] This clause in the Constitution imposes a duty on the president to enforce the laws of the United States and is called the Take Care Clause,[36] also known as the Faithful Execution Clause[37] or Faithfully Executed Clause.[38] This clause is meant to ensure that a law is faithfully executed by the president[36] even if he disagrees with the purpose of that law. The Supreme Court and the Attorneys General have long interpreted the Take Care Clause to mean that the president has no inherent constitutional authority to suspend the enforcement of the laws, particularly of statutes. The president may not prevent a member of the executive branch from performing a ministerial duty lawfully imposed upon him by Congress.

So yes, the president can indeed be in violation of the Constitution and impeached for violations of those laws. In fact, the Constitution does not say that narrowly defined criminal law violations are the sole basis for impeachment. The Framers considered a wide array of misdeeds, and historically, “the one common denominator” in impeachment proceedings has been the charge “that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.” Abuse of power was in particular the central theme of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon and it will most certainly be one of the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump.

 

Well, I don't know what the "central theme" means, because there were particularized articles of impeachment, but we'll never know if the Senate would have convicted him for abuse of power (Nixon resigned), which IMO is hopelessly vague, or rather under article 1 of the bill of impeachment, which alleged obstruction of justice, which is less vague and statutorily prohibited as a crime. Abuse of power, thank God, is not a crime.

I doubt there has ever been a strong president who didn't "abuse his power" in the opinion of somebody, especially as among his political opponents.

 

The three articles of impeachment for Nixon were, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Abuse of power was the central indictment charged against President Nixon because of unlawful activities that formed a "course of conduct or plan" to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate break-in and to cover up other unlawful activities. The abuse of power enabled Nixon to obstruct justice by refusing to turn over the tapes. Refusal to turn over the tapes led to the third article, contempt of Congress.

If we take those three indictments and break them down and apply them to this current impeachment and the articles that will more than likely be those charged to Trump also, abuse of power will definitely be the central article followed by, as in the Nixon trial, obstruction and contempt.

 

Yes, but do you impeach him for this or get the Supreme Court to order him to permit the performance of thus duty?

I prefer the latter remedy. Obviously a president's refusal to comply with a final order of the Supreme Court would create a crisis. I would support removal from office if things got that bad. But in that case we have a violation of law (contempt of court) which could be alleged and readily proved. 18 USC 401.

Remember too that the chief justice of the supreme court will be presiding over the trial in the Senate. What will he be ruling on if the sentate can just make up standards for removal from office? It will clearly be a legal proceeding.

 

Whatever in the world makes you believe that by Congress 'ordering' Trump to do his job would mean anything at all to a lawless man? He is already in contempt of Congress by ordering people to refuse Congressional subpoenas. He literally forced them to break the law! In addition to all of this, Trump is already repeating his illegal refusal of releasing monies to countries that Congress has already approved funding for. He is refusing, for some reason, to release funds appropriated by Congress to Lebanon. This is illegal no matter what his game or devious plan is for Lebanon. Trump has spent his life as a NY racketeer, why should anyone expect Trump to reverse his lifelong career as a man doing whatever he pleases? Does anyone believe a zebra can change its stripes?

Any Senate hearing or trial is only going to be for the record only. A matter of legal procedures with the Republican Senate going through the motions of a 'legitimate' impeachment trial, nothing more. It will be Kabuki theater filled with dynamic drama and elaborate showmanship, and not much else.

 

Whatever in the world makes you believe I even said that? I was referring to final orders of the Supreme Court ( and said so), violations of whose orders is a crime. Contempt of Congress is supposedly a misdemeanor too, though I don't think it's codified in the penal law, nor has any court confirmed Congress's power to interpret the extent of its own power. Therefore, it's more likely to be ignored without the supreme court taking any interest because of separation of powers problems. Congress has to get a judge to take an interest, and it always looks purely political if the defendant is employed by an executive branch controlled by an opposing party.

Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress. Nobody cared, nor should they have.

Contempt of the supreme court is easier to prove, looks better, and there is nowhere higher to go.

I have no reason to believe anyone would follow a Trump order to defy an order of the Supreme Court. Not do I think Trump would order them to. Get back to me when he does.

Quote me accurately in the future or quote someone else.

 

To get this straight, contempt of Congress is not a misdemeanor, it is a criminal offense.

Secondly, I mistakenly understood your sentence to mean Congress, not Supreme Court.

"Yes, but do you impeach him for this or get the Supreme Court to order him to permit the performance of thus duty?"

To begin with, the Supreme Court has nothing to do with impeachment hearings other than the Chief Justice being the judge, Congress is the jury. So, the Supreme Court would have no bearing whatsoever on whether or not to 'permit' the performance of his duty.

Okay you want to talk about Eric Holder, this is okay with me. It was a favorite allegation of Congressional Republicans that pressed the controversy over the so-called Operation Fast and Furious ahead of Barack Obama's bid for a second term.

The judge in the Eric Holder contempt case thought it was nothing more than unnecessary political theater on the part of Republicans in Congress. She was clearly considering the matter before the vote.

