What IS an impeachable offense anymore?

[superpatriotman]

Is this a monarchy or a constitutional republic?

[pecosbob]

1. It's an oligarchy of corporate predators and we're their product as well as their victims

[BeyondGeography]

2. Depends who you're asking

The bar is very low for Republicans if you're asking about a Democrat. It also seems unattainably high for the Democrat who presently matters the most if you're asking about a certain Republican.

[ck4829]

3. I think they needed a minimum number of words to make it official

And they were like “I dunno, ‘something, something, peaches... no, impeachment. Blah blah. High crimes.”

Might as well take it out

[superpatriotman]

6. Hilarious

It’s my belief that we can’t let ‘polarization’ or ‘politicalization’ or other loaded words get in the way of the law.

You can’t throw out the rule book because there’s a cult running things. You follow the rule book BECAUSE there’s a cult running things.

[ck4829]

10. It's kind of like those 'spitting on the sidewalk will get you fined a nickel' laws

Last edited Tue Mar 12, 2019, 03:03 AM - Edit history (1)

If high crimes and misdemeanors don’t merit impeachment, then nothing does. Oh wait, we actually have a party that will most certainly try to impeach the next Democratic president because they, I don’t know, said “happy holidays” or their tie clashed with their suit.

All I’m saying is if the impeachment clause isn’t just some legalistic relict, then either use or it lose it.

[manor321]

4. Don't worry, after the Mueller report, or more evidence...

...Nancy Pelosi will regretfully and somberly advocate for impeachment.

It's a game.

[Dennis Donovan]

5. It's not the offenses - we know he's broken the law since taking office...

...it's that impeachment is a political mechanism, and you would still need 2/3 in the senate if you impeached in the house. We just don't have 2/3 of the senate.

[lunatica]

7. There are plenty of offenses. There is little desire to impeach.

It’s pretty much a consensus. Only Trump speaks of his innocence. No one else does. The argument has become of whether a President can be impeached.

[Xipe Totec]

8. It's whatever 75% of the US voters think is an impeachable offense. nt

[marylandblue]

9. An impeachable offense was always whatever Congress said it was.

Fact is, impeachment never really worked out as intended. Andrew Johnson, former contender for worst President in history, all around idiot, lawbreaker and Southern sympathizer was impeached but not removed from office. Reagan and Bush I broke major laws and the words "impeachment" were never spoken. Andrew Jackson, a boor and a genocidal maniac who defied the Supreme Court, was never considered for impeachment.

I wish it were better. You can see the assumptions about impeachment in the Federalist papers were that Congress would take impeachable offenses seriously. That was true only once in our history, with Nixon.

On the plus side, Pelosi is a very shrewd politician. She's calculated that it's better to vote Trump out than impeach him. The 2020 election should not be about Trump's failed impeachment, it should be about what kind of country we want. Those two are not the same thing, though they do overlap.

[onenote]

12. +1

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Any more? We've only had two impeachments in our entire history...

although Nixon was certain to be impeached if he didn't quit. The process had started.

So, what we have is the simple fact that an impeachable offense is anything the House says it is. Andrew Johnson was impeached because senate Republicans hated the Tennessee Turncoat who accidentally became President, but the charges were over firing Secretary of War Stanton.

Clinton was impeached because Republicans hated him and he embarrassed Newt Gingrich by his popularity killing Gingrich's expected huge House win in the midterms. Gingrich quit over that, but resentment lingered. The charges were lying and obstruction, but the lying and obstruction were over the blue dress and Clinton's (ahem...) DNA. Whitewater was forgotten as a lost cause by that time.

Trump? An extraordinary bounty of riches in impeachment charges, but the challenge is to find one of them that sticks.