Your Once and Final Supreme Double Impeachee

[kladner]

Originally Posted by retina

I doubt Trump will be convicted. The voters will simply follow their party affiliations, regardless of any actual facts or what they personally believe.

It's all just a big waste of time, and probably done to distract the little people from some other controversial thing(s) they want to do.

It seems to be counter productive in terms of defeating Trump in the election.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

<snip>
Re. "recognized crime", a reader clarifies: "Johnson was impeached in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act which was passed in 1867. It was an act specifically passed over Johnson’s veto to deny Johnson the right to remove Secretary of War Stanton without the Senate’s approval – which they were not about to give. It was generally accepted that a President had the right to dismiss his cabinet members without the Senate’s approval in the past and if this law had gone to the Supreme Court, it most likely would have been declared unconstitutional. It was just a partisan trap that they knew Johnson would fall into."

The Tenure of Office Act was repealed in 1887 when President Grover Cleveland challenged Congress over it. In his 1926 opinion in Myers v. United States, Chief Justice Taft wrote (my emphasis):

We are now asked to set aside this construction, thus buttressed, and adopt an adverse view because the Congress of the United States did so during a heated political difference of opinion between the then President and the majority leaders of Congress over the reconstruction measures adopted as a means of restoring to their proper status the States which attempted to withdraw from the Union at the time of the Civil War. The extremes to which the majority in both Houses carried legislative measures in that matter are now recognized by all who calmly review the history of that episode in our Government, leading to articles of impeachment against President Johnson, and his acquittal. Without animadverting [p176] on the character of the measures taken, we are certainly justified in saying that they should not be given the weight affecting proper constitutional construction to be accorded to that reached by the First Congress of the United States during a political calm and acquiesced in by the whole Government for three-quarters of a century, especially when the new construction contended for has never been acquiesced in by either the executive or the judicial departments. While this Court has studiously avoided deciding the issue until it was presented in such a way that it could not be avoided, in the references it has made to the history of the question, and in the presumptions it has indulged in favor of a statutory construction not inconsistent with the legislative decision of 1789, it has indicated a trend of view that we should not and cannot ignore. When, on the merits, we find our conclusion strongly favoring the view which prevailed in the First Congress, we have no hesitation in holding that conclusion to be correct, and it therefore follows that the Tenure of Office Act of 1867, insofar as it attempted to prevent the President from removing executive officer who had been appointed by him by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, was invalid, and that subsequent legislation of the same effect was equally so.

For the reasons given, we must therefore hold that the provision of the law of 1876, by which the unrestricted power of removal of first class postmasters is denied to the President, is in violation of the Constitution, and invalid. This leads to an affirmance of the judgment of the Court of Claims.

A curious thing about the phrase

it attempted to prevent the President from removing executive officer who had been appointed by him by and with the advice and consent of the Senate

Namely, Congress attempted to prevent Andrew Johnson from removing Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War. But Stanton had been appointed not "by him" (Johnson), but by his predecessor Abraham Lincoln.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by retina

I doubt Trump will be convicted. The voters will simply follow their party affiliations, regardless of any actual facts or what they personally believe.

It's all just a big waste of time, and probably done to distract the little people from some other controversial thing(s) they want to do.

Of course the Senate won't remove Il Duce from office. They wouldn't remove him even if he went out on Fifth Avenue and shot somebody -- unless the person he shot was a Republican, but probably not even then.

Without the impeachment proceedings, the provisions of the huge spending bill that just got passed might have received a bit more public scrutiny.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

It seems to be counter productive in terms of defeating Trump in the election.

Yup.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

The Tenure of Office Act was repealed in 1887 when President Grover Cleveland challenged Congress over it. In his 1926 opinion in Myers v. United States, Chief Justice Taft wrote (my emphasis):
[snip]
A curious thing about the phrase

Namely, Congress attempted to prevent Andrew Johnson from removing Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War. But Stanton had been appointed not "by him" (Johnson), but by his predecessor Abraham Lincoln.

Taft had a very interesting career - post-presidency served as Chief Justice of SCOTUS from 1921 until his death in 1930 - and it's sad that the only way he is remembered by most non-historians is as the butt of fat jokes.

