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This GOP Senator thinks the crux of the impeachment issue is whether or not what Trump did constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors:
How are they defined?
How are they defined?
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Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors IIRC
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The following is from a report written and released by the Judiciary Committee in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis.
2. Adoption of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"
Briefly, and late in the convention, the framers addressed the question how to describe the grounds for impeachment consistent with its intended function. They did so only after the mode of the President's election was settled in a way that did not make him (in the words of James Wilson) "the Minion of the Senate." 45
The draft of the Constitution then before the Convention provided for his removal upon impeachment and conviction for "treason or bribery." George Mason objected that these grounds were too limited:
When James Madison objected that "so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate," Mason withdrew "maladministration" and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors agst. the State,"which was adopted eight states to three, apparently with no further debate.48
That the framers were familiar with English parliamentary impeachment proceedings is clear. The impeachment of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India, for high crimes and misdemeanors was voted just a few weeks before the beginning of the Constitutional Convention and George Mason referred to it in the debates. 49
Hamilton, in the Federalist No.65, referred to Great Britain as "the model from which [impeachment] has been borrowed." Furthermore, the framers were well-educated men. Many were also lawyers. Of these, at least nine had studied law in England.50
The Convention had earlier demonstrated its familiarity with the term "high misdemeanor."51 A draft constitution had used "high misdemeanor" in its provision for the extradition of offenders from one state to another.52 The Convention, apparently unanimously struck "high misdemeanor" and inserted "other crime," "in order to comprehend all proper cases: it being doubtful whether 'high misdemeanor' had not a technical meaning too limited."53
The "technical meaning" referred to is the parliamentary use of the term "high misdemeanor." Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England- a work cited by delegates in other portions of the Convention's deliberations and which Madison later described (in the Virginia ratifying convention) as "a book which is in every man's hand"54 - included "high misdemeanors" as one term for positive offenses "against the king and government. " The "first and principal" high misdemeanor, according to Blackstone, was "mal-administration of such high officers, as are in public trust and employment," usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment."55
"High Crimes and Misdemeanors" has traditionally been considered a "term of art," like such other constitutional phrases as "levying war" and "due process." The Supreme Court has held that such phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but according to what the farmers meant when they adopted them.56 Chief Justice Marshall wrote of another such phrase:
2. Adoption of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"
Briefly, and late in the convention, the framers addressed the question how to describe the grounds for impeachment consistent with its intended function. They did so only after the mode of the President's election was settled in a way that did not make him (in the words of James Wilson) "the Minion of the Senate." 45
The draft of the Constitution then before the Convention provided for his removal upon impeachment and conviction for "treason or bribery." George Mason objected that these grounds were too limited:
Why is the provision restrained to Treason & bribery only? Treason as defined in the Constitution will not reach many great and dangerous offenses. Hastings is not guilty of Treason. Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be Treason as above defined-As bills of attainder which have saved the British Constitution are forbidden, it is the more necessary to extend: the power of impeachments.46
Mason then moved to add the word "maladministration" to the other two grounds. Maladministration was a term in use in six of the thirteen state constitutions as a ground for impeachment, including Mason's home state of Virginia.47
When James Madison objected that "so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate," Mason withdrew "maladministration" and substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors agst. the State,"which was adopted eight states to three, apparently with no further debate.48
That the framers were familiar with English parliamentary impeachment proceedings is clear. The impeachment of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India, for high crimes and misdemeanors was voted just a few weeks before the beginning of the Constitutional Convention and George Mason referred to it in the debates. 49
Hamilton, in the Federalist No.65, referred to Great Britain as "the model from which [impeachment] has been borrowed." Furthermore, the framers were well-educated men. Many were also lawyers. Of these, at least nine had studied law in England.50
The Convention had earlier demonstrated its familiarity with the term "high misdemeanor."51 A draft constitution had used "high misdemeanor" in its provision for the extradition of offenders from one state to another.52 The Convention, apparently unanimously struck "high misdemeanor" and inserted "other crime," "in order to comprehend all proper cases: it being doubtful whether 'high misdemeanor' had not a technical meaning too limited."53
The "technical meaning" referred to is the parliamentary use of the term "high misdemeanor." Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England- a work cited by delegates in other portions of the Convention's deliberations and which Madison later described (in the Virginia ratifying convention) as "a book which is in every man's hand"54 - included "high misdemeanors" as one term for positive offenses "against the king and government. " The "first and principal" high misdemeanor, according to Blackstone, was "mal-administration of such high officers, as are in public trust and employment," usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment."55
"High Crimes and Misdemeanors" has traditionally been considered a "term of art," like such other constitutional phrases as "levying war" and "due process." The Supreme Court has held that such phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but according to what the farmers meant when they adopted them.56 Chief Justice Marshall wrote of another such phrase:
It is a technical term. It is used in a very old statute of that country whose language is our language, and whose laws form the substratum of our laws. It is scarcely conceivable that the term was not employed by the framers of our constitution in the sense which had been affixed to it by those from whom we borrowed it.57
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So we went from Republicans saying there was no Quid Pro Quo at all to well all politicians use Quid Pro Quo and now we've landed on Quid Pro Quo doesn't qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor?
