jimnyc
01-10-2021, 01:40 PM
I started wondering, due to the fact that he has 9-10 days left in office, can he be impeached after he leaves office? Bottom article addresses that one.
---
Blunt: Trump Impeachment ‘Clearly Is Not Going to Happen’
Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that removing Trump from office with impeachment is “clearly is not going to happen.”
Discussing the riots, anchor Margaret Brennan said, “Are Republican leaders going to hold him accountable in any way for it?”
Blunt said, “I think the country is is the right to hold presidents accountable. The president should be very careful over the next 10 days is that his behavior is what you would expect from the leader of the greatest country in the world. My personal view is that the president touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again.”
He continued, “I did, the day Senator Hawley announced he would be contesting those electoral votes, announced that I would not be. When Senator Cruz said he had a plan to put back in place a commission like the one formed in 1877, I said that wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t interested then or now in spending a lot of time on things that can’t happen just like the impeachment of the president to remove him from office clearly is not going to happen between now and the last day he is in office.”
He added, “As Nancy Pelosi just said and Jim Clyburn said earlier today, this is more about a long-term punishment of the president than trying to remove him from office.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/10/blunt-trump-impeachment-clearly-is-not-going-to-happen/
Sen. Toomey: Trump Committed Impeachable Acts, Faces Possible Criminal Liability
Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Donald Trump did commit impeachable acts by inciting the riot on Capitol Hill last week.
Host Jake Tapper said, “Your Republican colleague Senator Murkowski of Alaska says President Trump should resign. She said, quote, ‘He’s caused enough damage.’ Do you agree?
Toomey said, “Yeah, I do. I think at this point, with just a few days left, it’s the best path forward, the best way to get this person in the rearview mirror for us that could happen immediately. I’m not optimistic it will. But I think that would be the best way forward.”
Tapper asked, “Do you think the president should be impeached? Would you vote to remove him from office?”
Toomey said, “I think the president did commit impeachable offenses. There is little doubt in my mind about that. I don’t know. As a practical matter, it is actually possible to do an impeachment in the handful of days that are left. It is likely if the House does pass Articles of Impeachment, we wouldn’t get them until — I don’t know Tuesday or Wednesday. We are less than one week to go at that point. I am also not at all clear that it is constitutionally permissible to impeach someone after they have left office. So there may not be a viable impeachment route at this point. But certainly, he could resign, and that would be a very good outcome.”
He added, “I think there is also a possibility that there is criminal liability here.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/10/sen-toomey-trump-committed-impeachable-acts-faces-possible-criminal-liability/
House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries Demands Removal of ‘Treasonous’ Donald Trump
U.S. House Democratic chair Hakeem Jeffries on Saturday set out his plans to remove U.S. President Donald Trump from office, saying the occupant of the White House is guilty of inciting sedition.
Calling President Trump “treasonous” and “a clear and present danger,” Jeffries (D-NY) made his call on the steps of New York City Hall.
“Donald Trump must be removed from office immediately, he should be impeached, convicted and thrown out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and forever banished to the dustbin of history,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Trump has just 11 days left in office, but Jeffries said every hour poses a potential danger.
Rest - https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/10/house-democrat-hakeem-jeffries-demands-removal-of-treasonous-donald-trump/
Clyburn Suggests Capitol Rioters May Have Had Inside Intel
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the Capitol rioters may have had inside information.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You said on a Capitol phone call some of the officers may have aided the rioters and were assisting in the attack. Quote, ‘Something untoward was going on here.’ As you stated at the beginning, so many police officers did a valiant job and should be commended. So many were injured. One of them was obviously killed. Removing them from the conversation, what evidence are you talking about?”
Clyburn said, “Well, I am saying that I have an unmarked office that you have got to know exactly where it is. It is where I spend the most of my time doing my work as the majority whip. I have a staff who work very hard who try to keep up with the members who try to make sure they do an effective job managing the votes once they get to the floor, and that office is where I do most of my work. For some reason, these people showed up at that office. But the office where my name is above the door or on the door and my position above the door was not disturbed. So I’m just saying, they didn’t go to where my name was. They went where I usually hang out. That to me indicates that something untoward may have been going on.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/10/clyburn-suggests-capitol-rioters-may-have-had-inside-intel/
The Constitution’s Option for Impeachment After a President Leaves Office
Donald Trump did not end his presidency without raising yet another question about how he may be constitutionally accountable for his misconduct in office. With just under two weeks left before Joseph Biden’s inauguration as the forty-sixth president of the United States, it seems unlikely there is enough time for the Congress to fully consider impeaching Trump for his newest misdeeds, including urging Georgia officials to commit voter fraud and encouraging a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol. There is no doubt this misconduct qualifies as impeachable, as even the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board accepts. The question is whether a president may be impeached by the House or tried and convicted by the Senate after he has left office. It has never happened before in American history, but then no president until Trump spent his final days in office doing the kind of damage he has done — attacking the legitimacy of America’s democratic institutions and expressing his “love” for his followers who charged into Congress with guns and destroyed federal property in their quest to find his enemies and hold them accountable for not overturning the election results.
