Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the striking similarities between the Johnson and Trump impeachments — a comparison that should be unsettling for most voters as history repeats itself with a vengeance.
Here is the column:
“Let them impeach and be damned.” Those words could have easily come from Donald Trump, as the House moves this week to impeach him. They were, however, the words of another president who not only shares some striking similarities to Trump but who went through an impeachment with chilling parallels to the current proceedings. The impeachment of Trump is not just history repeating itself but repeating itself with a vengeance.
The closest of the three prior presidential impeachment cases to the House effort today is the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson. This is certainly not a comparison that Democrats should relish. The Johnson case has long been widely regarded as the very prototype of an abusive impeachment. As in the case of Trump, calls to impeach Johnson began almost as soon as he took office. A southerner who ascended to power after the Civil War as a result of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson was called the “accidental president” and his legitimacy was never accepted by critics. Representative John Farnsworth of Illinois called Johnson an “ungrateful, despicable, besotted, traitorous man.”
Johnson opposed much of the reconstruction plan Lincoln had for the defeated south and was criticized for fueling racial divisions. He was widely viewed as an alcoholic and racist liar who opposed full citizenship for freed slaves. Ridiculed for not being able to spell, Johnson responded, “It is a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” Sound familiar? The “Radical Republicans” in Congress started to lay a trap a year before impeachment. They were aware that Johnson wanted their ally, War Secretary Edwin Stanton, out of his cabinet, so they then decided to pass an unconstitutional law that made his firing a crime.
To leave no doubt of their intentions, they even defined such a firing as a “high misdemeanor.” It was a trap door crime created for the purposes of impeachment. Undeterred, Johnson fired Stanton anyway. His foes then set upon any member of Congress or commentator who dared question the basis for the impeachment. His leading opponent, Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania demanded of them, “What good did your moderation do you? If you do not kill the beast, it will kill you.”
As with Trump, the Johnson impeachment was a fast and narrow effort. On paper, his was even faster, since Johnson was impeached just days after the approval of an inquiry. But the underlying investigation began more than a year earlier and was actually the fourth such effort. Yet it also was largely based on the single act of firing Stanton. It collapsed in the Senate due to seven courageous Republicans who voted to acquit a president they despised. One of them, Edmund Ross of Kansas, said that voting for Johnson was like looking down into his open grave. Ross then jumped because he felt his oath to the Constitution gave him no alternative.
The Trump impeachment is even weaker than the Johnson impeachment, which had an accepted criminal act as its foundation. This will be the first presidential impeachment to go forward without such a recognized crime but, like the Johnson impeachment, it has a manufactured and artificial construct. The Trump impeachment also marks the fastest impeachment of all time, depending on how you count the days in the Johnson case.
Take the obstruction of Congress article. I have strongly encouraged the House to abandon the arbitrary deadline of impeaching Trump before Christmas and to take a couple more months to build a more complete record and to allow judicial review of the underlying objections of the Trump administration. But Democrats have set a virtual rocket docket schedule and will impeach Trump for not turning over witnesses and documents in that short period even though he is in court challenging congressional demands. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton both were able to go to court to challenge demands for testimony and documents. The resulting judicial opinions proved critical to the outcome of the cases.
Under the theory of the House, members can set any ridiculously short period and then impeach a president who, like Trump has done, seeks judicial review over claims of executive privileges and immunities. It is another trap door impeachment. Democrats did subpoena documents until October but have not issued any subpoenas for critical witnesses such as John Bolton. They did not hold a vote for an inquiry until the end of October. They set a vote for December to manufacture a time crush.
The same is true with the abuse of power article. I testified that the House had a legitimate reason to investigate this allegation and, if there was a showing of a quid pro quo, could impeach Trump for it. Democrats called highly compelling witnesses who said they believed such a quid pro quo existed, but the record is conflicted. There is no statement of a quid pro quo in the conversations between Trump and the Ukrainians, and White House aides have denied being given such a demand. Trump declared during two direct conversations, with Republican Senator Ron Johnson and Ambassador Gordon Sondland, that there was no quid pro quo.