Republicans are some desperate pieces of trash right about now continuing to do whatever is necessary to avoid admitting they allowed a shitbag into office on their party ticket. Trump could literally shoot a baby on the White House lawn and these losers would try to blame the baby for making aggressive movements before they would admit it was a bad idea to vote him into office.
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It is arbitrary.
That is why as long as Republicans control the Senate, Trump will never be impeached. No matter what the evidence shows, they can simply say that it is not a "high crime" and therefore it is not impeachable.
That is why as long as Republicans control the Senate, Trump will never be impeached. No matter what the evidence shows, they can simply say that it is not a "high crime" and therefore it is not impeachable.
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It’s when you smoke marijuana cigarettes and then steal things
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Putting on my waiguoren hat: We don't know for sure that that baby wasn't going to grow up to be bad. Plus, the liberal media thinks that shooting babies is bad so it must be good.
Anyway, wiki does a good job with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors
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So the "high" refers more to the level of abuse of power of the person doing it. Which is clearly the case with the mafia-style intimidation of Ukraine, with or without "quid pro quo."
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3. Grounds for Impeachment
Mason's suggestion to add "maladministration," Madison's objection to it as "vague,"and Mason's substitution of "high crimes and misdemeanors against the State" are the only comments in the Philadelphia convention specifically directed to the constitutional language describing the grounds for impeachment of the President. Mason's objection to limiting the grounds to treason and bribery was that treason would "not reach many great and dangerous offences" including "[a] ttempts to subvert the Constitution."58 His willingness to substitute "high Crimes and Misdemeanors, " especially given his apparent familiarity with the English use of the term as evidenced by his reference to the Warren Hastings impeachment, suggests that he believed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" would cover the offenses about which he was concerned.
Contemporaneous comments on the scope of impeachment are persuasive as to the intention of the framers. In Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton described the subject of impeachment as
James Iredell made a similar distinction in the North Carolina convention, and on the basis of this principle said,
But he went on to argue that the President
An extensive discussion of the scope of the impeachment power occurred in the House of Representatives in the First Sesssion of the First Congress. The House was debating the power of the President to remove the head of an executive department appointed by him with the advice and consent of the Senate, an issue on which it ultimately adopted the position, urged primarily by James Madison, that the Constitution vested the power exclusively in the President. The discussion in the House lends support to the view that the framers intended the impeachment power to reach failure of the President to discharge the responsibilities of this office.70
Madison argued during the debate that the president would be subject to impeachment for "the wanton removal of meritorious officers."71 He also contended that the power of the President unilaterally to remove subordinates was "absolutely necessary" because "it will make him in a peculiar manner, responsible for [the] conduct" of executive officers. It would, Madison said,
subject him to impeachment himself, if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses.72
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who had also been a framer though he had opposed the ratification of the Constitution, disagreed with Madison's contentions about the impeachablility of the President. He could not be impeached for dismissing a good officer, Gerry said, because he would be "doing an act which the Legislature has submitted to his discretion."73 And he should not be held responsible for the acts of subordinate officers, who were themselves subject to impeachment and should bear their own responsibility.74
Another framer, Abraham Baldwin of Georgia, who supported Madison's position on the power to remove subordinates, spoke of the President's impeachability for failure to perform the duties of the Executive. If, said Baldwin, the President "in a fit of passion" removed" all the good officers of the Government" and the Senate were unable to choose qualified successors, the consequence would be that the President "would be obliged to do the duties himself; or, if he did not, we would impeach him, and turn him out of office, as he had done others."75
Those who asserted that the President has exclusive removal power suggested that it was necessary because impeachment, as Elias Boudinot of New Jersey contended, is "intended as a punishment for a crime, and not intended as the ordinary means of re-arranging the Departments"76 Boudinot suggested that disability resulting from sickness or accident "would not furnish any good ground for impeachment; it could not be laid as treason or bribery, nor perhaps as a high crime or misdemeanor"77 Fisher Ames of Massachusetts argued for the President's removal power because "mere intention [to do a mischief] would not be cause of impeachment" and "there may be numerous causes for removal which do not amount to a crime"78 Later in the same speech Ames suggested that impeachment was available if an officer "misbehaves"79 and for "mal-conduct."80
One further piece of contemporary evidence is provided by the Lectures on Law delivered by James Wilson of Pennsylvania in 1790 and 1791. Wilson described impeachments in the United States as "confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishment"81 And, he said:
Mason's suggestion to add "maladministration," Madison's objection to it as "vague,"and Mason's substitution of "high crimes and misdemeanors against the State" are the only comments in the Philadelphia convention specifically directed to the constitutional language describing the grounds for impeachment of the President. Mason's objection to limiting the grounds to treason and bribery was that treason would "not reach many great and dangerous offences" including "[a] ttempts to subvert the Constitution."58 His willingness to substitute "high Crimes and Misdemeanors, " especially given his apparent familiarity with the English use of the term as evidenced by his reference to the Warren Hastings impeachment, suggests that he believed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" would cover the offenses about which he was concerned.