The Constitution provides that the President “shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” but it says nothing about the timing of when the impeachment and trial may take place. That omission makes sense, since presidents – and any other impeachable officials – could commit impeachable offenses at any time while they are in office, including in their last months or days in their positions. It certainly makes no sense for presidents who commit misconduct late in their terms, or perhaps not discovered until late in their terms, to be immune from the one process the Constitution allows for barring them from serving in any other federal office or from receiving any federal pensions. What’s more, litigation or prosecutions might not be able to get at the misconduct, since the scope of impeachable offenses extends to misconduct that is not an actual crime. And what if that misconduct is not discovered until after a president leaves office? There may be no practical means for holding him accountable for such misconduct, especially if he is regarded as having been immune from any criminal prosecution or inquiry while he was in office. Being president is not a safe harbor from political and legal accountability. This is why John Quincy Adams proclaimed on the floor of the House that, “I hold myself, so long as I have the breath of life in my body, amenable to impeachment by this House for everything I did during the time I held any public office.” (Michael J. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analyses 80 (2d edition 2000) (citation omitted)) Adams’s suggestion was that any impeachable official remained subject to that process well after they left office, not just presidents but those who abused power while in office.
The principal argument against allowing post-presidential impeachment is that the Constitution does not make private citizens subject to impeachment. The founders rejected the British model that allowed Parliament to impeach anyone, except for the King, and so they limited impeachment to certain public officials, including presidents. Subjecting a president to impeachment after he has returned to his private life would, seemingly according to this logic, violate this basic constitutional principle. (Indeed, the Constitution itself applies only to governmental not private action.)
The problem with this argument, however, is that presidents and the other officials who are subject to impeachment are not like the rest of us. Once they leave office and return to their private lives, they are still ex-presidents and former officials who may have committed impeachable offenses in office. A core principle of the Constitution is that no one, not even the president, is above the law, and an abuse of power, by definition, is a violation of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. What’s more, the special penalties upon conviction in impeachment are designed to protect the republic from the very type of people who have abused public office in such a grave manner that they should never have the opportunity to be entrusted with public power again. It would make no sense for former officials, or ones who step down just in time, to escape that remedial mechanism. It should accordingly go without saying that if an impeachment begins when an individual is in office, the process may surely continue after they resign or otherwise depart.
Rest - https://www.justsecurity.org/74107/the-constitutions-option-for-impeachment-after-a-president-leaves-office/
---
Blunt: Trump Impeachment ‘Clearly Is Not Going to Happen’
Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that removing Trump from office with impeachment is “clearly is not going to happen.”
Discussing the riots, anchor Margaret Brennan said, “Are Republican leaders going to hold him accountable in any way for it?”
Blunt said, “I think the country is is the right to hold presidents accountable. The president should be very careful over the next 10 days is that his behavior is what you would expect from the leader of the greatest country in the world. My personal view is that the president touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again.”
He continued, “I did, the day Senator Hawley announced he would be contesting those electoral votes, announced that I would not be. When Senator Cruz said he had a plan to put back in place a commission like the one formed in 1877, I said that wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t interested then or now in spending a lot of time on things that can’t happen just like the impeachment of the president to remove him from office clearly is not going to happen between now and the last day he is in office.”
He added, “As Nancy Pelosi just said and Jim Clyburn said earlier today, this is more about a long-term punishment of the president than trying to remove him from office.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/10/blunt-trump-impeachment-clearly-is-not-going-to-happen/
Sen. Toomey: Trump Committed Impeachable Acts, Faces Possible Criminal Liability
Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Donald Trump did commit impeachable acts by inciting the riot on Capitol Hill last week.
Host Jake Tapper said, “Your Republican colleague Senator Murkowski of Alaska says President Trump should resign. She said, quote, ‘He’s caused enough damage.’ Do you agree?
Toomey said, “Yeah, I do. I think at this point, with just a few days left, it’s the best path forward, the best way to get this person in the rearview mirror for us that could happen immediately. I’m not optimistic it will. But I think that would be the best way forward.”
Tapper asked, “Do you think the president should be impeached? Would you vote to remove him from office?”
Toomey said, “I think the president did commit impeachable offenses. There is little doubt in my mind about that. I don’t know. As a practical matter, it is actually possible to do an impeachment in the handful of days that are left. It is likely if the House does pass Articles of Impeachment, we wouldn’t get them until — I don’t know Tuesday or Wednesday. We are less than one week to go at that point. I am also not at all clear that it is constitutionally permissible to impeach someone after they have left office. So there may not be a viable impeachment route at this point. But certainly, he could resign, and that would be a very good outcome.”