One can question the veracity of his statement, as he likely knew of the whistleblower at the time of the calls. But there is no direct statement in the record by Trump to the contrary. Democrats and their witnesses have instead insisted that the impeachment can be proven by inferences or presumptions. The problem is that there still are a significant number of witnesses who likely have direct evidence, but the House has refused to go to court to compel their appearance. The House will therefore move forward with an impeachment that seems designed to fail in the Senate, as if that is a better option than taking the time to build a complete case.
With half of the country opposing impeachment, the House is about to approve two articles of impeachment designed to play better On CNN than in the Senate. Meanwhile, a lack of tolerance for constitutional objections is growing by the day. Some critics have actually cited Johnson as precedent to show that impeachment can be done on purely political grounds. In other words, the very reason the Johnson impeachment is condemned by history is now being used today as a justification to dispense with standards and definitions of impeachable acts. One commentator has embraced the use of Johnson as precedent with a statement that might make every “Radical Republican” from the 19th century smile, saying, “At least they impeached the motherf—-r.”
Indeed, many Democrats seem to be taking away the wrong lesson on impeachment from Johnson himself, who declared, “Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.” This is how history not only repeats itself, but repeats itself with a vengeance.
Jonathan Turley is the chair of public interest law at George Washington University and served as the last lead counsel in a Senate impeachment trial. He testified as a Republican witness in House Judiciary Committee hearing in the Trump impeachment inquiry. Follow him @JonathanTurley.
This is no impeachment. That requires high crimes and misdemeanors. This isn’t even marmalade.
1. They use the obstruction of Government yet forget they are part of the Resistance an illegal movement unlike our counter revolution against the foreign ideologists afflicted with Pelositis.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/pete-buttigieg-communist-slogan
More amusement from Butters. My gambler’s sense tells me he’s the most likely nominee. This is the Democratic Party.
And yet they question President Trump’s judgment.
RUSSIA IF YOU’RE LISTENING……Your asset failed, he could not get you Ukraine.
RUSSIA IF YOU’RE LISTENING
**************
You don’t have to yell since Russia is obviously under your bed with the other bogeymen.
Fishead stinks like rotten fish.
You guys are just mad because you didn’t get the dictator that you wish for every night, before you go to sleep under that rock. GET OVER IT.
Fishy:
No we got our guy and now you will too — for five more years. Great move.
Classic projection. The fact is you didn’t get the dictator you wanted. And because of your anger over that, you and your ilk have waged an all out war that will turn out to be nothing more than a Democrat/MSM campaign to reelect this President.
As Mark said: Great move!
Politically, there isn’t much similarity. Most of the country wanted Johnson out so the Republicans had plenty of political cover to do it. And the grievances against Johnson were substantive, not some sort of visceral emotive dislike for him as an individual who robbed the rightful heir to the White House resulting in the rants we’ve been putting up with for the past 3 years.
Johnson was disposed of relatively quickly regardless. A couple months after the impeachment vote, he couldn’t get his own party’s nomination to run for election. At the Presidential level, I believe the Republicans won the next 4 elections. Given that Lincoln won in ’60 and ’64 that made 6 in a row.
She is POW of Schiff, Nadler, AOC and her lefty gang, Twitter mob, MSNBC, CNN, etc.
WSJ:
What if Monica Had Taken the Stand? Had the Senate called witnesses to testify in 1999, it might have convicted Bill Clinton.
By Jonathan Turley
Imagine if Monica Lewinsky had taken the stand as a witness in President Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial. Imagine the drama of the young former White House intern sitting in the well of the Senate recalling how the president encouraged her to sign a false affidavit after learning that she would be a witness against him. It would have been an unforgettable moment. But it didn’t happen for the simple reason that few in the Senate wanted to hear such evidence.
