Impeachment and the Confrontation Clause

American thinker.com ^ | December 10, 2019 | Bruce DeValle

[Kaslin]

Beware of those who promise to secure rights by denying them.

The clamoring likes of Rep. Andrew Schiff, Conservative Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy, the Washington Post’s Deanna Paul, Professor Steve Vladeck, and others similarly ill-advised -- the “Constitutional Deniers” -- are intellectually and historically errant to suggest that the Constitution has no place in congressional proceedings and processes – especially impeachment proceedings. These Constitutional Deniers use the hollow argument that impeachment is not a criminal process, therefore the Sixth Amendment does not apply. While it is a political process, impeachment is shorn more in the cloth of a criminal process than that of a civil proceeding.

The arguments to the contrary are devoid of even a modicum of intellectual credibility or historic reflection. The very fact that “high crimes and misdemeanors” are the entry point to begin the impeachment process seems to have evaded the Constitutional Deniers and the witless epigones of the Democratic Party. Federalist 65 recognizes that the impeachment process is a matter of “innocence or guilt” -- alien terms in a civil proceeding.

The Constitutional Deniers persist in their ignorance of history and plain language. The Constitution itself clangs a thunderous death knell on their specious argument. Both Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 reference “conviction.” “Conviction” is a word reserved exclusively for criminal proceedings. No one now or has ever been “convicted” in a civil proceeding in the United States. Were impeachments simply civil matters, the language of the Constitution becomes nonsensical.

[lastchance]

Great article and on the money. I think the author’s points would also apply to the argument that “the House can impeach for any reason.”

[Dick Bachert]