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What are you talking about? I cannot find an instance where someone was impeached without "defined" criminal conduct. It specifically says in the Constitution that treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors are the offenses they can charge someone with. BTW, impeachment is a far cry from removal from office.
President Thomas Jefferson, alarmed at the seizure of power by the judiciary through the claim of exclusive judicial review, led his party's efforts to remove the Federalists from the bench. His allies in Congress had, shortly after his inauguration, repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, abolishing the lower courts created by the legislation and terminating their Federalist judges despite lifetime appointments; Chase, two years after the repeal in May 1803, had denounced it in his charge to a Baltimore grand jury, saying that it would "take away all security for property and personal liberty, and our Republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy[.]"[7] Earlier in April 1800, Chase acting as a district judge, had made strong attacks upon Thomas Cooper who had been indicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts; Chase had taken the air of a prosecutor rather than a judge.[8] Also in 1800, when a grand jury in New Castle, Delaware declined to indict a local printer, Chase refused to discharge them, saying he was aware of one specific printer that he wished them to indict for seditious behavior.[9] Jefferson saw the attack as indubitable bad behavior and an opportunity to reduce the Federalist influence on the judiciary by impeaching Chase, launching the process from the White House when he wrote to Congressman Joseph Hopper Nicholson of Maryland asking: "Ought the seditious and official attack [by Chase] on the principles of our Constitution . . .to go unpunished?"[10]Virginia Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke took up the challenge and took charge of the impeachment. The House of Representatives served Chase with eight articles of impeachment in late 1804, one of which involved Chase's handling of the trial of John Fries. Two more focused on his conduct in the political libel trial of James Callender. One article covered Chase's conduct with the New Castle grand jury, charging that he "did descend from the dignity of a judge and stoop to the level of an informer by refusing to discharge the grand jury, although entreated by several of the said jury so to do." Three articles focused on procedural errors made during Chase's adjudication of various matters, and an eighth was directed at his “intemperate and inflammatory … peculiarly indecent and unbecoming … highly unwarrantable … highly indecent” remarks while "charging" or authorizing a Baltimore grand jury. The United States Senate—controlled by the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans—began the impeachment trial of Chase in early 1805, with Vice President Aaron Burr presiding and Randolph leading the prosecution.
The Senate prosecution of Chase was conducted by Representative John Randolph, a firebrand proponent of states' rights from Virginia. At the trial, Randolph presented an emotional but disorganized harangue against Chase. Chase was defended by the finest lawyers the Federalists could assemble, who emphasized that he was not accused of any crimes, but rather was impeached merely because he took legal positions not in accordance with the jurisprudential theories advanced by Jeffersonians. In particular, in the Callender and Fries trials Chase had sought to exclude evidence or arguments that he thought irrelevant and which might mislead the jury. Randolph argued that the juries should have been allowed to determine the law and the facts with a maximum of discretion, but Chase believed the jury had a more narrow role, to apply the law as given to it by the judge to the facts as found from the most reliable evidence. Chase's rulings were in keeping with what was to become American orthodoxy and Randolph's notions were no longer in the mainstream.Chase's philippic before the Baltimore grand jury was more political than judicial, but the requisite two-thirds majority could not be found in the Senate even for conviction on that conduct. Persuaded that the prosecution of Chase represented an inappropriate attack on the independence of the judiciary, some Jeffersonian Republicans joined all the Federalist members of the Senate in voting to acquit, and thus Chase prevailed. The conventional wisdom regarding the outcome of Chase's impeachment—the only such proceeding ever brought against a U.S. Supreme Court justice—is that it showed that a judge could not be removed simply for taking politically unpopular positions. Less often observed is that the Chase impeachment caused the Supreme Court to shy away from overt displays of politics, and to a great extent, that it caused the federal judges to give up their role as "Republican schoolmasters" to the American public.
Because impeachment is mainly political, not a matter of ordinary due process (which is what requires crimes to be defined ahead of time).And yeah, it's pretty obvious that impeachment doesn't mean removal. Duh.
In all likelihood the dems would be talking impeachment for ANYONE who is a Republican.
I very vividly recall Dems introducing articles of impeachment against W in 2006-2007. I think the Clinton thing soured political leaders on Impeachment and they can backfire in a big way. Of course, Clinton actually broke the law while in office.