Re. the 'curious' quote, I read 'him' as standing for 'him or his predecessor' - i.e. it makes sense in the "X serves at the pleasure of the president" sense. Just as an incoming president may replace the FBI head, to give another example.

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Without the impeachment proceedings, the provisions of the huge spending bill that just got passed might have received a bit more public scrutiny.

Yep. I've also seen speculation to the effect that a drawn-out Senate trial would have the salutary (for the Dem establishment) effect of pulling Sanders and Warren - the 2 top-polling D candidates with any sort of progressive credentials - off the campaign trail. Feature, not bug.

[kladner]

Yep. I've also seen speculation to the effect that a drawn-out Senate trial would have the salutary (for the Dem establishment) effect of pulling Sanders and Warren - the 2 top-polling D candidates with any sort of progressive credentials - off the campaign trail. Feature, not bug.

Funny dat.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Taft had a very interesting career - post-presidency served as Chief Justice of SCOTUS from 1921 until his death in 1930 - and it's sad that the only way he is remembered by most non-historians is as the butt of fat jokes.

Before the 1912 presidential campaign, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft had been friends. But during Taft's term as President after being elected in 1908, TR reneged on his promise not to run again after being elected in 1904 (after having become president by succession when William McKinley was shot (September 1, 1901), and serving most of McKinley's second term). [Curious historical connection: It is written on the back of an old family photograph that it was taken on the day McKinley was shot.]

TR campaigned viciously against Taft both for the nomination and in the 1912 campaign. His campaigning against Taft destroyed their friendship and Taft's presidency, and split the Republican vote in the 1912 election, enabling Wilson to win.

Taft was appointed as Chief Justice by President Warren G. Harding in 1921. It was a job he had always wanted much more than being president. He is still the only person to have held both positions.

Re. the 'curious' quote, I read 'him' as standing for 'him or his predecessor' - i.e. it makes sense in the "X serves at the pleasure of the president" sense. Just as an incoming president may replace the FBI head, to give another example.

I agree on the quote -- "by him" almost certainly means "by the president." I still think it's curious that the Tenure of Office Act was being applied to the firing of an official who had been appointed before the law was enacted.

Yep. I've also seen speculation to the effect that a drawn-out Senate trial would have the salutary (for the Dem establishment) effect of pulling Sanders and Warren - the 2 top-polling D candidates with any sort of progressive credentials - off the campaign trail. Feature, not bug.

In addition to sidelining D Senators running for president, impeachment proceedings are likely to solidify support for R candidates running in 2020 for Senate seats currently held by R Senators, and possibly also for R candidates running against D candidates for Senate seats currently held by D Senators. Thus, the D's are not only likely to lose the presidential election, they are also unlikely to regain control of the Senate. And I wouldn't want to bet money on their retaining control of the House, either.

The D's seem to have forgotten that the whole raison d'être for political parties is to win elections.

I am not a fan of Mitch McConnell, but when the man's right, he's right: When he says that impeachment of a president is a political process, he is correct. It was certainly the case with Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. The impeachment of Richard Nixon was aborted when he resigned. The reason he resigned was the prospect of being removed from office, when a recording of him committing obstruction of justice was made public. Nixon was advised that he could only count on about 15 votes against conviction in a Senate impeachment trial. Back then, R Senators (and their constituents) actually cared about things like that. Now, not so much.

[ewmayer]

Re. impeachment as a political process, Hamilton, Jay and Madison warned about the obvious downside, that it would be used for partisan reasons, in the Federalist Paper #65 (h/t NC reader "The Historian"):

In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

=====================

o The Democratic Leadership’s Strategy on Impeachment Is Doomed and Dangerous | Aaron Maté, The Nation

House Democrats’ vote to impeach President Donald Trump may offer immediate feelings of satisfaction, but it should not be mistaken for a path forward. Behind their lofty rhetoric, Democrats have presented the public with a weak impeachment case and doubled down on a Cold Warrior–inflected, failure-ridden political playbook.

o Trump's Impeachment, Ukraine, and War With Russia | Yasha Levine: Let me get all official and DC-like and call it the “Ukraine Doctrine.”

