Posted on 01/13/2021 1:45:28 PM PST by The Pack Knight
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected a plan to reconvene the Senate in an emergency session to hold trial over an impeachment article against President Trump in the House.
McConnell press secretary Doug Andres confirmed a report that the Kentucky Republican would not sanction such a move on Wednesday.
Without the emergency session, the Senate is due back in session on Jan. 19., so McConnell’s decision all but kills a Democrat-led effort to oust Trump from office before his term is up and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20. A trial over the impeachment article is unlikely to conclude within such a short time.
Democrats have proposed holding the trial over Trump’s impeachment well-into Biden’s presidency. Michael Luttig, a former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, slammed the idea on Tuesday, asserting that impeaching and removing a president after he left office is “unconstitutional.”
“It appears that even if the House of Representatives impeaches President Trump this week, the Senate trial on that impeachment will not begin until after Trump has left office and President-Elect Biden has become president on Jan. 20,” Luttig wrote in The Washington Post. “That Senate trial would be unconstitutional.”
Luttig continued:
Once Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, Congress loses its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even if the House has already approved articles of impeachment.Therefore, if the House of Representatives were to impeach the president before he leaves office, the Senate could not thereafter convict the former president and disqualify him under the Constitution from future public office.
The reason for this is found in the Constitution itself. Trump would no longer be incumbent in the Office of the President at the time of the delayed Senate proceeding and would no longer be subject to “impeachment conviction” by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president.
On Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a moderate, criticized the ongoing impeachment push and noted that any impeachment article passed in the House will likely not have enough support in the Senate.
“I think, my arithmetic, that means we have 19 Republicans. I don’t see that. And I think the House should know that also. We have been trying to send that message over. They know the votes aren’t there. You would think that they would do that,” Manchin said on Monday.
“I think this is so ill-advised for Joe Biden to be coming in, trying to heal the country, trying to be the president of all the people, when we’re going to be so divided and fighting again. Let the judicial system do its job,” he added. “And then, we’re a country of the rule of law. That’s the bedrock of who we are. Let that take its place. Let the investigations go on. Let the evidence come forth, and then we will go forward from there. There’s no rush to do this impeachment now. We can do it later if they think it’s necessary.”
Yes, but the dims are all clamoring to charge him for all kinds of alleged crimes once he leaves office. He'll be tied up in court for years.
The Belknap resignation v. impeachment served as a precedent for several other impeachments, including that of President Richard Nixon. That is why they did not impeach Nixon following his resignation from office. The rational that was made by Congress during the Belknap scandal was that he resigned knowing he was about to be impeached - that “Belknap resigned in order to escape impeachment” - which is why the vote in the HoR was unanimous to impeach him. Secretary of War Belknap presented his letter of resignation to President Grant 1 hour before the vote for impeachment was taken.
This is not the case with President Donald Trump. He has not, and will not resign. He is leaving office at the constitutionally prescribed end of his term. So, the present-day Senate is not presented with the same situation as was faced by those Senators who tried the Belknap impeachment - i.e.: Trump is not “resigning to escape impeachment.”
Furthermore, unlike the Kangaroo proceedings that occurred in the House yesterday, a Senate trial is an actual trial of facts, as occurs in any U.S. civil court.
In that light, the Supreme Court decision, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) is the precedent that will govern the defense’s argument to exonerate President Trump.
To cross the legal threshold from protected to unprotected speech, the Supreme Court held the speaker must intend to incite or produce imminent lawless action, and the speaker’s words or conduct must be likely to produce such action. These requirements are known as the Brandenburg test. (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).)
First, incitement to violence requires proof that the defendant intended to incite violence or riot (whether or not it actually occurs). Careless conduct or “emotionally charged rhetoric” does not meet this standard. Second, the defendant must create a sort of roadmap for immediate harm—using general or vague references to some future act doesn’t qualify as imminent lawless action. Finally, the defendant’s words must be likely to persuade, provoke, or urge a crowd to violence. Profanity or offensive messaging alone isn’t enough; the messaging must appeal to actions that lead to imminent violence. (NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware, Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982); Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973).)
By the legal standard, asserted by SCOTUS in Brandenburg, President Trump does not meet any of the criteria. So, Rep. McCarthy, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Mitt Romney, et al, and his followers, are full of sh*t - in plain English. More pointedly, being that most of them are lawyers, they damn well know Trump is innocent of the charge.
You can’t remove a president who is not the president.
2 + 2 = 4.
They cannot remove Trump and cannot bar him from running for future office under the US Constitution.
They are not doing this to remove Trump
They are doing this so they can take away his Secret Service protection so they can kill him
You think logic will deter Democrats?
Are they bulletproof?
They don’t have to be if they can get 67 votes.
75+ MILLION votes say otherwise.
“We don’t like him, but Cocaine Mitch is extremely smart.
He gave us the judges, tax cuts & more.”
There were tax cuts under other Republican presidents, and Trump gave us the judges.
Trump is unlikely to be convicted, so there is little likelihood of any courts considering the matter (even if it is justiciable).
It is definitely not justiciable.
