Democrats repeat failed history with mad dash to impeach Donald Trump

The Hill ^ | 12/17/19 | JONATHAN TURLEY

[Libloather]

“Let them impeach and be damned.” Those words could have easily come from Donald Trump, as the House moves this week to impeach him. They were, however, the words of another president who not only shares some striking similarities to Trump but who went through an impeachment with chilling parallels to the current proceedings. The impeachment of Trump is not just history repeating itself but repeating itself with a vengeance.

The closest of the three prior presidential impeachment cases to the House effort today is the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson. This is certainly not a comparison that Democrats should relish. The Johnson case has long been widely regarded as the very prototype of an abusive impeachment. As in the case of Trump, calls to impeach Johnson began almost as soon as he took office. A southerner who ascended to power after the Civil War as a result of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson was called the “accidental president” and his legitimacy was never accepted by critics. Representative John Farnsworth of Illinois called Johnson an “ungrateful, despicable, besotted, traitorous man.”

**SNIP**

The Trump impeachment is even weaker than the Johnson impeachment, which had an accepted criminal act as its foundation. This will be the first presidential impeachment to go forward without such a recognized crime but, like the Johnson impeachment, it has a manufactured and artificial construct. The Trump impeachment also marks the fastest impeachment of all time, depending on how you count the days in the Johnson case.

[wastoute]

The libtards have destroyed the country...and that’s a good thing. We can’t just throw them out of THIS country. We can The NEXT one.

[wastoute]

When the rules go away they go away for everybody. They don’t need evidence. Why should we?

[Popman]

I have moonbat family suffering from TDS...

When the Senate acquits and impeachment has accomplished nothing except help get Trump re-elected....

I wonder what they will do...???

Scream at the sky???

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the White House should bypass the Senate altogether! If the House passes the Articles of Impeachment the WH should appeal directly to SCOTUS on the grounds of those articles eliminating our Constitutional form of government.

Majority Leader McConnell has asserted that Nancy’s threat to hold back notification to the Senate is no threat at all, inasmuch as the Senate never wanted that notification in the first place.

So in that sense it’s no skin off the Senate’s nose if it never receives notice from the House that the Senate has to judge an impeachment.

Problem is, SCOTUS probably feels the same way. The inducement I see for Justice Roberts to take Trump’s side against Nancy is simple - Article II of the impeachment presumes to deny SCOTUS the right to grant cert of President Trump’s appeal. Something which SCOTUS had already done when the House presumptuously denied SCOTUS’ right to do so by passing Article II.

[Bob Ireland]

***Article II of the impeachment presumes to deny SCOTUS the right to grant cert of President Trump’s appeal. Something which SCOTUS had already done when the House presumptuously denied SCOTUS’ right to do so by passing Article II***

Yes, thank you... I had already stated that. I guess the question being raised today is - IF Nancy Pelosi never refers the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, has Prez Trump actually been impeached?

Of course, as for the radical Dems and their lackey media they will undoubtedly holler that he has been impeached from the rooftops - and he is guilty with no trial in the Senate; also Dem threats of more impeachment attempts. IN ORDER TO STOP further impeachment shenanigans by the Dems I would like to see SCOTUS get involved.