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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Founding Fathers designed impeachment for someone exactly like Donald Trump
Last edited Thu Feb 1, 2018, 06:37 PM - Edit history (1)
I attended a CLE event where the author of this article spoke https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/10/15/the-founding-fathers-designed-impeachment-for-someone-exactly-like-donald-trump/?utm_term=.cbe589333ea9
The very embodiment of what the Founding Fathers feared is now residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Again and again, they anticipated attributes and behaviors that President Trump exhibits on an all-too-regular basis. By describing High Crimes and Misdemeanors, the grounds for impeachment, as any act that poses a significant threat to society either through incompetence or other misdeeds the framers made it clear that an official does not have to commit a crime to be subject to impeachment. Instead, they made impeachment a political process, understanding that the true threat to the republic was not criminality but unfitness, that a president who violated the countrys norms and values was as much a threat as one who broke its laws.
Gouverneur Morris, who wrote the Constitutions preamble, and future president James Madison were worried about a leader who would pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation theft of public funds or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers, as Madison put it. Morris, who like many in the colonies believed King Charles had taken bribes from Louis XIV to support Frances war against the Dutch, declared that without impeachment we expose ourselves to the danger of seeing the first Magistrate [the President] in foreign pay without being able to guard against it by displacing him.
I also purchased a copy of her book on impeachment https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/a-citizens-guide-to-impeachment/ This is the key quote from the book
Impeachment is based upon those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. Alexander Hamilton
I got an hour of CLE for listening to a great litigator talk about the legal issues on impeachment. This was a fun day
bearsfootball516
(6,377 posts)That allows one party in to control all three branches of power despite their constituents being a clear minority.
tanyev
(42,603 posts)meow2u3
(24,771 posts)by the President of the United States via laundered foreign money.
The Polack MSgt
(13,192 posts)yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Just the threat, confirmed by his own Party members in Congress, made it clear he would be removed.
Recognizing it remains a political process, it worked on Clinton, where his Party stood fast and the American people spoke out, saying Clinton's behavior did not rise to the level of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors."
If we take back the House and/or the Senate in November, all we'll need is a handful of R's to go to the White House and tell him it's over.
Another election with serious consequences.
Efilroft Sul
(3,581 posts)It didn't work so well, and there won't be any impeachment with a Republican majority and the "take it off the table" types running our party, either.
Dem_4_Life
(1,765 posts)That sounds like a great way to spend an hour getting CLE credit.
What type of law do you practice? When my mom was active with the Texas Bar she used to take some CLE online and I would sit through some and they were very interesting.