During the Clinton trial, the House impeachment managers were surprised to learn that the upper chamber’s Republican majority agreed with Democratic demands not only to bar live testimony but to limit depositions to three witnesses and take them in private. It was a decision that might have determined the outcome of the trial. Soon the Senate will have to decide whether to replicate the same constraints on the trial of President Donald Trump.
Whether witnesses are required at a presidential impeachment trial is an open question. The 1868 trial of Andrew Johnson resembled a criminal proceeding. The House managers called 25 prosecution witnesses and Johnson’s defense team called 16 witnesses. During the Clinton impeachment, the issue of witnesses came up during House Judiciary Committee hearings. As an expert called to address the constitutional standards, I explained that the Framers didn’t explicitly require witnesses in the House or the Senate but there was likely an expectation—drawn from English impeachments—that witnesses would be called at a Senate trial.
While I favored calling witnesses, the issue wasn’t clear-cut because the underlying investigation into Mr. Clinton had spanned years. Two independent counsels had interviewed dozens of witnesses. Rather than call the same people to testify again, the House decided to rely on the massive record supplied by independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Senate Democrats not only opposed calling witnesses; all but one voted to dismiss both articles without any trial. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—who has demanded that witnesses be called in the Trump impeachment trial—as a freshman in 1999 disdained witness testimony as “political theater.”
In the end, the senators considering whether to remove Mr. Clinton from office heard only excerpts from depositions by three witnesses—and even that was over Democratic objections.
Here is what they—and the public—didn’t hear. Ms. Lewinsky gave an interview to A&E last year revealing that Mr. Clinton encouraged her in a 2:30 a.m. phone call to submit a false affidavit to the independent counsel. This raises the possibility that the president committed a variety of crimes, from suborning perjury to witness tampering. Apparently, when Mr. Clinton learned that Ms. Lewinsky was on the witness list in Paula Jones’s sexual-harassment lawsuits, he did what many Democrats have accused Mr. Trump of doing: He called a witness to influence her testimony.
Moreover, Ms. Lewinsky claimed in the interview, she called Vernon Jordan, one of his friends and political allies, and he took her to meet Frank Carter, a lawyer who had her sign an affidavit denying any intimate relationship with the president. She says Mr. Jordan also offered the inexperienced 24-year-old a job with Revlon, where he was a board member.
Ms. Lewinsky said that she was terrified and that the president had assured her that “I could probably sign an affidavit to get out of it.” She also said that Mr. Carter assured her that if she signed the false affidavit, she might avoid being called as a witness. Messrs. Carter and Jordan have denied that they urged Ms. Lewinsky to lie.
Imagine, again, the most riveting moment that never occurred in an impeachment. Ms. Lewinsky might have taken the stand and told senators that Mr. Clinton not only had an affair with a young intern but also pressured her to lie under oath. She might then have described how her lawyer had allegedly advised her to sign a false affidavit. Even before the #MeToo movement, such testimony would have put many Democratic senators in a difficult position.
While one of the articles of impeachment referred to Mr. Clinton’s “encouraging” Ms. Lewinsky’s false statements, had she publicly testified about what the president said in his early morning phone call, it would have been evidence of subornation, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. It would have destroyed the argument made by his defenders that he did nothing but lie about a personal affair.
Now we are debating again whether to call witnesses at an impeachment trial. While Mr. Schumer has argued that witnesses are essential in a trial, he only means Democratic witnesses. The witnesses that Republicans could be expected to call—like Hunter Biden—would be, says Mr. Schumer, a “distraction.” Only in an impeachment trial can the jury protect itself from testimony it doesn’t want to hear.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-if-monica-had-taken-the-stand-11576714035
Thanks for posting this, Estovir. The Senators evidently had statements from Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broderick, and others to examine.
I don’t think any of it came up in the Senate trial. But I remember one Senator stating that he reviewed those statements.
