Portal:United States Congress

“ To state the obvious, a President cannot obstruct a House impeachment inquiry because he believes his conduct was proper and sees no need for his acts to be investigated. Nor can he do so by impugning the House's motives or attacking its legitimacy. Once again, the Constitution vests the House with the "sole Power of Impeachment." These are judgments for the House alone to make, guided always by the Constitution. Otherwise, in contravention of the entire Anglo-American legal tradition, Presidents would truly be the judge of their own case. ”

“ The Nation is not required to cross its fingers and hope White House staff will persist in ignoring or sidelining a President who orders them to execute "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Nor can a President escape impeachment just because his corrupt plan to abuse power or manipulate elections was discovered and abandoned. It is inconceivable that our Framers authorized the removal of Presidents who engage in treason or bribery, but disallowed the removal of Presidents who attempt such offenses and are caught before they succeed. ”

“ Impeachment is aimed at Presidents who believe they are above the law, and who believe their own interests transcend those of the country and Constitution. Of course, as President Nixon proved, Presidents who have committed impeachable offenses may seek to confuse the public through manufactured ambiguity and crafty pretexts. That does not shield their misconduct from impeachment. The principle of a plainly wrong act is not about academic technicalities; it simply focuses impeachment on conduct that any person of honor would recognize as wrong under the Constitution. ”

“ In our democracy, the Framers understood that there is no place for Presidents who would abuse their power and betray the public trust through bribery.
Like "Treason," the offense of "Bribery" is thus aimed at a President who is a continuing threat to the Constitution. Someone who would willingly assist our enemies, or trade public power for personal favors, is the kind of person likely to break the rules again if they remain in office. But there is more: both "Treason" and "Bribery" are serious offenses with the capacity to corrupt constitutional governance and harm the Nation itself ”

“ If President Nixon's impeachment proceedings are the "gold standard" for presidential impeachment inquiries, these proceedings, in stark contrast, will go down in history as the quintessential example of how such proceedings should not be conducted. The Majority Report and attendant documents will be viewed only as maps to the lowest depths of partisanship that no future Congress should follow. The quicker the Majority Report and the Majority's actions are forgotten, the better. ”

“ They knew that freedom demands constant protection from leaders whose taste of power sparks a voracious need for more. So even as they created a powerful Presidency, they authorized Congress to impeach and remove Presidents whose persistence in office threatened the Constitution. As they designed this impeachment power, they turned repeatedly to three risks: corrupt abuse of power; betrayal of the nation through foreign entanglements; and corruption of free and fair elections.
President Trump has realized the Framers' worst nightmare. ”

“ Viewed in their totality, President Trump's positions amount to an insistence that he is above the law; that there is no governmental entity in the United States outside his direct control that can investigate him for official misconduct and hold him accountable for any wrongdoing. Even the House, wielding one of the mightiest powers in the Constitution—a power that exists specifically to address a rogue President—has no authority at all to investigate his official acts if he decides otherwise. ”

“ To the Framers, corruption was fundamentally about the misuse of a position of public trust for any improper private benefit. It thus went to the heart of their conception of public service. As a leading historian recounts, "a corrupt political actor would either purposely ignore or forget the public good as he used the reins of power." [26] Because men and women are not angels, corruption could not be fully eradicated, even in virtuous officials, but "its power can be subdued with the right combination of culture and political rules." ”

“ In the history of our Republic, no President has obstructed Congress like President Trump. If President Nixon's obstruction of Congress raised a slippery slope concern, we now find ourselves at the bottom of the slope, surveying the damage to our Constitution. ”

“ Where a President abuses his power, betrays the public through foreign entanglements, or corrupts his office or elections, impeachment is our Nation's last line of defense against conduct "fatal to the Republic." ”

“ Where the President illegally seeks to obstruct such an inquiry, the House is free to infer that evidence blocked from its view is harmful to the President's position. It is also free to rely on other relevant, reliable evidence that illuminates the ultimate factual issues. The President has no right to defy an impeachment inquiry and then demand that the House turn back because it lacks the very evidence he unlawfully concealed. If anything, such conduct confirms that the President sees himself as above the law and may therefore bear on the question of impeachment. ”

