Congress Puts Itself Above the Law and the Constitution

 by

       M. Richard Maxson

      The Democrat Socialist party is once again violating the U.S. Constitution in what he described as a “show trial” against former President Donald Trump. We touched base with Jonathan Turley, an American attorney, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism. He is a professor at the George Washington University Law School, and has testified in United States Congressional proceedings about constitutional and statutory issues. In addition, Alan Dershowitz, an American lawyer known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. He taught at Harvard Law School from 1964 through 2013 joined in.

      The latest House impeachment brief alleges that Trump incited a mob to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 while lawmakers were convened in a joint session to consider certification of electoral college votes. Trump’s legal team denies the allegation and argues in a memo that the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer president. The team also argues that Trump exercised his First Amendment rights in calling into question the results of the election.

      An effective legal defense is based on challenging the constitutionality of the allegations against President Trump. The U.S. Constitution states that “the President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States … shall be removed from office” if convicted of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” According to Jonathon Turley, the phrase “the President” means the current occupant of the White House and suggests that only a sitting president can be impeached. The president is Joe Biden, not Donald Trump,” Turley wrote.

      Presidential Trump adviser Jason Miller echoed the sentiment that the reasoning featured in the impeachment brief is a threat to freedom of speech more broadly, writing in a statement that, “not only will President Trump be on trial next week. The First Amendment will be on trial next week because the Democrats aren’t going to stop with attacking President Trump, they want to go after the free speech and the rights of all Americans.”

      Constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz agreed. The brief filed by the House managers advocating for the conviction and disqualification of citizen Donald Trump contains an attack on freedom of speech for all Americans. It declares that “the First Amendment does not apply at all to impeachment proceedings,” despite the express language of the First Amendment that prohibits Congress from making any law, or presumably taking other action, that curbs freedom of speech and “amounts to a dangerous broadside against the freedom of speech of all Americans.”

      Writing in an earlier op-ed for The Hill, Dershowitz made a case against a key argument contained in the impeachment brief, namely that “the First Amendment does not apply at all to impeachment proceedings,” which the legal scholar said signals Congressional willingness to take aim at freedom of speech more broadly.

      “The brief filed by the House managers advocating the conviction and disqualification of citizen Donald Trump. This was precisely the argument made by Joseph McCarthy and his followers in the 1950s. The argument made by the House impeachment managers that the First Amendment does not apply to presidents. The text of the Constitution would seem strongly to suggest that the framers intended impeachment to be used only for removal of a sitting official and once removed, it could also disqualify him,” said Dershowitz, but it was never intended to be used merely as a means of future disqualification as it's being used today.” The very absence of any reference to impeaching a former president suggests the framers were opposed to the idea. “They could easily have added a provision saying that a former president could be impeached, and the chief justice would preside. They didn't do that,” Dershowitz said. Dershowitz noted that in impeachment cases, the Constitution calls for “removal from office and disqualification” from holding office, not “removal from office OR disqualification.” In other words, disqualification presupposes removal, and since Trump was not removed from office, he is not subject to disqualification.

          “ Congress has put itself above the law,” Dershowitz added. “They say the president is not above the law; they’re right, but Congress is not above the law, and the law makes specific provisions for when a president can be impeached and you can’t impeach a president in violation of the First Amendment. The best arguments he can make, and he will make, are the constitutional ones, namely the Senate had no jurisdiction over a former president and the speech was covered by the First Amendment,” Dershowitz stated.

      The President has refused to be part of this political show trial. It is un-constitutional. The Senate is in violation of the Constitution in another way. An impeachment requires the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to preside. He will not be there. Instead, in violation of the Constitution, Senator Patrick Leahy, the president pro tempore of the Senate, will be presiding, rather than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Obviously the Supreme Court has read the Constitution.

       No former president has ever been tried before, there is precedent for the impeachment trial of a former high-level official. The Belknap case, which the Leftists cite is NOT precedent. First, Belknap was not the president and second, he was eventually acquitted “largely” because many senators believed the Senate lacked the power to try a former Cabinet member. What's different now?

      This whole show is an attempt at a grab for more power. The Democrat Socialist party are tasked to destroy the enemy of the Leftist elite, President Donald Trump, and to make sure he never threatens their cabal again. Forget the law, forget the Constitution, destroy the idea of a great America.

      There are still enough Senators who stand by the Founding Fathers vision and their Constitution that will make this illegal attempt fail. The Leftists in Congress are wasting our time and money when millions of Americans are suffering in a wrecked economy and personal anguish. So much for the Democrats being a party for the people. They are a party out for total power - forever.