I’m paraphrasing what he said, but it was to the effect that the Monica Lewisky/perjury issue was just the tip of the iceberg.
I don’t think the statements from these women, and whatever else he saw in those files, were ever made public, although those allegations became known by what the women themselves said publically.
The impeachment resolution contra Clinton won (IIRC) about 45 votes. He wasn’t going to be convicted.
Impeachment has never been effected in this country. You’ve had four episodes.
(1) was a power move executed by a Republican supermajority contra a President they despised. I wouldn’t waste any air defending Andrew Johnson, bar that you should take an interest in emblematic figures of a certain type. Review features of the daily life of someone raised in this country in the early 19th century. The past is another country, and borders are pretty much closed.
(2) was another power move, but it was more than that. Nixon employed people who committed real crimes and their crimes were in the course of performing functions for with their superiors hired them. (The Kennedy-Johnson administration had its own portfolio of crimes, but ones not known in real time). The social utility of impeachment in that case was setting boundaries of conduct within the political class. (Look back at the ‘scandals’ the media wrote about during the Carter Administration. Worked pretty thoroughly for a time).
(3) The Clinton impeachment was a mixed bit of business. The Clinton’s were people contra whom you should set boundaries, but the genesis of the whole mess was an opportunistic lawsuit for whom the straw plaintiff was an Arkansas state employee to whom Clinton had been gross.
(4) This whole business has been a sham, and you can see that in how the Democratic Party cognoscenti keep cycling through excuses to bounce the man out of office and the skulduggery in which they’ve engaged. They do want to set boundaries of a sort, but these are bad, illegitimate, indefensible boundaries.
And that last is our problem.
Yes. Good context. Highlighted by Sen. Schumer’s putrid hypocrisies.
Estovir, The Starr Report, which became a bestselling book, portrayed Lewinsky as the aggressor in her relationship with Clinton. Obviously Clinton should have shown more maturity and common sense. But Monica made every effort to avail herself to Bill. White House, staffers, Bettie Currie in particular, were leery of Lewinsky and tried to keep her away from Bill.
Professor, please expand on what exactly would be enough to convict a corrupt president. I mean, I see your point about compelling more testimony. But it’s also clear that Trump is a perfect prototype of who the founders had in mind for impeachment. Especially when considering essence. People who bribe never say “hey, I’m going to bribe you…: etc. Even Buddy Cianci didn’t do that. Ha. One of his Lieutenants didn’t object when a contractor left an envelope of money in a desk drawer with no direct reference to it — and it convicted the Lieutenant (and in essence, Buddy). How to deal with the absolute obstruction wielded by Trump? Wait for him to home job the next election and go after him then? Around climate change alone, there’s a time clock on the presence of Trump in the Oval office. Not just for the country, but for the world. How does this process come into the every day reality of the scam Trump is running out of the oval office? What would speed up compelling evidence of the obvious?
Paul:
“Around climate change alone, there’s a time clock on the presence of Trump in the Oval office. Not just for the country, but for the world.”
*****************
Though a veritable mush of wrongheadedness and unsupported assertions, this one sentence in your comment stood out. Please explain why banks, realtors, insurance companies and President Obama keep investing in waterfront property if climate change is real, imminent and existential “for the world”?
Yeah Paul, mespo wants to know why snowballs are still cold if there is really climate change.
Paul, you’re spot on. By denying Climate Change, Trump is basically ignoring a national emergency. For that reason alone he deserves impeachment.
The driver was not vengeance, Counsellor; it was a remaining shred of self respect and decorum.
Shame if that holds no appeal for you and yours.
Are you referring to the “self respect and decorum” of the adulterous and heavily biased FBI agents or the head of the CIA lying under oath?
This impeachment is not abusive in any way shape or form! It is well deserved for what the president has admitted doing and what has been uncovered and what we may presume he has done because of his spoliation of evidence.
President Trump is an arrogant man who relishes smashing societal, political and legal norms. The last of which form the basis of this impeachment. The Constitution provides this remedy and it is the duty of the House to carry it out!