“However, in a ruling Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson also denied Holder's request for an indefinite stay of her prior order that the attorney general must turn over any "non-privileged" documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed as part of an investigation into the botched gunrunning investigation. The judge previously ruled that Holder must give the panel any documents that are not both pre-decisional and deliberative in nature.

Jackson called the House contempt motion "entirely unnecessary" and said it was evident that she was considering the government's motion to lift her prior order. "Under those circumstances, the Court finds no basis to hold defendant in contempt,"

 

Does anyone here believe that we should NOT have any means of removing an inept madman from an elected office? Does anyone believe that the abuse of Presidential power, or his executive decisions and actions, should be above any congressional oversight? Or, does anyone believe in Stephen Miller's authoritarian declaration, "The Power of the President, are substantial, and will not be questioned."? I'm sure no one believes that a Dictatorship, or a Monarchy, were the types of governments our founding fathers had envisioned. Does anyone believe, that because a Democrat lost an election, that this impeachment is just payback? How does any impeachment effect either parties bank balance or lifestyle?

"High crimes and Misdemeanours", were the more polite terms to cover, gross abuse of the Public Trust, Violations of the Oath of Office, Ordinary Crimes and Official Misconducts, and any Abuse of Power. This is because, there is a different standard of proof and punishment for officials who have taken an oath for their office, than for officials who haven't(like in the military and in law enforcement). These Articles of Impeachment, are part of the same US Constitution, that Trump swore an oath to uphold and protect. The 300 page House Intelligence report, makes it unquestionable, that Trump abused his Presidential power. It is an unquestionable fact, that Trump used his political position, to obtain a personal political benefit. He did this, knowingly(or unknowingly) at the expense of our national security, by withholding military aid in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival. This is now a fact, not an accusation. A. Johnson was impeached because he violated the "Tenure of Office Act"(President can't dismiss an appointed official, without consent of Congress). Clinton was impeached because he lied to a Grand Jury(perjury). Trump would be impeached for, violations of the Domestic Emoluments Clause, violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, and for the Obstruction of Justice. All are unquestionable and impeachable.

Unfortunately, facts and evidence are irrelevant to die-hard Trump supporters. There is no question that Trump will be impeached in the House, because the evidence is so overwhelmingly true. But, fortunately Trump will never be removed from office in the Senate. The Republican majority there, are not interested in any facts or evidence. They only believe in blind party loyalty, and the stigma of being the party of the first President, who was ever removed from office. Even if Trump videotaped himself and his body guards(SS), beating the crap out of Zelensky, the Senate would still never impeach Trump.

My worry is, there is no one left in the Democratic lineup, that could beat Trump. Bernie is too old and sickly, and would look even older compared to Trump. Tulsi is a woman of color, and is everything that Trump is not. She is the single most dangerous threat to Trump, and corporate media and the status quo knows it. Whether a Democrat or a Republican wins the Office, nothing will change in the political lifestyles of either. Nothing will change for the people as well. But put a Progressive in office, and everything changes. Money in politics become accountable, or abolished. arms sales to terrorist ends, war profiteering ends, the revolving door in politics ends, being underinsured in Healthcare ends, private prisons ends, cash-bail system ends, the Federal Laws against the use of marijuana ends, internet and drug monopolies ends, large business and corporate monopolies ends, unnecessary sanctions ends, and unnecessary government spending and borrowing ends. This is why we are seeing a single-digit candidate being openly smeared, attacked, lied about, maligned, and ignored by MSM and the DNC. Her policies would actually address all of our domestic and environmental issues, immediately. She is the single-most dangerous threat to corporate America, than any other candidate. Not only could she easily beat Trump(he will never debate her one on one), but her sea-change of policies would change our government's priorities forever(people first).

So, the question you pose makes a false assumption that no laws have been broken. If no laws have been broken, there would be no impeachment inquiry. Or, do you think that being accused of a crime, is evidence for committing the crime?

 

I doubt it. Who here suggested the contrary?

Trump has flaws. However, no responsible person thinks he is a madman, or that he has started any wars ( as predicted by the left) or that the economy is tanking. (Also as predicted by the left.)

 

Whether someone has or has not suggested the contrary, is irrelevant. My question refers to having the means to remove any President from office. Do you think we should, or do you think we should not? Although I never mentioned Trump by name, his behavior is the very definition of a narcissistic sociopathy, with mild cognitive impairment(MCI). Whether we are at war YET, or the economy will tank out YET, are both non sequitur. Both have nothing to do with his mental health. We have Constitutional safeguards in place, to prevent one man having the power to control the economy, or the military. Or, did you think that Trump can control every aspect of government?

Although I used the word "madman", only to emphasize the necessity of having a policy to remove ANYONE from ANY elected office, Trump would certainly be a perfect example. I certainly doubt if any world leader would disagree. I personally, don't feel comfortable having a President that is the laughing stock of the world. He has now threatened to impose a 100% tariff on all wine and other goods from France, since Macron's "Isis fighters" response, and his gossiping about Trump amongst other wold leaders. At least with Obama, no world leader would ever laugh at him as a statesman. Or ever talk about him behind his back(except in his own country). What does the rest of the world know that we don't? To say Trump has his flaws, is the mother of all understatements.


Is this a leader you can be proud of?