Get Out Of Here

An odd piece about impeachment by Cass Sunstein on the 40th anniversary of Nixon's resignation. Much of it is a fascinating discussion of how the Founders came up with this punishment for the President.  As with so much of the Constitution, it was a compromise. Some wanted no impeachment, as it would damage the separation of powers.  On the other side, some--though not many--thought the President should essentially serve at the pleasure of Congress.

An early suggestion was the President could be removed due to "malpractice or neglect of duty," but this was thought too vague. Still, the essence remained--the great fear was of corruption, with the President selling out his office, not doing his Constitutional duty.  So we get the famous formulation "Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Thus, according to Sunstein, the potential Nixon impeachment--and if he hadn't resigned he was going to be impeached--was just what the Founders envisioned.

[T]he first article of impeachment was based on the Watergate break-in itself -- in particular, Nixon’s unlawful effort to obtain political intelligence from surveillance of the Democratic National Committee. The second article was based on Nixon’s unlawful use of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes “unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office.” Both of these articles were tightly connected to the founders’ concerns about corruption -- in particular, presidential efforts to gain or keep the office by unlawful means.

Nixon's a bit before my time, so I'll take his word for it (though I do know some argue that, corruption-wise, Nixon wasn't that different from someone like LBJ, and his impeachment, as bipartisan as it may seem, was more a case of the Left finally getting the scalp of a guy they'd been going after for some time).

By the way, misusing the IRS is proper grounds for impeachment?  Is Sunstein trying to tell us something?

But what interested me most was how he ended the piece:

In recent decades, prominent people inside and outside Washington have called for impeaching both Republican and Democratic presidents for reasons that fall far short of these grounds. In the case of Bill Clinton, they succeeded. As we remember the painful events of 1974, it's worth honoring the seriousness of the lawmakers’ efforts -- and their impressive fidelity to the Constitution.

So Clinton was impeached for improper reasons.  This is because his high Crimes and Misdemeanors were not related to a corruption of his office, it would seem.  The argument, taken on its own terms, is dubious--it's quite arguable Clinton did what he did to protect his Presidency by preventing the public from knowing the truth, for one thing.

But harder to ignore is that he appears to have committed felonies while in office.  Did the Founders not care about such crimes, because they weren't about corrupting the system?  So Clinton, or any President, can go out on a spree and stab someone, or rape someone, and we just shrug and say we'll worry about this after he's out of office--or better yet, throw him in a cell from where he'll run the country, perhaps even campaign for a second term. It seems to me that there should be a presumption that any felony committed while in office is grounds for impeachment.

And let me ask Cass something, as unfair as this sort of argument is. Think back to the 80s.  Reagan's in office and you're a young hotshot professor.  And someone asks you "if it's discovered the President has committed perjury and obstruction of justice during his tenure, is that impeachable?"  Do you honestly think you'd ask back "what kind of perjury and obstruction of justice are we talking about?"