I’ve been trying to stay away from this spy-fed impeachment show as much as possible, but it has been useful. It has helped bring to light the existence of something that’s now taken as gospel by much of America’s political, military, and foreign policy establishment, but which had never been spelled out so clearly and so publicly and so consistently before. Let me get all official and DC-like and call it the “Ukraine Doctrine.”

It’s the idea that Ukraine is a forward operating base in America’s war with Russia — a strategic military barrier that’s keeping the Russian horde pinned down and preventing it from overrunning the western world. That’s why you constantly hear all this talk about Ukraine being such a “vital” and “strategic” partner and why it requires a constant infusion of weapons. If America doesn’t fight Russia and kill Russians in Ukraine, Russian tanks are going to roll through the Donbass, past Kiev, into Poland, then Germany and France…and then get on a boat and sail all the way to America. And before you know it, Putin is going to be personally at your doorstep, terrorizing you and your family and stealing your Amazon packages.
...
The argument that “we must fight the Russians there so we don’t have to fight them here” was made time and time again in different ways all throughout the impeachment hearings and the non-stop coverage and commentary that surround them. Diplomats and foreign policy experts called up to testify stated it as a matter of fact. Members of congress talked about it as of it was settled policy. It wasn’t debated or called into question by the Democratic Party, and it wasn’t attacked by the Republican opposition either. As far as I could tell, no one disagreed with the premise that America is at war with Russia — and that Ukraine is the battleground. I also don’t remember it being declared by Congress and signed by any president. But then wars aren’t really declared anymore.

o And via Twitter:

We're told that Trump "disregarded US foreign policy towards Ukraine" and "chose not to follow talking points" despite being "briefed on official policy." This impeachment is the ratification of the idea that security state bureaucrats are the keepers of "official policy." Insane

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 24, 2019

Note that Twitter censored Yasha Levine after he made a clearly sarcastic tweet paraphrasing the essence of the above-described Ukraine Doctrine as expressed by pro-impeachment Democrat and Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Re. impeachment as a political process, Hamilton, Jay and Madison warned about the obvious downside, that it would be used for partisan reasons, in the Federalist Paper #65 (h/t NC reader "The Historian"):

In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

=====================

This is very interesting, in view of the frequency with which history books and web sites state that the Founding Fathers failed to anticipate the formation of political parties.

However, Federalist #65 is actually an argument in favor of having the House of Representatives bring Articles of Impeachment, and the Senate hold the trial.

In Great Britain it is the province of the House of Commons to prefer the impeachment, and of the House of Lords to decide upon it. Several of the State constitutions have followed the example. As well the latter, as the former, seem to have regarded the practice of impeachments as a bridle in the hands of the legislative body upon the executive servants of the government. Is not this the true light in which it ought to be regarded?

Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel CONFIDENCE ENOUGH IN ITS OWN SITUATION, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an INDIVIDUAL accused, and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?

I am sure that Hamilton would be disappointed in the servility of the Senate R's toward the abominable character who is currently President.

[garo]

Sometimes one should just do the right thing. And the right thing in this case is to impeach Trump.

[Dr Sardonicus]

If Il Duce ordered this one, he's really put his (and our) foot in it.

Iran says powerful general killed in US airstrike in Iraq

January 3, 2020 GMT

BAGHDAD (AP) — An airstrike killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran's elite Quds Force and architect of its regional security apparatus, at Baghdad's international airport Friday, Iranian state television and three Iraqi officials said, an attack that's expected to draw severe Iranian retaliation against Israel and American interests.

The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, the officials said. The PMF media arm said the two were killed in an American airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.

Citing a Revolutionary Guard statement, Iranian state television said Soleimani was "martyred" in an attack by U.S. helicopters near the airport, without elaborating.

Apparently a couple of US officials told Reuters that we'd struck targets in Baghdad related to Iran.

Il Duce tweeted a picture of a US flag, without any comment. (What? He sent a tweet with no comments? That's gotta be a first...)

The weather forecast for the Middle East is for heavy weather ahead, with the possibility of rapidly rising oil prices.