I realize nobody cares, but can we just be clear that Trump was impeached during his term of office. He was not tried in the Senate during his term of office because McConnell chose to postpone the trial until after the inauguration of Biden. Arguments about whether a former president can be impeached after he or she has left office are simply irrelevant in the present circumstances.
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11 comments:
You are absolutely correct that Trump’s impeachment was constitutionally sound, since it occurred while he was still President. The problem is with the trial in the Senate. The Constitution is quite clear that conviction results in removal from office. The question is how can you “remove” someone who has already left office. This is why Chief Justice Roberts has declined to preside over the trial. The counter-argument is here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/11/trump-impeachment-senate-trial/
I agree that the trial should still go forward, even if it does not result in conviction, as a symbolic gesture of denunciation for his having incited an insurrection. Sen. Schumer has correctly pointed out that if a government official cannot be tried if no longer in office, s/he can always avoid being tried by simply resigning after having been impeached.
There By a majority vote to ban him can the Senate then go onis one other important consideration. I think I am correct in saying that only by convicting him in the Senate can the Senate then go on to ban him, by majority vote, from holding any office in the US government henceforward which means he could not run for president again. That is not nothing.
Under Article I, sec. 3, if convicted by 2/3 of the Senate, he is automatically disqualified “to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States … .” A separate majority vote by the Senate is not required.
Query:
Would the police have treated this 9-year girl this way if she had been white?
https://www.newser.com/story/301990/rochester-cops-shown-cuffing-pepper-spraying-9-year-old-girl.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_top
She may have been white. Her hands are barely visible in one of the frames.
Regardless, there is no question that this constitutes police brutality and the unnecessary use of excessive force.
Samuel Chase,
There's an argument, in this very unclear area of the law, regarding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment--prohibiting persons who have previously taken an oath of office from holding future office if they "have engaged in an insurrection or rebellion" against the United States. The House articles of impeachment are grounded in part on this clause, which apparently requires only a majority vote. There is no enforcement mechanism specified in the 14th Amendment, and none has been enacted. The argument would be that it is enforced by a majority vote of each house of Congress. My own inexpert guess is that the the Supreme Court would not touch this issue, no matter how it's resolved.
David,
But Sec. 3 of the XIVth Amendment does not state who or what must have determined that the individual “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” My guess is that the individual would have had to have been charged with insurrection by a U.S. attorney and convicted of same in court, which would thereafter bar the individual from holding office. There was talk that the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., was considering such a prosecution against Trump, but I have not seen anymore information along these lines for some weeks.
An observation.
What I find troubling about the above video of the police hand-cuffing, pepper spraying and forcing a 9-year old girl into a patrol car, aside from the obvious excessive use of force, is the effect of peer pressure on supposedly mature adults. There are some six police officers in that video, and not a single officer, including the female officer, thought to say, “Hey, this is going too far. Let’s call an ambulance for her, or have her father come out here to talk to her.” These are probably fine, decent people in their personal lives, but confronted with an unusual situation, their common sense breaks down and they shrink from standing up to their colleagues. The same thing happened in the arrest of George Floyd – several police officers whose gut told them this is not right, yet none of them had the fortitude to stand up and intercede and tell Mr. Floyd’s murderer to get his knee off his throat.
The willingness to succumb to peer pressure and the dictates of authority figures have been studied by psychologists for decades (e.g., the electric shock experiments by Stanley Milgram at Yale), yet we see episodes like this being repeated over and over again. Maybe they should have classes at the police academies about resisting peer pressure and authority – except this would go against the grain of regimented authority. Or perhaps we need to start such education earlier, i.e., in high school.
Post-script:
Indeed, we are seeing the same phenomenon in the cowardice of Republicans unwilling to stand up to Trump – in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Sorry, just one more thought.
Maybe the place to teach resistance to peer pressure and authority figures is in our houses of worship. Jesus was the ultimate rebel – he stood up to the authority of the Sanhedrin and the Romans, without regard for the risk to his own life. Maybe churches should focus more on this aspect of Jesus’s life, rather than on turning the other cheek. But then this would encourage resistance to religious authority itself. Instead, most houses of worship preach complacency and conformity.
Tonight on PBS, The American Experience had a documentary about Emmett Till, the 14-year old African-American who was brutally and savagely beaten to death for whistling at a white woman in Money, Missiissippi in 1954. I was already familiar with the details of the murder and the trial, which resulted in the acquittal of Emmett’s murderers, but there was a detail revealed in the documentary about which I did not know. After the trial, Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother (who had insisted that Emmett’s casket remain open so that America could see what they had done to her son) went to Washington to advocate for a federal trial of her son’s killers. At the time, the Civil Rights statutes had not been passed, so there was no legal avenue by which the acquitted murderers could be re-tried without violating double jeopardy. However, President Eisenhower, the brave general who had led the Normandy invasion, never answered Mrs. Till’s telegrams – not even with a word of condolence,
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