In arguing about the merits of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, some opponents of impeachment mistakenly advocate the view that the impeachment of public officials requires evidence of the commitment of an actual crime – and would not be justified by such things as gross violation of the public trust, corruption, negligence, or incompetence. Leaving aside the fact that such an interpretation would leave our nation subject to rule by people who would do great and possibly irreparable harm to it, the preponderance of evidence flatly contradicts that interpretation.
Not that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
aren’t guilty of numerous actual crimes: Regarding the abuses and torture of our prisoners, the U.S. Supreme Court so much as branded George W. Bush a ‘war criminal’ for violating the
Geneva Convention, in their
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision (
explained here by Vyan);
numerous war crimes have been committed by the Bush administration in the war against Iraq, including the preemptive invasion of Iraq itself; George Bush has repeatedly
admitted to his program for warrantless spying against tens of thousands of Americans, in violation of the
Fourth amendment to our Constitution as well as the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); the American Bar Association
has said that Bush’s signing of over 800 “signing statements” to circumvent the laws of our country violates the “Separation of Powers” provided in our Constitution; and then there’s the
outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by the Bush administration, which leads right to Dick Cheney, if not to George Bush himself.
So there is plenty of evidence of actual crimes. But crimes are more difficult to prove than are things like gross violation of the public trust, corruption, negligence, or incompetence. And therefore, the incorrect claims that strong evidence of
crimes is needed before proceeding with impeachment poses an unnecessary barrier to an action that is at this time urgently needed for our nation, as well as an excuse for our Congress not to act.
If things like gross violation of the public trust, corruption, negligence, or incompetence are rightly recognized as a valid reason for impeachment, then in addition to the above noted offenses, things like the Bush administration’s
gross negligence in its response to Hurricane Katrina, its repeated
denial of global warming, its
failure to provide adequate health care to veterans, and the
loss of billions of dollars associated with no-bid contracts for reconstruction in Iraq given to Bush administration cronies, would all easily be considered as additional impeachable offenses.
And the
U.S. attorney firing scandal would be the icing on the cake. This scandal represents nothing less than a largely successful attempt to pervert our justice system by using it for the partisan political gains of the President of the United States. If that doesn’t represent a betrayal of trust and corruption, then what does?
So let’s consider the evidence that the “crimes and misdemeanors” referred to in our Constitution as a justification for the impeachment of a President are not limited to actual punishable crimes. To do that we’ll take a look at English common law precedence, the opinions of some of the framers of our Constitution, the statement of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the House Judiciary Committee’s articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, and that great Constitutional authority, Ann Coulter (when she argued for the impeachment of Bill Clinton).
English common law precedentWhen our Founding Fathers wrote our Constitution, they used English common law as a reference point for many of their ideas. Impeachment had been used in English common law for many centuries by that time, and at the time that “crimes and misdemeanors” were described as a justification for impeachment, a
misdemeanor was not defined as any sort of a crime, as
described here:
Impeachment was used frequently during the reigns of James I (1603-1625) and Charles I (1628-1648)… Some of these impeachments charged high treason… others charged high crimes and misdemeanors. The latter included both statutory offenses, particularly with respect to the Crown monopolies, and non-statutory offenses. For example, Sir Henry Yelverton, the King's Attorney General, was impeached in 1621 of high crimes and misdemeanors in that he failed to prosecute after commencing suits, and exercised authority before it was properly vested in him.
The opinions of our Founding Fathers on impeachmentJames Madison It was Madison's view that impeachment was an "indispensable" provision for defending the American experiment - and the American people - "against the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate." The promise of another election, at which a wrongdoing executive might be removed, was not enough to provide such protection
Alexander Hamilton A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments… The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
Thomas Jefferson When once a republic is corrupted there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption . . . every other correction is either useless or a new evil.
The
South Carolina ratifying convention Under the new Constitution, the abuse of power was more effectually checked than under the old one. A proper body, immediately taken from the people, and returnable to the people every second year, are to impeach those who behave amiss, or betray their public trust; another body, taken from the state legislatures, are to try them. No man, however great, is exempt from impeachment and trial. If the representatives of the people think he ought to be impeached and tried, the President cannot pardon him; and this great man himself, whom the honorable gentleman pretends to be so much afraid of, as well as the Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States, are to be removed from office on impeachment and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story The offences, to which the power of impeachment has been, and is ordinarily applied, as a remedy, are of a political character. Not but that crimes of a strictly legal character fall within the scope of the power, (for, as we shall presently see, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors are expressly within it); but that it has a more enlarged operation, and reaches, what are aptly termed, political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, in the discharge of the duties of political office.
The impeachment of Richard NixonThe U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1974 approved
three Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon. It is a certainty that the three articles would have been approved by the full U.S. House of Representatives had Nixon not resigned before they had time to do so, therefore making impeachment a moot issue. Each of the three articles contained this language inserted at the end of the description of the evidence:
In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Note that there is no mention whatsoever in any of the language in these concluding paragraphs that suggests the committing of an actual crime.
Ann CoulterI don’t know whether Ann Coulter believes that these principles should apply to Republican Presidents as well as Democratic ones, but here’s
what she said with regard to the impeachment of Bill Clinton:
An impeachment conviction in the Senate merely removes a statesman from his office of "honor, trust, or profit" with the United States. The criminal law is for personal punishment; impeachment is for keeping statesmen virtuous.
Concluding thoughtsNever in the history of our nation has a President and Vice President been so deserving of impeachment and removal from office. Their subversion of our Constitution goes way beyond gross violation of the public trust, corruption, negligence, and incompetence. They have put themselves above the laws of our nation and the international laws of our world, and in so doing have repeatedly subverted our Constitution, which provides the foundation for the rule of law in our nation.
Now
Congress is “negotiating” with the Bush administration to persuade them to testify before Congress regarding severe abuses of their power. I don’t see what there is to negotiate. Congress has both the authority
and the responsibility to investigate Presidents who abuse their office, and the President is obligated by law to comply with such investigations. The purpose of claims of “Executive privilege” is NOT to protect the President against the discovery of his crimes or misdeeds. Rather, it is only to be used to protect the security of our nation. When it is used to protect the President against Congressional discovery of his misdeeds that is a clear violation of our Constitution, as it upsets the “Separation of Power” that was intended to protect our nation against tyranny.
Congress does, however, have a remedy for that, which is written into the Constitution itself, and that remedy is impeachment. No other offense is required. If George Bush gets away once again with putting himself above the laws of our nation, and if Congress once again fails to stop him, they will be continuing to set a terrible precedent that could very well lead to the end of our democracy.
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