Justice.Holmes – Impeach because you don’t like the President’s character!?! I know you’re not joking, but neither should anyone presume you know anything about the law, because you sir, are a fraud!
Of course this is a farce. The next act is Pelosi pretending that if her minions do not hand over some certificate to the presiding officer of thee Senate, the Senate cannot convene a trial. It’s at this point that John Roberts had to piss or get off the pot and show up in the chair no matter what guises and poses the Democratic caucuses adopt.
Yeah Professor and a Yugo and a Corvette both have 4 wheels.
The Johnson impeachment was based on policy disputes and triggered by a gotcha law which Turkey admits was unconstitutional. It was completely illegitimate, but not because it was done quickly. That’s an irrelevancy. Trump’s impeachment is over his corruption of his office by using its power for his personal benefit and his blanket obstruction of the congresses legitimate exercise of it’constitutional powers. There is no comparison between these cases beyond the calendar, which is not proscribed in our laws or constitution.
The more Turley writes, the more clear his motives become, and they are not based on law.
bookworm:
“The more Turley writes, the more clear his motives become, and they are not based on law.”
***************
Let’s take the words of some anonymous numbskull over a recognized Constitutional scholar. You’ve rendered yourself unreadable — but not unlaughable. LOL
Here’s 500 Constitutional scholars who say you and Turley are wrong. Based on your stated criteria I expect you to change your opinion.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/politics/legal-scholars-letter-trump-impeachment/index.html
No they didn’t. They never even addressed Turley’s comparison with the feeble Johnson impeachment or your ignorant reply. They just bloviated their political wish list. I’m guessing your nose is about three feet now.
Anon writes: “Here’s 500 Constitutional scholars”
He doesn’t even get that right. No one said they were ***Constitutional*** scholars and that is obvious. Anon doesn’t read or incorporate knowledge very well. There are about 1.3 million lawyers in the US which means 1.3 million less 500 didn’t sign the letter and most of those that did probably couldn’t write a good defense of their claim. What do the other 1.3 million know that the 500 listed don’t know? The answer is simple… The Law and common sense.
Of note one of those 500 lawyers may be a used car salesman selling used cars when he failed his career as a lawyer.
Our trusty Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 17,000 law professors in the United States, or 90-odd per accredited school. That’s regular faculty, clinical instructors, and adjunct faculty. That covers specialists in legal writing, legal history, jurisprudence, administrative law, corporation law, commercial law, banking and securities law, criminal law and procedure, education law; estates, powers, and trust law; evidentiary rules, family law, municipal law, insurance law, labor law, admiralty law, medical jurisprudence, military law, natural resources law, intellectual property law, real property law, environmental law, tax law, torts, antitrust, transportation and communications law, election law, &c. It covers professors whose teaching responsibility cover staples like contracts and civil procedure. It covers the faculty who teach boutique courses (“__ & the law”), you know, like Barack Obama. You might be able to find 500 faculty who publish on constitutional law, or you might not. The notion that you can, and that they’re of one mind on a contentious question, and that they all signed the same bloody petition beggars belief. You didn’t check the list, did you?
TIA:
They were so well-regarded by the impeach-mob that they were all asked to testify, right?
While we’re at it, see Ann Althouse on the testimony of the other three law professors.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/12/i-thought-law-professors-would-give.htm
Constitutional law was one of her lines during her years as a working professor and a GoogleScholar search pulls up quite a scrum of articles.
if ten percent had seen the inside of a courtroom and worked real cases for hire, i”d be surprised
mespo727272 says:
December 19, 2019 at 8:21 AM
bookworm:
“The more Turley writes, the more clear his motives become, and they are not based on law.”
