Impeach – verb (used with an object); To accuse a public official before an appropriate tribunal for misconduct in office. U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 4: "The President, Vice-President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." Impeachment. The buzzword for 2017. Will he or won’t he be impeached? Is this just a witch hunt from Democrats still sore about losing a Presidential race they should have won? Is it the “Deep State” at work; i.e. holdovers from the Obama administration sabotaging the Trump administration? Could it be part of a planned subterfuge among Republican party supporters who had no choice …show more content…
but to publicly endorse Trump? Or is it caused by the sheer ineffectiveness of the current administration? Today’s most pressing issue being questioned should be: what does impeachment actually mean?
The term impeachment originates in Latin and is derived from the word impedicare which means entrapment or being caught. In the United States, impeachment of a president is a two-step process involving both Houses of Congress. The first step requires the House of Representatives to examine and review the Articles of Impeachment which form the basis of the allegation/s. In order to pass, the vote must be approved by a simple majority of those in attendance. Once approved, the defendant has been impeached. This, however, is not enough to remove a sitting president. Once the Articles of Impeachment are approved in the House, the case is then forwarded to the Senate where a trial of sorts takes place. The House Judicial Council takes on the role of prosecutor, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acts as judge, and the members of the Senate are the jury. The defendant is required to provide their own legal counsel. Unlike a normal criminal trial, impeachment does not require a unanimous decision. A two-thirds majority of Senators present is all that’s required to convict and remove a …show more content…
president. Upon conviction, the accused is immediately removed from office. In 1993, the Supreme Court determined that a conviction under Articles of Impeachment cannot be appealed or reviewed in a court of law. In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin stated that, historically, the removal of "obnoxious" chief executives had been accomplished by assassination.
To avoid that messy solution, Franklin suggested a procedure be put in place to address the problem if it arose. That procedure is called impeachment. Since the rules were put in place, nineteen Americans have had to face impeachment charges. Fifteen judges, one Senator, one Secretary of War, and three Presidents have been targeted with impeachment proceedings. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were acquitted. Richard Nixon resigned his office before the initial proceedings could be completed. Johnson had been charged with violating the Tenue of Office act which was passed while he was in office to prevent him from firing a politically connected appointee. After he was acquitted, the law was radically changed and eventually overturned. Bill Clinton was hit with perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying to Congress about having an affair with a White House staffer. He was later cleared and, as a result of the publicity surrounding the case, was the first non-Brazilian to be awarded the highly coveted Brazil Macho Man of the Year
award. What is the criteria for impeachment? In 1970, then House Minority leader and later president, Gerald Ford stated “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” In other words, any incident that upsets or angers enough people in the House can turn into potential impeachment charges. Luckily for the leaders of some countries, impeachment has replaced assassination. In Korea recently, President Park Geun-Hye, the first female president in that country, was impeached by the Korean Parliament. The conviction was reviewed by the country’s Constitutional Court which upheld the decision. The Court removed Park from office and had her arrested on charges of corruption, fraud, and abuse of power. The former Madam President is now known as Prisoner 503 and faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted. Korea doesn’t mess around when it comes to corrupt Presidents. In 1995, two former presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, were charged with military mutiny, graft, and treason. Upon conviction, Chun was sentenced to death and Roh drew 22 years in prison. Both sentences were later reduced and, eventually, both were released from prison. Since before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the word impeachment has been bandied about more and more every day from his detractors. However, no matter which side of the issue you’re on, it pays to remember that impeachment is not an easy thing to prosecute successfully. Three sitting presidents have been charged, but there has yet to be a conviction.
