Posted on 12/20/2019 11:17:31 AM PST by maggief
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the power she believes to prevent the Senate’s participation in impeachment proceedings, former Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz said Thursday.
“Whether the House wants it to be in the Senate or not, the matter is now properly before the Senate,” Dershowitz said in a call with the Republican National Lawyers Association. “The presiding officer of the Senate can set a trial date, convene the chief justice and begin the trial. So I don’t think that Pelosi has the power that she thinks she has, or that my colleague Larry Tribe thinks she has.”
(snip)
“I can imagine nothing more unconstitutional than a House impeachment without sending it to the Senate,” Dershowitz said. “It’s just unheard of. The Constitution provides that it is a two-step process, not a one-step process. It doesn’t say the president may be impeached, period, that’s the end of the matter. It says the president may be impeached, and if he’s impeached by the House, the Senate then gets to decide whether he should be removed.
“The idea that a stain would remain on the books, that the president would remain impeached, without an opportunity for the president to get acquitted by the Senate, is plainly unconstitutional,” he added. “It would be as if a prosecutor decided he had insufficient evidence to get a conviction, so he went after an ordinary citizen and said, ‘Look, I’m just going to indict him. Let the public know he’s indicted. For the rest of his life, he will stand indicted. But I have no intention of bringing him to trial. I will deny him his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. I’m going to let the indictment just hang out there.’ Obviously, no judge would tolerate that.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Insightful, clear and powerful comments by Dershowitz.
Thanks for posting.
Exactly right, the Constitutions gives the Senate as much freedom to establish it’s rules as the House took advantage of.
Set a date, have the Chief Justice call the trial to order, and ask for the charges. If none are presented, case dismissed, just like any other judicial matter.
Jim Sensenbrenner has done 4 impeachments including Clintons and he said it’s a very bad idea for the House to try telling the Senate how to do it’s job.
Yep. Set the trial date, seat the judge, and hold the hearing. If the prosecution does not show up, dismiss the charges with prejudice.
Alan Dershowitz is a Democrat but he’s against this craziness. He’s spent his life defending unpopular defendants so he knows how stupid the Democrat missive is we’re going to deny Trump his day in court for political reasons.
Before “Epstien (sic) did not kill himself” I had been wondering where Dershowitz was. He has finally resurfaced. He sure looked like he was going to get dragged down in that pedo-ring thing.
*
Not to hi-jack this thread too much, but I recall that D’wtz said that there was some testimony from an Epstien victim that proved some allegation made (by same victim?) regarding Dershowitz was false.
*
Actually glad to be hearing from D’witz again, but I believe that he was way too close to Epstien and that entire dirty deal to be as clean as he says he is. I would like to see justice done, but must remember that we have a bifurcated system.
Every defendant deserves swift justice, whether it be guilty or innocent. It’s their constitutional right.
Yup. That’s even if you hate him. Every American citizen accused of a crime has the right to a speedy trial by jury.
Its a fundamental bedrock right guaranteed by the Constitution.
What the DemonRATs are doing with their impeachment circus is railroad President Trump without due process. That is unconstitutional and verifies for me that they are about undoing the results of the American Revolution.
Let’s open it up...
Pelosi doesn’t have the _________________ she believes she has.
Bump.
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Sure seems like it.
Maybe I'm just getting old, fearful, and weaker, but these Democrats today seem like some awful creation from satanic forces out to destroy the United States of America.
The mutation of the Democrat Party in the past decade or so is a geometrically increasing progression of evil.
WoW, that 6th Amendment thangy...
How did those old yappers know...
Man... that evil US Constitution keeps getting in the way of global socialists, who have long saught to tear it all down, and to tear our nation down, as soon as possible, so they can usher in their new anti-US Constitution global socialist totalitarian law structure.
No matter who it is for, Horowitz is clearly right on, about the 6th Amendment. In both law and intent, innocent or guilty, our Constitution also demands *swiftness (speedy).
Arguments wearn’t limited to these, but I was arguing valid 1st, 4th, and 6th Amendment lower House violations last night, as well as violations of portions of Articles I, II.
*Also, it cannot be argued that anyone’s Constitutional rights as an American, can be violated at will, as long as it is done by the LOWER House of Congress, and they simply call it an “impeachment process”.
There have been numerous legal problems and Amendment violations of the lower House, actually beginning far before the start of their overt/covert process, and lasting all the way through the “end/non-end” of their process.
If what the lower House has done in this case is to stand (*just because they created their own new precedent by committee, and created new rules/law by closed door committee), then “impeachent” has now been practically redefined from “charge” to “judgement”, as they truly have already craftily denied otherwise guaranteed Constitutional rights!
In practical color, they have acted as judge, jury, and to a degree “executioner”.
And the list of rights and necessary jidicious process denial is significant. It is almost easier to try and identify what they didn’t violate.
But to conclude they can get away with all this, presents near myriad legal and lawful boundary violations, userpation, contradictions, and intersection, and an overwhelming and hopelessly untenable inter-Legislative body, Executive, and Judicial Branch crisis. Going forward, if allowed to stand, also sets the Lower House up as the defacto supreme beginning and end of the all government authority and power.
In this point alone, (while they would argue otherwise, and are grossly wrong), they actually have maneuvered all House proceedings, overt and covert, to intentionally manipulate, lead/coach, and deny witnesses. They have denied exculpatory evidence, presumed/manufactured/framed guilt. And they intentionally denied an Americans due process, recourse, defense, and now speed.
There are actually many destructive crisis points with all of what has happened, and is happening.
Pundants and talking heads keep reducing the argument to one specific thing or another.
However, the regulatory, legal, and lawful abuse and violations are numerous, they happened all at once, and were carried out by an intentionally *secret and segregated convening government body, which determined to fabricate and falsely frame a lawfully elected and innocent President!
AND THEIR REAL INTENT AND GOAL BEING — *to render 63 Million votes and the electoral college null!
HOW are we not justifiably forced to consider all of it at the same time !?!?!
From my previous reply - “Horowitz” = Dershowitz
To another recently well stated and well argued Gingrich/Dershowitz/Levin/Klayman/Fitton/
Olsen/both J Seculow’s etc... point.
The authers of our US Constitution absolutely recognized the dangerous and potentially lethal possibility of rendering a CO-EQUAL branch of government debilitated, powerless, and moot, and at multiple points tried (intent) to build in Constitutional “safeties”.
The DNC and Lower House actors are totally out of control, and grabbing power deliberately not divided to them.
And I would add, their motive and goal is the destruction of constitutional rights, destruction of necessary jidicous processes, and usurpitus of our enumerated democratic election/electoral process, again illegally and unlawfully rendering 63 Million votes and PDJT electoral votes void.
They have already violated many laws, regulations, processes, and Amendment rights, grabbed undelegated power, and they did it all to overturn a clear lawful election!
If not thoroughly dealt with, with absolute prejudice, liberty and America die now.
Haha NanZi - I’ll see your Tribe and raise you a Dershowitz!
“Maybe I’m just getting old, fearful, and weaker, but these Democrats today seem like some awful creation from satanic forces out to destroy the United States of America.
The mutation of the Democrat Party in the past decade or so is a geometrically increasing progression of evil.”
I couldn’t agree more with your expressed concerns. You have to wonder where they go from here and if they will ever regain sanity.
I don’t call them DemonRATs for nothing.
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