Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?

[ffr]

Donald J. Trump: Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence? (06/04/14)

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?
3:23 AM - 4 Jun 2014


MarkHoHoHoHamill @HamillHimself (Mark Hamill - Star Wars)

MarkHoHoHoHamill Retweeted Donald J. Trump

You're about to find out, Benedict Donald! 👍
#HaveYourselfAVeryMuellerChristmas 🎅

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzing!

[NCjack]

1. Apparently not. nt

[roamer65]

2. May the force be with you, Luke.

[Hoyt]

3. If you have the votes, and enough of the electorate support it, a Prez could be removed.

In trump’s case, it seems there is enough evidence of wrong doing to remove him. I’m sure it would be easy enough to trump up charges against a less criminal Prez if a vast majority of voters support it.

[Control-Z]

4. Wait a minute.

Did the maggot actually write that?

Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?

Why would he ask such a question?

[LuckyCharms]

5. His question had a 2014 date. See his tweet above. n/t

[Control-Z]

6. I should know to look at the date by now.

They're really is an old tweet by the maggot for every occasion.

[LuckyCharms]

7. The date always messes me up...

I had to train myself to check for it when one of his tweets makes even less sense than usual.

Whenever I see something like this, It always reaffirms in my mind that he was making an effort way back when to sow the seeds for a presidential run.

[politicaljunkie41910]

8. My guess would be that if you're "grossly incompetent" for a long enough period of time

at some point you're going to be guilty of a "high crime or misdemeanor" for either something you've done, or something you should have done but failed to do. Leadership has its obligations. As Commander-in-Chief, the buck ultimately stops at the top.

I can see Trump being guilty of failure to do something, or for negligence, or putting troops at risk, unnecessarily. And then there is the ultimate High Crime which is also the most likely, and that is Treason, for passing along classified information to his buddy Putin or his buddy the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia MEB.

[backscatter712]

9. If you can get enough votes from 535 self-interested politicians...

The Constitution is vague on this, saying impeachment is a remedy for "high crimes and misdemeanors". Also, it's a political act, not a criminal prosecution, so the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors" is left to said 535 self-interested politicians.

[Gothmog]

10. Ask Sen. Graham

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

11. The Founding Fathers designed impeachment for someone exactly like Donald Trump

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

Their writings and debates surrounding the creation of the Constitution make clear that the framers feared a certain kind of character coming to power and usurping the republican ideal of their new nation. Having just defeated a tyrant — “Mad” King George III of England — they carefully crafted rules to remove such a character: impeachment. In the process, they revealed precisely the kind of corrupt, venal, inattentive and impulsive character they were worried about.

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 country’s norms and values was as much a threat as one who broke its laws.

Gouverneur Morris, who wrote the Constitution’s 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 France’s 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

[elocs]

12. Impeachment does not remove a president from office, just ask Bill. n/t

[Odoreida]

13. Call me cynical, but ...

Don't talk about enough evidence to impeach, talk about enough votes.