The classic work on impeachment is Impeachment, A Handbook, by Charles L. Black, Jr. In chapter 4, he considered an impeachment thoroughly examined in the House, and a trial thoroughly argued in the Senate, resulting in conviction. He goes on, (emphasis as in original):
The president now appeals to the Supreme Court. The jurisdiction of that Court over the appeal is to say the least quite unclear, but it takes jurisdiction anyway. On the merits, the Court disagrees with the House and with the Senate on some point, let us say, as to the meaning of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” or on some procedural question of weight (perhaps dividing 5 to 4, perhaps filing nine opinions no five of which espouse the same reasoning). So it puts the impeached and convicted president back in for the rest of his term. And we all live happily ever after.I don’t think I possess the resources of rhetoric adequate to characterizing the absurdity of that position.
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A word about Senate precedent: I would contend that the Senate’s past acts do not form any sort of binding precedent because, even though they are acting in a judicial capacity, they don’t issue opinions setting forth their reasoning as an appellate court does.
It is definitely not a binding precedent. The Senate has no binding precedents, but then neither does the Supreme Court. Judicial precedents only bind courts lower than the issuing court. However, as impeachment after leaving office has been has been done before, this senate could do it again. As there is no judicial appeal, they can pretty much do as they please.
Maybe because he clearly understood the letter Trump sent to Pelosi
“I don’t believe anything coming from the media anymore. If they tell me it’s raining, I’ll go outside and verify before believing them.”
Well Said! Thing is there are Conservative ready, eager to dump on the GOP no matter the source. Now there are More than enough reasons to criticize.attack The Stupid Party (that would be the GOP)lords knows. Lets also consider The Source of a story.
And without Mitch McConnell, Trump would not have gotten those judges. Lets also remember when Obamacare was being pushed though No Republicans Voted for it. 2 reasons this happened. Mitch McConnell & Paul Ryan.
“And without Mitch McConnell, Trump would not have gotten those judges. Lets also remember when Obamacare was being pushed though No Republicans Voted for it. 2 reasons this happened. Mitch McConnell & Paul Ryan.”
All Republicans support getting judges appointed. Trump won the Election. Hillary would have been President.
DEVELOPING: Sources on Hill say Pelosi coordinated the “snap impeachment” of Trump with Russia “collusion” hoaxer Schiff in part to distract from forthcoming damning revelations from declassified bombshell FBI docs exposing the Russiagate probe of Trump as a political operation https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1349926655125544962
HOORAY!!!!
No florida Man! Used to be everyone laughed at Florida....after this election no one’s laughing at florida.
Side look at Trump’s political viability in 2024:
You may think this is far-fetched and whistling past the graveyard. But there are solid historical reasons for optimism. Let’s assume the Democrats’ basic premise is true, i.e. that Trump lost fair and square. Trump’s loss wasn’t terrible - a couple of hundred thousand votes short in the swing states that decide the White House race. This is in the face of two outlier events - a mass casualty pandemic and the resultant economic depression representing the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
The Democrats expected a complete sweep of the states, both at the White House and Congressional levels. FDR got a 413 electoral vote victory margin. Biden’s was 74. The 1932 House elections gave the Democrats a 196-seat margin, vs the ~12-seat margin they got in 2020. The 1932 Senate elections moved the Democrats to a 22-seat margin, vs the 1-seat margin (thanks to the VP tie breaker vote) they just got after the 2021 GA runoffs. This was a blue wave a toddler could safely paddle in, not a tsunami.
If you accept the Democratic premise that Trump lost by 7m votes, that’s a Biden popular vote margin of 4%. FDR’s victory margin over Hoover? 28%.
That’s why they’re trying to prevent Trump from running again. He’s no Herbert Hoover, whose political career was over the day the results came in. The Dems aren’t afraid Trump will get the 2024 GOP nomination and lose in the general. They’re worried that one hiccup or other before 2024 will send Trump back to the White House with commanding GOP majorities, but this time cleansed of the never-Trumpers who gave him so much trouble in his first term.
If Trump intends to run again, the interval from now until presidential season should* involve the installation of Republicans who support the Trump agenda in the midterms, and the removal of those who don’t. Bannon’s quest to populate elected offices with Trump supporters needs to resume, so that when Trump re-enters the White House, his agenda is ready to go from Day 1.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_Senate_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_Senate_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
You could also compare the numbers to those from the Spanish Flu election of 1920. Something similar happened, except this time, the incumbent Democrats lost big, with the GOP getting a 2/3 majority in the House. They would probably have gotten the same thing in the Senate, if every seat was up for grabs, rather than just 1/3. Point being that the pollsters were presumably modeling their blue wave poll results on 1920 and 1932, which were disastrous for the incumbents and resulted in ~300 and up electoral vote victory margins (i.e. winner - loser EV’s). Now that was a mandate. Whereas Biden had a ~70 EV margin, based on 1-2% popular vote margins in the swing states being litigated over. He’s skating on very thin ice.
The big question is obviously whether Trump will run. Given what we’ve seen of Trump’s decision-making process, maybe he himself doesn’t know the answer.
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