Contemporaneous comments on the scope of impeachment are persuasive as to the intention of the framers. In Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton described the subject of impeachment as
those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.59
Comments in the state ratifying conventions also suggest that those who adopted the Constitution viewed impeachment as a remedy for usurpation or abuse of power or serious breach of trust. Thus, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina stated that the impeachment power of the House reaches "those who behave amiss, or betray their public trust."60 Edmund Randolph said in the Virgina convention that the President may be impeached if he "misbehaves."61 He later cited the example of the President's receipt of presents or emoluments from a foreign power in violation of the constitutional prohibition of Article I, section 9. 62 In the same convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection." James Madison responded:
If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds tp believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty...63
In reply to the suggestion that the President could summon the Senators of only a few states to ratify a treaty, Madison said,
Were the President to commit any thing so atrocious... he would be impeached and convicted, as a majority of the states would be affected by his misdemeanor.64
Edmund Randolph referred to the checks upon the President:It has too often happened that powers delegated for the purpose of promoting the happiness of a community have been perverted to the advancement of the personal emoluments of the agents of the people; but the powers of the President are too well guarded and checked to warrant this illibeal aspersion.65
Randolph also asserted, however, that impeachment would not reach errors of judgment:"No man ever thought of impeaching a man for an opinion. It would be impossible to discover whether the error in opinion resulted from a wilful mistake of the heart, or an involuntary fault of the head."66
James Iredell made a similar distinction in the North Carolina convention, and on the basis of this principle said,
"I suppose the only instances, in which the President would be liable to impeachment, would be where he had received a bribe, or had acted from some corrupt motive or other."67
But he went on to argue that the President
Must certainly be punishable for giving false information to the Senate. He is to regulate all intercourse with foreign powers, and it is his duty to impart to the Senate every material intelligence he receives. If it should appear that he has not given them full information, but has concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated, and by that means induced them to enter into meansures injurious to their country, and which they would not have consented to had the true state of things been disclosed to them, - in this case, I ask whether, upon an impeachment for a misdemeanor upon such an account, the Senate would probably favor him.68
In short the framers who discussed impeachment in the state ratifying conventions, as well as other delegates who favored the Constitution,69 implied that it reached offenses against the government, and especially abuses of constitutional duties. The opponents did not argue that the grounds for impeachment had been limited to criminal offenses.
