December 15, 2019
We know,
from reading the Federalist Papers, that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton
were keenly aware that they could not presume that the voters would always put
the leadership of the country in the hands of a person of irreproachable
character who would put the interest of the People and the country
first. This is why section 4 of Article II, dealing with the impeachment
process, is included in the Constitution.
The
President, the Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States can
all be removed from office by impeachment. The words “civil officers” shields
military officers from impeachment and the precedent was early established that
impeachment provision does not apply to members of Congress either.
It is remarkable though that, in all of
the 231 years that the Constitution has been in effect, no President or Vice
President has yet been removed from office by impeachment. The only civil
officers to be impeached and removed from office have been judges, seven so
far. Two Presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton have been impeached by the
House of Representatives, but acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned
before the House of Representatives had a chance to vote on the articles of
impeachment drawn up against him.
In a couple
of days, the House of Representatives will issue a third impeachment against a
sitting President and then it will be up to the Senate to decide if it will
remove Donald J. Trump from office for committing the high crime of abuse of
power and/or obstruction of Congress. It is widely believed that the outcome of
this process is preordained to be the third acquittal of a President in the
history of the Republic.
In the
immediate aftermath, half the nation will rejoice and the other half will be
furious, but future generations will wonder where the system, so thoughtfully
and ingeniously put in place by the founding fathers, failed to deliver in the
face of irrefutable evidence of conduct unbecoming of the holder of the highest
office in the land and a persistent and flaunting breach of the oath taken at
the inauguration of our 45th President.
The
short-term effect of the system failure may be limited if, in less than a year,
the voters correct the situation and vote Donald J. Trump out of office. But
the long-term effect is likely to set a precedent that no President, nominated
by the party controlling the Senate, will be impeached and removed from office.
The
carefully crafted system of checks and balances does not work when the
institutions that are charged with the obligation to provide the checks are
stubbornly refusing to do their job.
If Congress
is incapable or unwilling to keep the ambitions and powers of the President in
check, then the next safeguard to the system is in the hands of the judiciary
branch of government. At the time of this writing, numerous actions by Donald
J. Trump, committed in office, as a Presidential candidate, and as a private
citizen are currently under scrutiny of various courts. Only a dubious
Department of Justice memorandum from 2000 prevents the indictment and criminal
prosecution of this President.
Can the
courts step in where Congress fails to put the guard rails on Presidential
conduct and authority? Will they? The senate majority leader has worked long
and hard on confirming lifetime appointments to the Federal Courts as well as
the Supreme Court for judges who are considered favorable to his party’s cause.
And Donald Trump, with his handpicked and subservient Attorney General, as
President and as private citizen has all the means to delay final verdicts by
endless appeals. The delaying game pays off, both politically and legally: With
most federal offenses subject to a 5-year statute of limitation, a second term
would shield this President from ever getting prosecuted for criminal offenses
any other citizen would be convicted of and imprisoned for. And, until the
Supreme Court has spoken, the public remains in doubt about the legality of the
disputed actions by the defendant, allowing the GOP to argue that the President
has done nothing illegal.
Under these
conditions, only the voters can restore the checks and balances that are
imperfectly working under one party sabotage and the current balance of power. Best
of all would be if the People convincingly deny Trump a second term, but the
Democrats appear to be hell bent on making the same mistake that cost the
Labour party in the UK dearly, by going way left of where the voting public is
willing to go. Second best then is for the voters to punish the GOP, for its
subservience to an unfit President and the relinquishing of the basic
republican tenets, and take them out of the majority in the Senate.
The
Constitution itself cannot pull us out of the existing quagmire, if the
impeachment tool is taken out of the toolkit by party considerations and the
judicial process is slow to respond and handcuffed by Presidential
prerogatives. But the battle is not lost. It merely shifts to the forum where
it best belongs, the voting public. Everything hangs in the balance with the
2020 national elections. They will decide if we will still have a Republic that
we can keep.
