In addition to the impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, and the near impeachment of Richard Nixon, there have been 17 other impeachments voted by the House, mostly of federal judges. (8 were convicted by the Senate; some fended that off by resignation.) The charges in all 19 cases involved conduct while in office.
In a post of April 5, 2017, I suggested that the question of impeachment for conduct prior to taking office was edging towards a relevance more than academic.See http://lawrencecrocker.blogspot.com/2017/04/impeachment-for-acts-prior-to-taking.html.
In that post I argued that any suggestion to a foreign power of an in-office quid pro quo would bring the case within the "misconduct in office" category, whether or not the president came through with the quid pro quo. I also suggested that even if exclusively pre-office, a sufficiently egregious high crime or misdemeanor should be grounds for impeachment, despite the absence of House precedent.
I invite you again to think about these issues, as they seem now to be more than edging towards relevance.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Was Trump’s “Russia, if you are listening, . . . “ Criminal? Impeachable?
On July 27, 2016, candidate Donald Trump asked Russia to
find Hilary Clinton’s deleted emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope
you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” It is fair to say, I
think, that the Russians, if they took him up on this, could expect Trump’s gratitude
and whatever might flow therefrom in the future. Did this constitute a violation of federal election law? If so, was it a criminal violation? If so, was it an impeachable violation?
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