***************
Let’s take the words of some anonymous numbskull over a recognized Constitutional scholar. You’ve rendered yourself unreadable — but not unlaughable. LOL
**********************************
In the circus there was no witness it was all he said, she said and I think. The article states he said and she said as fact. If I had not seen the circus live I would have a very different opinion based on the article. Reading the closed door testimony and seeing the live testimony I had different opinion of some witnesses too. It seemed after hearing Schiff repeat his version a hundred times some witness opinions changed. With nothing but the article to review it would be hard to reach an informed logical decision.
The pretend investigators were interfering with a real investigation. They made a big deal about the secret group and the ambassador’s removal. The call transcript states BOTH presidents wanted her removed. She disrespected them both. She was also obstructing the investigation which had started before the call. President Trump was not asking to start an investigation but to help with an ongoing investigation. One question was why wait to 2019? Why not investigate earlier? It appeared the level of corruption would require support from high officials. A new president who ran on an anti-corruption campaign opened the door to get aid in the investigation.
The Ukraine New Agency states the corruption is international. International corruption will require international action. They need our help in the investigation too.
Pelosi and Schiff have now clearly steered the good ship Impeachment into the shallows heading to the rocks in the Senate. Watching the great wreck will be satisfying. Too bad all those freshmen Dims and to walk the plank at the point of a primary challenge. I would’ve thought the Dims were smarter but Thanatos is a powerful force especially when a party thinks it deserves it. Were Pelosi young enough and smart enough (she’s neither) you’d think she might be intentionally destroying the party to rid it of the radicals like The Squad, but nah … she’s just Captain Ahab chasing her great white whale (emphasis on white) unsure of what to do when or if she catches him. I was wrong about the Dims being rational actors; they’re actually a death cult.
Paging Jim Jones. Clean up on aisle 2020.
Given Mespo’s recent prediction that the Democrats would not impeach, why would he keep making predictions based on his dreams and who would listen to them.
bookworm:
I always admit a mistake in judgment and I’ve never been happier to do so. See you in 2020 with Trump unleashed: Granny can’t hang on forever and there are lots of regs to kill, judges to appoint and Dims to pi$$ off. It’s a Golden Age.
Menlo continues to confuse his dreams with reality.
Is 2020 when Scarlett Johansson falls for you?
bookhead:
Yeah Granny will live forever, Biden’s gonna win and all those 180 Trump appointed judges will resign. How’s Wonderland?
Maybe not so wrong on the impeachment fiasco, after all. Seems the Dims had a lucid interval after their debauched vote and are now refusing to submit the lame impeachment charges to the Senate in some sort of Jedi mind game that can’t end well. It’s trying to bring back the ball after you’ve thrown a pitch in the hitter’s wheelhouse. So while they had the vote, they didn’t convey the charge. A functional equivalent of no vote, at the worst:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/19/mitch-mcconnell-pelosi-too-afraid-to-send-impeachment-articles-to-senate/
Trump is already impeached so whether the House sends it to the Senate or not doesn’t mean the Senate can’t hold their own trial and dismiss the case outright. I have heard that others have been saying similar things.
Anon, Mespo’s misjudgment wasn’t about Trump being impeached. He just underestimated how stupid and vile the House Democrats are. I congratulate Mespo for being kinder than he should have been and I condemn you for your stupidity.
Again, Pelosi’s employment history suggests she isn’t particularly practiced at the art of electoral politics. Unlike, say, Dianne Feinstein (or her father, Thomas d’Alessandro Jr), Pelosi’s hardly ever faced competitive electoral contests (just once, in 1987). And, like any Democratic pol in the last generation, the media’s been in her pantsuit pocket. She was never elected to the state legislature or to any local board. She’s never held an executive position. Prior to being elected to Congress, she held party positions in California consequent to the sponsorship she received from Phillip and Sala Burton. She didn’t have any liberal education beyond high school and her vocational training was limited to an elementary teaching certificate. (She hasn’t taught in 50+ years). In sum, she started out as Sala Burton’s remora and prospered in Congress by navigating office politics within the caucus. She doesn’t know anything discernible about policy apart from those issues she rode to get favorable news stories in Frisco. She gesticulates and jabbers like she’s having a stroke.
