Why It’s Completely Unconstitutional To Impeach Someone After He Leaves Office

[mystery-ak]

 Why It’s Completely Unconstitutional To Impeach Someone After He Leaves Office

Impeachment is addressed in eight of the 85 'Federalist Papers,' yet there is no discussion of separating the punishments of removal and disqualification.

By Thomas Ascik
February 1, 2021

On Jan. 22, the Wall Street Journal published Princeton University professor of politics Keith E. Whittington’s defense of the disqualification-from-future-office purpose of the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump scheduled to begin on Feb. 8. The day before, more than 100 legal scholars, including Federalist Society co-founder Steven Calabresi, released a statement making the same argument.

Whittington holds that “for the Founders,” a Senate trial merely to “disqualify” a former federal official was a “traditionally understood” principle “imported to America from England.” Likewise, the scholars argue that “history,” including “English impeachment” history as well as the intentions of “the Framers” of the Constitution, is the source of the alleged constitutional power to convict “prior officeholders as well as current ones.” What is more, a Constitution without an independent disqualification power would be a Constitution that could be “easily undermined.”

In support of their scholarship, neither the scholars nor the professor cites nor quotes the “Federalist Papers.” Yet the “history” and meaning of the American Constitution begins with and is dependent on those papers which, like the Constitution itself, are unique in all of human and political history. Impeachment is dealt with in eight of the 85 papers (numbers 39, 65, 66, 69, 77, 79, 81, 84). Nowhere in any of the Federalist Papers is there a discussion of or attempt to separate between the two impeachment punishments of removal and disqualification.

In “Federalist No. 65,” whose subject is the suitability of the Senate as the court of impeachment, disqualification is not separately considered. The subject of “Federalist No. 66” is the argument that the impeachment provisions dangerously combine both legislative and judicial authority in the Congress.

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https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/01/why-its-completely-unconstitutional-to-impeach-someone-after-he-leaves-office/

[PeteS in CA]

The way the Constitution reads, disqualification is conditional on removal. They cannot disqualify someone they cannot remove.

[Sled Dog]

The Constitution itself on impeachment:

Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7

Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Impeachment requires removal from office.

A person who does not hold an office cannot be removed from it.

Ergo, impeachment requires as it's first step an office holder.

Trump was not impeached while in office.   

Also, there's an "and" after the bit about removal from office.  It's not an "or".   The "and" requires the first part of the logical operation to exist before the second part can come into effect.

Then again, the Constitution also requires the state LEGISLATURES to set the terms of elector selection.   Since no other part of the Constitution is obeyed these days, who's going to get finicky about the more obscure bits, besides the real Americans?

Heck, even the requirement that the President be a natural born US citizen has been waived, to great national detriment.

[Cyber Liberty]

The Constitution itself on impeachment:

Impeachment requires removal from office.

A person who does not hold an office cannot be removed from it.

Ergo, impeachment requires as it's first step an office holder.

Trump was not impeached while in office.   

Also, there's an "and" after the bit about removal from office.  It's not an "or".   The "and" requires the first part of the logical operation to exist before the second part can come into effect.

Then again, the Constitution also requires the state LEGISLATURES to set the terms of elector selection.   Since no other part of the Constitution is obeyed these days, who's going to get finicky about the more obscure bits, besides the real Americans?

Heck, even the requirement that the President be a natural born US citizen has been waived, to great national detriment.

Fixing that would be called "Xenophobic." 

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The Constitution itself on impeachment:

Impeachment requires removal from office.

A person who does not hold an office cannot be removed from it.

Ergo, impeachment requires as it's first step an office holder.

Trump was not impeached while in office.   

Also, there's an "and" after the bit about removal from office.  It's not an "or".   The "and" requires the first part of the logical operation to exist before the second part can come into effect.

Then again, the Constitution also requires the state LEGISLATURES to set the terms of elector selection.   Since no other part of the Constitution is obeyed these days, who's going to get finicky about the more obscure bits, besides the real Americans?

Heck, even the requirement that the President be a natural born US citizen has been waived, to great national detriment.

Impeachment is the sideshow diversion.   It was never intended that there would be a conviction.  Needs 2/3 in Senate.

The real show is following the loss in the Senate, Congress will enact the 14th Amendment to keep Trump ever holding office.  Only requires a majority vote.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Impeachment is the sideshow diversion.   It was never intended that there would be a conviction.  Needs 2/3 in Senate.

The real show is following the loss in the Senate, Congress will enact the 14th Amendment to keep Trump ever holding office.  Only requires a majority vote.

Democrats have a back-up plan in case the Senate doesn’t convict Trump on impeachment
House and Senate Democrats may push ahead this week with a censure resolution to bar former President Donald Trump from holding future office over his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, anticipating acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial, several sources familiar with the matter told McClatchy.

The effort to draft the resolution that would invoke a provision of the 14th Amendment began quietly in January and gained momentum over the weekend, as Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine gauge whether the measure could attract bipartisan support.

The reception has been lukewarm so far from Democrats, who would prefer to see the former president convicted in the impeachment trial, and from Republicans, who fear political consequences in barring Trump from office. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article249077830.html

This was the plan all along as it takes a simple majority, which they have.