An extensive discussion of the scope of the impeachment power occurred in the House of Representatives in the First Sesssion of the First Congress. The House was debating the power of the President to remove the head of an executive department appointed by him with the advice and consent of the Senate, an issue on which it ultimately adopted the position, urged primarily by James Madison, that the Constitution vested the power exclusively in the President. The discussion in the House lends support to the view that the framers intended the impeachment power to reach failure of the President to discharge the responsibilities of this office.70
Madison argued during the debate that the president would be subject to impeachment for "the wanton removal of meritorious officers."71 He also contended that the power of the President unilaterally to remove subordinates was "absolutely necessary" because "it will make him in a peculiar manner, responsible for [the] conduct" of executive officers. It would, Madison said,
subject him to impeachment himself, if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses.72
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who had also been a framer though he had opposed the ratification of the Constitution, disagreed with Madison's contentions about the impeachablility of the President. He could not be impeached for dismissing a good officer, Gerry said, because he would be "doing an act which the Legislature has submitted to his discretion."73 And he should not be held responsible for the acts of subordinate officers, who were themselves subject to impeachment and should bear their own responsibility.74
Another framer, Abraham Baldwin of Georgia, who supported Madison's position on the power to remove subordinates, spoke of the President's impeachability for failure to perform the duties of the Executive. If, said Baldwin, the President "in a fit of passion" removed" all the good officers of the Government" and the Senate were unable to choose qualified successors, the consequence would be that the President "would be obliged to do the duties himself; or, if he did not, we would impeach him, and turn him out of office, as he had done others."75
Those who asserted that the President has exclusive removal power suggested that it was necessary because impeachment, as Elias Boudinot of New Jersey contended, is "intended as a punishment for a crime, and not intended as the ordinary means of re-arranging the Departments"76 Boudinot suggested that disability resulting from sickness or accident "would not furnish any good ground for impeachment; it could not be laid as treason or bribery, nor perhaps as a high crime or misdemeanor"77 Fisher Ames of Massachusetts argued for the President's removal power because "mere intention [to do a mischief] would not be cause of impeachment" and "there may be numerous causes for removal which do not amount to a crime"78 Later in the same speech Ames suggested that impeachment was available if an officer "misbehaves"79 and for "mal-conduct."80
One further piece of contemporary evidence is provided by the Lectures on Law delivered by James Wilson of Pennsylvania in 1790 and 1791. Wilson described impeachments in the United States as "confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishment"81 And, he said:
The doctrine of impeachments is of high import in the constitutions of free states. On one hand, the most powerful magistrates should be amenable to the law: on the other hand, elevated characters should not be sacrificed merely on account of their elevation. No one should be secure while he violates the constitution and the laws: every one should be secure while he observes them.82
From the comments of the framers and their contemporaries, the remarks of the delegates to the state ratifying conventions, and the removal power debate in the First Congress, it is apparent that the scope of impeachment was not viewed narrowly. It was intended to provide a check on the President through impeachment, but not to make him dependent on the unbridled will of the Congress.
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No, the wikipedia explanation is significantly broader than that which is historically tenable, as the Judiciary Committee report I pasted above shows. Note in particular the part that I highlighted.
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What do you think the difference is?
I'm feeling like you're going to retreat to your usual, "everything is unconstitutional so no abuse of power and be an abuse of Constitutional duties," but the "especially" kneecaps even that bullshit argument.
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Impeach him and get it over with.
The Senate isn't going to remove him from office.
Then, both sides can dig in until election night.
The Senate isn't going to remove him from office.
Then, both sides can dig in until election night.
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For one, the Wikipedia definition appeals to the notion of "circumventing justice", which is much more vague a concept than one can extract by synthesizing the views of the framers which I cited above. Madison explicitly rejected "maladministration" as grounds for impeachment for the same reason.
Wilson:
The doctrine of impeachments is of high import in the constitutions of free states. On one hand, the most powerful magistrates should be amenable to the law: on the other hand, elevated characters should not be sacrificed merely on account of their elevation. No one should be secure while he violates the constitution and the laws: every one should be secure while he observes them.82
The highlighted above means that a president cannot be impeached unless he violates the constitution or the law.
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Note that in your usual embarrassing rush to defend tyranny, you're ignoring both your own link and the language in the Constitution.
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Well, this was the same shit Republicans said during Nixon until that day when a few of them walked over to the White House and told him he had better resign
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So we went from Republicans saying there was no Quid Pro Quo at all to well all politicians use Quid Pro Quo and now we've landed on Quid Pro Quo doesn't qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor?
Republicans are some desperate pieces of trash right about now continuing to do whatever is necessary to avoid admitting they allowed a shitbag into office on their party ticket. Trump could literally shoot a baby on the White House lawn and these losers would try to blame the baby for making aggressive movements before they would admit it was a bad idea to vote him into office.
You remember when Clinton lied under oath and we decided that although it was a crime that it wasn't impeachable?
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You remember when you finally learned what impeachment actually meant?
Here's a hint for the dimwitted. Impeachment isn't removal from office or being found guilty of the charges that the impeachment leads to.
Further, I think a President lying to Congress should result in impeachment and removal from office. Bill Clinton should have been gone. Not for getting his dick sucked, but lying to Congress about it.
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You remember when you finally learned what impeachment actually meant?
Here's a hint for the dimwitted. Impeachment isn't removal from office or being found guilty of the charges that the impeachment leads to.
Further, I think a President lying to Congress should result in impeachment and removal from office. Bill Clinton should have been gone. Not for getting his dick sucked, but lying to Congress about it.
Yes, yes. If your only goal is to have Trump charged then congratulations because that is a certainty.
If we are talking about removal from office - the left wing talking point and the general use of the word impeach (even though its wrong) - then you are going to be disappointed.
Edit for the dimwitted Clinton's crime wasnt merely lying to congress; it was lying under oath in a court deposition.
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