In this country, our best go into engineering and medicine. Compare Pelosi to Theresa May and you can get a sense of how mediocre our elected officials are.
Nancy P now has POS case to hand off to the Senate. What went down last night was good for her to have a short-lived chuckle, but that old broad knows the party is over
Listen to Trumps rally and particularly his comments about the Dingells for a true display of vengeance
Listen to Obama’s / Hillary’s rally and particularly his comments about the White Americans / deplorables for a true display of vengeance
FTFY
By the way, I am not even White and I take great offense at how Obama and Hillary have disparaged ordinary Americans for decades. Pity that you do not
Introspection is key. Integrity helps
Maybe Pelosi is ashamed to send
Both the flawed and baseless Articles of Impeachment
To the Senate.
Merry Xmas Mr President.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/pelosi-threatens-to-delay-trump-impeachment-trial-to-pressure-mcconnell.html
Pat C.,
Maybe Pelosi will wait to see if Trump wins in Nov. 2020, then send over the Impeachment Articles to Mitch.
Instead of drumming up fresh charges for his second term, she could just put these in storage and delay sending them to the Senate, then re-use them to start “Impeachment, the Sequel”.
Anonymous – wouldn’t the impeachment articles die in 2021?
Good question; I don’t know if there’s “an expiration date”.
If there is, it would probably be found in Senate and/or House rules.
Anonymous – I need to call my House member today to see if it dies with the 2020 session. Remember that military aid had to be used by a date certain.
Paul:
Each Congress starts anew. The resolution dies if not transmitted to the Senate by the time the next Congress is seated is my understanding.
Thanks, Mespo.
mespo – that was my understanding, however, the Democrats have changed the Rules of the House so much it might last until 10 years after Trump’s death.
Paul:
Imagine the farce of a Republican House having to appoint managers to prosecute a Dim impeachment resolution.
mespo – McCarthy was talking about Republicans overturning the impeachment if they took over.
Paul C Schulte – 🙂
The Dems will lose the house in 2020 Pelosi won’t be the speaker
Professor, thank you for your ethical, level-headed, unbiased, explanations. You are among the very few voice of reasons during this very sad time in our country’s history.
Pelosi wrapped herself in the flag and now wants assurances from the Senate that she will get what she wants before she sends the impeachment over. What a piece of work she is.
The Dummycrats are protesting inequity of Senate process in advance of Senate trial, but totally ignore gross inequity as it relates to House show hearings which led to POS that Dummycrats now have to hand off to Senate. Dummycrats are bunch of self-sabotaging group-think numbskulls.
More POS than POW.
She may very well be a POW: Prisoner of War in her deluded head. The behavior of 230 Democrats of the US House of Representatives would make Jim Jones turn green with envy
To wit, present day Rep Jackie Speier, Dem from San Francisco, was a legislative staffer to Rep Leo Ryan in 1978. She, Rep Ryan, and a legislative team, traveled to Jonestown, Guayana to investigate Jim Jones and his cult members. After completing their investigative visit, Ryan was assassinated at the Jonestown airport, and she was shot 5 times while hiding behind the wheel of an airplane. On that same day Nov 18, 1978, the Jim Jones 900 cult members committed suicide.
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Jackie-Speier-moving-on-moving-up-Survivor-2511901.php
Yet as recently as 2017 Speier called for the removal of President Trump for his comments “both sides are to blame” regarding the riots in Charlottesville, Va by both sides.
Speier and Pelosi and the other 228 Dems in the US House have much in common: cult, deranged thinking
California’s Jackie Speier is urging Trump’s removal with the 25th Amendment because ‘he has shown a mental instability’
https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/16/jackie-speier-calls-for-trumps-removal-from-office-under-25th-amendment/
how is she going to get around the Constitutional Oath of Office for Presidents? Ignore it as she does her own?