...ess time for the corruption brought on by one man with a plan and carried out by a few men with a hunger for more money to manipulate one man that had no real, true plan to be the President of the United States. Once Hamon’s plan took root, it only took about a year for planning, less than a year to have the “right” people in position, and about one year for the actual deed of drilling on the Naval oil reserve. Yet, it took a large amount of people investigating a case of so few, six years to complete the hearings. Water and oil do not mix just like politicians and big oil companies should not. The end result will always be one, nasty mess that no one wants to wash their hands in. Unfortunately, history has proven itself, The Teapot Dome scandal in 1922, and the Watergate scandal in 1972. If this continues, the next major political scandal will happen in 2022.
Before Clinton was elected President he had an encounter with Paula Jones in a hotel room. After Clinton took office Paula Jones then sued Clinton for sexual harassment. A short time later Monica Lewinsky began her intern at the White House. Clinton and Lewinsky began a sexual relationship. Judge Kenneth Starr was the investigator of Whitewater. President Clinton denied any sexual relations with Lewinsky. On October 8, 1998, the House would vote to have an impeachment and won. Clinton was charged with perjury and obstruction to justice. Bill Clinton would end up not getting kicked out of office by senate.
None of this would have been much of a problem had Monica Lewinsky had not told Tripp that Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan instructed her to lie about the affair with Clinton. Supposedly Linda Tripp has Monica alleging this on tape. These tapes if finally released to the public should prove to be quite titillating, Monica Lewinsky claims that Clinton was very fond of oral sex and that she it to him on a number of occasions. It has been alleged by various news organizations that a secret service agent actually caught Lewinsky and Clinton in the act. It has also been alleged that Monica Lewinsky has a blue semen stained dress which, if true, would be direct DNA evidence of the affair. But it still would not prove obstruction of justice. If that was ever proven it could be an impeachable offence, a sexual scandal probably would not lead to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. If not then it will simply be a source of Bill Clinton jokes.
America was about halfway divided by Civil Rights. There was the North, the side that supported it the most, and then there was the South, the side that was mostly against the bill. Johnson had been born and raised in the South having a different way of seeing Civil Rights. compared to all the Mexican Americans,
“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law” (The Constitution Article I Section 3). Impeachment is something that doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it is taken very seriously. Impeachment means that basically someone is not doing their job correctly and they have done something to abuse the power and therefore can no longer hold that position anymore. This is one way of removing someone from a position or office without a jury or a debate about it. Stating within the constitution that, “The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury;…” (The Constitution Article III Section 2). This allows the verdict to not be questioned and overthrown. Impeachment is only necessary when a judge does not follow the oath that they have taken and that the judge has made a
1. On March 1, 1974 a grand jury returned an indictment charging seven of President Nixon's close aides with various offenses, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct justice having to do with the Watergate Affair.
As soon as Johnson was made president he began to disagree with Congress, particularly those Congressional members of his opposing party. Later, he even broke ties with his own party citing the fact that he wouldn’t endorse a new amendment to the Constitution granting blacks the rights of citizenship. Congress did not approve of President Johnson’s plans for Reconstruction. The Wade Davis Plan returned power to the same people who had tried to break the Union by granting them amnesty. The Congress mainly opposed this plan because it contained no provision to protect the free slaves. The Freedman’s Bureau Act was intended to help former slaves to shift from slavery to emancipation and assured them equality before law.
The stage was set for a partisan fight that would ultimately center around a single act. In February 1868, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was sympathetic to the Radical Republicans and who was overseeing the military’s Reconstruction efforts. A year earlier, Congress had passed the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited a president from dismissing any officer confirmed by the Senate without first getting its approval. With Stanton’s firing, the call for Johnson’s impeachment began.
They have had 15 federal judges impeached by the House, two Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton , a cabinet secretary ,and a U.S. Senator have also been impeached. (http://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Impeachment/) With this many impeachments in the past, not to mention the presidents that resigned before being impeached, this goes to show that Congress really doesnt care if they impeach anybody because they can just find another person. But to us it proves they have too much power because it seems as easy as if they don't like somebody they can just impeach them and move on, but what does that prove? They can just push people around until they find someone to give in and have on their side for their own personal gain? I don't think so. We need to be more strict on how congress can go about impeaching somebody. Or just more strict in general because that's not the only thing that have too much power in as I explain to you my next
...lature by Judicial review and seats being held on good behavior. The Judicial has Executive branch by Judicial review and the Chief Justice is President of Senate during a presidential impeachment.