He added, “I think there is also a possibility that there is criminal liability here.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/10/sen-toomey-trump-committed-impeachable-acts-faces-possible-criminal-liability/
House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries Demands Removal of ‘Treasonous’ Donald Trump
U.S. House Democratic chair Hakeem Jeffries on Saturday set out his plans to remove U.S. President Donald Trump from office, saying the occupant of the White House is guilty of inciting sedition.
Calling President Trump “treasonous” and “a clear and present danger,” Jeffries (D-NY) made his call on the steps of New York City Hall.
“Donald Trump must be removed from office immediately, he should be impeached, convicted and thrown out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and forever banished to the dustbin of history,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Trump has just 11 days left in office, but Jeffries said every hour poses a potential danger.
Rest - https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/10/house-democrat-hakeem-jeffries-demands-removal-of-treasonous-donald-trump/
Clyburn Suggests Capitol Rioters May Have Had Inside Intel
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the Capitol rioters may have had inside information.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You said on a Capitol phone call some of the officers may have aided the rioters and were assisting in the attack. Quote, ‘Something untoward was going on here.’ As you stated at the beginning, so many police officers did a valiant job and should be commended. So many were injured. One of them was obviously killed. Removing them from the conversation, what evidence are you talking about?”
Clyburn said, “Well, I am saying that I have an unmarked office that you have got to know exactly where it is. It is where I spend the most of my time doing my work as the majority whip. I have a staff who work very hard who try to keep up with the members who try to make sure they do an effective job managing the votes once they get to the floor, and that office is where I do most of my work. For some reason, these people showed up at that office. But the office where my name is above the door or on the door and my position above the door was not disturbed. So I’m just saying, they didn’t go to where my name was. They went where I usually hang out. That to me indicates that something untoward may have been going on.”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/10/clyburn-suggests-capitol-rioters-may-have-had-inside-intel/
The Constitution’s Option for Impeachment After a President Leaves Office
Donald Trump did not end his presidency without raising yet another question about how he may be constitutionally accountable for his misconduct in office. With just under two weeks left before Joseph Biden’s inauguration as the forty-sixth president of the United States, it seems unlikely there is enough time for the Congress to fully consider impeaching Trump for his newest misdeeds, including urging Georgia officials to commit voter fraud and encouraging a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol. There is no doubt this misconduct qualifies as impeachable, as even the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board accepts. The question is whether a president may be impeached by the House or tried and convicted by the Senate after he has left office. It has never happened before in American history, but then no president until Trump spent his final days in office doing the kind of damage he has done — attacking the legitimacy of America’s democratic institutions and expressing his “love” for his followers who charged into Congress with guns and destroyed federal property in their quest to find his enemies and hold them accountable for not overturning the election results.
The Constitution provides that the President “shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” but it says nothing about the timing of when the impeachment and trial may take place. That omission makes sense, since presidents – and any other impeachable officials – could commit impeachable offenses at any time while they are in office, including in their last months or days in their positions. It certainly makes no sense for presidents who commit misconduct late in their terms, or perhaps not discovered until late in their terms, to be immune from the one process the Constitution allows for barring them from serving in any other federal office or from receiving any federal pensions. What’s more, litigation or prosecutions might not be able to get at the misconduct, since the scope of impeachable offenses extends to misconduct that is not an actual crime. And what if that misconduct is not discovered until after a president leaves office? There may be no practical means for holding him accountable for such misconduct, especially if he is regarded as having been immune from any criminal prosecution or inquiry while he was in office. Being president is not a safe harbor from political and legal accountability. This is why John Quincy Adams proclaimed on the floor of the House that, “I hold myself, so long as I have the breath of life in my body, amenable to impeachment by this House for everything I did during the time I held any public office.” (Michael J. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analyses 80 (2d edition 2000) (citation omitted)) Adams’s suggestion was that any impeachable official remained subject to that process well after they left office, not just presidents but those who abused power while in office.
The principal argument against allowing post-presidential impeachment is that the Constitution does not make private citizens subject to impeachment. The founders rejected the British model that allowed Parliament to impeach anyone, except for the King, and so they limited impeachment to certain public officials, including presidents. Subjecting a president to impeachment after he has returned to his private life would, seemingly according to this logic, violate this basic constitutional principle. (Indeed, the Constitution itself applies only to governmental not private action.)
The problem with this argument, however, is that presidents and the other officials who are subject to impeachment are not like the rest of us. Once they leave office and return to their private lives, they are still ex-presidents and former officials who may have committed impeachable offenses in office. A core principle of the Constitution is that no one, not even the president, is above the law, and an abuse of power, by definition, is a violation of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. What’s more, the special penalties upon conviction in impeachment are designed to protect the republic from the very type of people who have abused public office in such a grave manner that they should never have the opportunity to be entrusted with public power again. It would make no sense for former officials, or ones who step down just in time, to escape that remedial mechanism. It should accordingly go without saying that if an impeachment begins when an individual is in office, the process may surely continue after they resign or otherwise depart.
Rest - https://www.justsecurity.org/74107/the-constitutions-option-for-impeachment-after-a-president-leaves-office/