As Americans Suffer - Another Illegal Impeachment Attempt

 by

       M. Richard Maxson

      The Leftist elite and the Marxist coalition of the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump – again. The people who are hurting – BE DAMNED. This political theater MUST continue. The Leftist elite’s first impeachment, as we know, was a sham. False facts and information bought and paid for by the elites that surrounded presidential contender Hillary Clinton. A clear under-the-table coup attempt backed by the media owned by the Socialist elite.

      This week, on a single article of impeachment, the House voted 232–197 to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” Democrats and 10 Republicans contended Trump incited the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. A single seven-hour impeachment hearing session constituted the fastest impeachment in U.S. history. As we write this, we are finding that the people who breached the Capitol, were not only let in but, many on the front lines were NOT who they said that were. Also, the timeline is wrong. The people who heard the president’s speech would have had to run for thirty minutes to reach the Capitol.

 FACTS DON’T LIE.

      The following are the opinions on the latest impeachment by former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit - J. Michael Luttig and Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz. Since the Senate trial on that impeachment will not begin until after Trump has left office and President-Elect Biden has become president on Jan. 20. That Senate trial would be unconstitutional and here is why.

      Putting that aside for a moment, we find that the House of Representatives, in their haste for blood, violated the Constitution multiple times. In an interview with Dershowitz, he stated, “They violated the free speech provision. They violated the impeachment criteria. They violated the bill of attainder. They violated due process, on and on and on. How can you impeach a president for a speech that is constitutionally protected?” he said.

      The question put to our Constitutional scholars is this - Can a former president be impeached? The Constitution itself answers this question clearly: No, he cannot be. Once Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, Congress loses its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even if the House has already approved articles of impeachment. The reason for this is found in the Constitution itself. Trump would no longer be incumbent in the Office of the President at the time of the delayed Senate proceeding and would no longer be subject to “impeachment conviction” by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president. The purpose of the impeachment power, to remove from office a president or other “civil official” before he could further harm the nation from the office he then occupies.

      Therefore, if the House of Representatives were to impeach the president before he leaves office, the Senate could not thereafter convict the former president and disqualify him under the Constitution from future public office. “The Constitution is very clear, the purpose of impeachment is removal,” he said. “The Senate cannot try an ordinary citizen.” The purpose, text and structure of the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses confirm this intuitive and common-sense understanding.

      It has been suggested that the Senate could proceed to try the former president and convict him in an effort to disqualify him from holding public office in the future. This is incorrect because it is a constitutional impeachment of a president that authorizes his constitutional disqualification. If a president has not been constitutionally impeached, then the Senate is without the constitutional power to disqualify him from future office.

      Some constitutional scholars take support for their view that the Congress can impeach a former president from two instances in which early Congresses impeached “civil officials” after they had resigned their public offices — the impeachments of Sen. William Blount in 1797 and the impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.

      These congressional impeachment cases provide some backing for the argument that Congress can conclude that it has the power under the Constitution to impeach a former president. And Congress’s understanding of its constitutional powers would be a weighty consideration in the ultimate determination whether the Congress does possess such authority. When and if the former president goes to court to challenge his impeachment trial as unconstitutional, Congress is sure to make its argument based on these congressional precedents, as well as others, a case that would almost certainly make its way to the Supreme Court.

      In the end, though, only the Supreme Court can answer the question of whether Congress can impeach a president who has left office prior to its attempted impeachment of him. It is highly unlikely the Supreme Court would yield to Congress’s view that it has the power to impeach a president who is no longer in office when the Constitution itself is so clear that it does not.