“ Power, though, is a double-edged sword. "The power to do good meant also the power to do harm, the power to serve the republic also meant the power to demean and defile it." [24] The President would be vested with breathtaking authority. If corrupt motives took root in his mind, displacing civic virtue and love of country, he could sabotage the Constitution. That was clear to the Framers, who saw corruption as "the great force that had undermined republics throughout history." [25] Obsessed with the fall of Rome, they knew that corruption marked a leader's path to abuse and betrayal. ”

“ It is occasionally suggested that a President cannot be impeached for the use (or abuse) of powers vested in him by the Constitution. As the Framers made clear, and as President Nixon's case proves, that interpretation is plainly incorrect and, moreover, would eviscerate our system of checks and balances. The fact that a President is vested with powers does not mean he can exercise them with impunity. Nor does it mean he is free to set his own personal gain as the de facto policy of the United States. ”

“ It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent. I was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation—it was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 elections, the Bidens and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. ”

“ To make a demand that benefits him personally, while endangering the rights of a United States citizen and political opponent is a bright red flag that supports only one conclusion—that the President was putting his own personal and political interests over the Nation's foreign policy interests. There is no dispute that President Trump's requested investigations were not part of any U.S. policy objectives relating to Ukraine, including its anti-corruption policies. ”

“ If President Trump is left unchecked, we will send an alarming message to future Presidents.
In word and deed, President Trump has sought to write the Impeachment Clause out of the Constitution. If his excuses for that conduct are accepted, then every future President can choose to ignore House subpoenas, and a bulwark against tyranny will be undone. This time, courageous and patriotic public servants defied the President's direction and offered testimony about his corrupt solicitation and inducement of foreign interference in our elections. ”

“ They were unified by a clear theme: officials who abused, abandoned, or sought personal benefit from their public trust—and who threatened the rule of law if left in power—faced impeachment. Each of these acts, moreover, should be plainly wrong to reasonable officials and persons of honor. When a political official uses political power in ways that substantially harm our political system, Congress can strip them of that power. ”

“ No president has been impeached for obstruction of Congress. The Majority seeks to impeach the President not for violating the Constitution but, instead, for asserting privileges that are part of its very structure. Though Legislative frustration with Executive resistance has previously inspired calls for impeachment and even the drafting of Articles of Impeachment, in this instance, the Majority is rushing to impeachment without attempting to engage available alternative avenues to obtain information. ”

“ Offenses against the Constitution are different than offenses against the criminal code. Some crimes, like jaywalking, are not impeachable. And some forms of misconduct may offend both the Constitution and the criminal law. Impeachment and criminality must therefore be assessed separately—even though the President's commission of indictable crimes may further support a case for impeachment and removal. Ultimately, the House must judge whether a President's conduct offends and endangers the Constitution itself. ”

“ To the contrary, when the President wields power entrusted to him by the people of this Nation, he must honor and serve that public trust. Where a President betrays that obligation by corrupting his office, he is subject to impeachment. ”

“ When committees of the House—rather than a grand jury, a Senate committee, or an Independent Counsel—must serve as primary investigators in an impeachment inquiry, they have an obligation to balance investigative needs and best practices for collecting evidence with the President's interest in telling his story and the public interest in transparency. ”

“ Pulling this all together, the Framers repeatedly confirmed that Presidents can be impeached for grave abuse of power. Where the President engages in acts forbidden by law, or acts with an improper motive, he has committed an abuse of power under the Constitution. Where those abuses inflict substantial harm on our political system and are recognizably wrong, they warrant his impeachment and removal. ”

“ When deciding whether to bring charges against the President, the House is not restricted by the Constitution in deciding which evidence to consider or how much weight to afford it.
Indeed, were rules of evidence to apply anywhere, it would be in the Senate, where impeachments are tried. Yet the Senate does not treat the law of evidence as controlling at such trials. [230] As one scholar explains, "rules of evidence were elaborated primarily to hold juries within narrow limits. They have no place in the impeachment process. ”

“ On the contrary, every President to address the issue has acknowledged that Congress possesses a broad and penetrating power of inquiry when investigating grounds for impeachment. Even President Richard M. Nixon, who resisted full personal compliance with House subpoenas, instructed his staff to testify voluntarily in the Senate Watergate inquiry: "All members of the White House Staff will appear voluntarily when requested by the committee. They will testify under oath, and they will answer fully all proper questions." ”