“The
All-American, bullet-headed, Saxon mother's son”
----The Beatles "Bungalow Bill"
So
one can describe one Gerald Rudolph Ford. Ford, who parlayed local
celebrity as a jock into several terms in the United States House of
Representatives, eventually rising to minority leadership, was moved
to quip as Jonathan Turley, professor of public interest law at
George Washington University, notes that “An impeachable
offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives
considers it to be at any given moment in history”. (1) Writing
in The Washington Post in
August of 2014 Turley added parenthetically, “This
interpretation was, not surprisingly, part of a frivolous effort to
impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, whom Ford denounced
for espousing “liberal opinions,” for defending the “filthy”
Swedish film “I Am Curious (Yellow)” and for writing a magazine
article that “praises the lusty, lurid, and risque along with the
social protest of left-wing folk singers.” (2)
Giving as he did solace to those who were ardent to
impeach Supreme Court Justices, groups such as the John Birch Society,
who campaigned to impeac Chief Justice Earl Warren for decisions ending school
segregation, ruling that congressional districts had to be drawn so
as to have as equal populations as possible (one- man-one-vote), and
that police and prosecutors could not convict if they violate a
defendant's rights of substantive and procedural due process (Miranda
decision); the man, who in the words of Lyndon Johnson, couldn't walk
and chew gum at the same time did, however, stumble upon a basic
truth.
For it is a myth that the iniquities of power must reach
the high bar of felonious assault upon the republic before the
palliative of impeachment can be applied.
No, Virginia, there is no Santa Clause; and yes Virginia
the president can be impeached “For Being Ye Publick Ass”.
“Benjamin Franklin asserted that
the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times
when the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious," and the
Constitution should provide for the "regular punishment of the
Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable
acquittal when he should be unjustly accused." James Madison
said, "...impeachment... was indispensable" to defend the
community against "the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the
chief Magistrate." With a single executive, Madison argued,
unlike a legislature whose collective nature provided security, "loss
of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable
events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic.”' (2)
“It
was George Mason who offered up the term "high crimes and
misdemeanors" as one of the criteria to remove public officials
who abuse their office. Their original intentions can be gleaned by
the phrases and words that were proposed before, such as "high
misdemeanor", "maladministration", or "other
crime". Edmund Randolf said impeachment should be reserved for
those who "misbehave". Cotesworth Pinkney said, It should
be reserved "...for those who behave amiss, or betray their
public trust." As can be seen from all these references to "high
crimes and misdemeanors", there is no concrete definition for
the term, except to allow people to remove an official from office
for subjective reasons entirely.
“
Alexander Hamilton said, "...those offences
which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words,
from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a
nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as
they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society
itself."' (3)
Indeed the first federal official impeached and
convicted was John Pickering, a federal Judge for “obnoxious
behavior” arising from chronic intoxication.
“"High"
in the legal and common parlance of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries of "high crimes" signifies activity by or against
those who have special duties acquired by taking an oath of office
that are not shared with common persons. A high crime is one that can
only be done by someone in a unique position of authority, which is
political in character, who does things to circumvent justice. The
phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" when used together
was a common phrase at the time the U.S. Constitution was written and
did not mean any stringent or difficult criteria for determining
guilt. It meant the opposite. The phrase was historically used to
cover a very broad range of crimes. The Judiciary Committee's 1974
report "The Historical Origins of Impeachment" stated:
"'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' has traditionally been
considered a 'term of art', like such other constitutional phrases as
'levying war' and 'due process.' The Supreme Court has held that such
phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but
according to what the framers meant when they adopted them... (4)
It was from the English legal tradition that we borrowed
the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors”, and here the example
is telling:
“Since 1386, the English parliament had used the term “high crimes and misdemeanors” to describe one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.”(5) Indeed, Nixon was impeached for, among other things, not spending money allocated by Congress. By these standards we can now add appointing unfit subordinates to the growing list of impeachable offenses.
No, Virginia, there is no Santa Clause;
and yes Virginia the president can be impeached
“For Being Ye Publick Ass”, among many more transgressions.
“An
Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach
and Imprison.
____________________
(1).
Turley, Jonathan.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-impeachment/2014/08/01/
- Ibid.
- Ibid
- Ibid.
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