In 1974 President Richard Nixon stepped down from the job duties of the President of the United States. This made him the only President that has ever stepped down in United States history (Roper). James McCord which was the retired CIA agent was convicted of “eight counts of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping, spending two months in prison” (history.com). He had written a letter about the involvement of White House officials in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal. He later in life wrote a book claiming all of his involvement in the Watergate scandal. A Cuban refugee Virgilio Gonzalez was one of the burglars and only spent one year and a month in prison. John Dean was a Nixon staff member. He was involved in the cover up of the Watergate scandal. During the trail he told about his and other officials involvement in the scandal. Dean served only four months in prison. G. Gordon Liddy was the former FBI agent involved with the burglary. For his involvement in the burglary and providing money for the burglaries he spent four and a half years in prison (history.com). There were many people that were involved with this scandal and the majority spent less than two years in
Executive privilege has been around since Washington’s first term in office as the first official president of the United States. During Washington’s presidency he set the stage for the use of executive privilege that will evolve over time into something far greater than its initial purpose. Clinton and Nixon utilized executive privilege in a greater sense than Washington, and later Jefferson. They used executive privilege to cover up their wrongdoings and illegal activities. The outcome of the Nixon trial led to the official acknowledgment of executive privilege as a power allotted to the president and other executive officials, but it also noted that the power of executive privilege does not override the need of key information in a criminal investigation.
Impeachment starts with the House of Representatives. This House can “impeach, or vote to bring charges of serious crimes against, a president”(Holt McDougal). Once the House of Representative concludes their wishes to impeach the president, they have to inform the House Judiciary Committee. The House Judiciary Committee then decides if the president as actually done something wrong. Next, the impeachment moves to the Full House who votes to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. Then, the House Judiciary Committee investigates the allegations. The evidence that they find are called articles. Once they finish investigating, the Judiciary Committee votes on which articles will be sent to the Full House for review. The articles are then sent to the House of Representatives who vote on which articles will be presented at the trial. Once at least one article is approved, the president is formally and officially impeached. The case then moves to the Senate who appoints members of congress as the prosecutors. (The president can choose any lawyers he wishes). The trial is held in front of the Senate who pose as the jury. The Chief Justice poses as the judge. After the trial is over, the Senate decides whether or not to convict the president. At least two-thirds or 67 of the Senators must vote the president guilty for that to be the final verdict. If the president is found guilty of the charges, then he is removed
Lately, the top story in the news day after day, months after months have been about William Jefferson Clinton, also known as Bill. Who could blame them, there is nothing better than a story out of the ordinary, especially one with presidential status. For the past months he has been the most talked about figure, being the essential topic for news, talk shows, late night comedy and even going as far as the big screen. Talk about 'Primary Colors' and 'Wag the Dog.' What has gotten to me the most however, were the constant flow of Republicans, along with a few Democrats, who just want to say how shocked and embarrassed they are along with the people of the United States.The president had not just become the most talked about figure, but also one history had ever seen, so far that is, breaking the record and becoming a topic of conversation and debate 'twenty-four seven.' The people, who I think were most affected by this crisis and feel very sad for, are the Republicans, since they had lost severe amount of sleep over the president's bedroom crisis. They had to perform their republican duties by shocking our brains with the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky. We had to ignore the rest of the world news and its issues while they plough through the valley of lies, abuse of power and something they called high crimes and misdemeanors.
Have you ever noticed that people break a lot of laws. Even the President can break a law if he wanted to. Impeachment is what stops the president´s wrongdoing. I think that the president should be sent straight to jail if accused of wrongdoing by the police. This is my case.