There is some talk from the President’s supporters (and others) that his impeachment means that impeachment will become a more common part of politics. This may be true, but I would pin the blame on the Clinton impeachment.
Prior to 1998, every impeachment was done with a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction in the Senate. Not every trial resulted in a conviction, of course, but the ones that did not were close. While analogies to criminal law are tricky in impeachments, there is some similarity here to the thought that a prosecutor should not bring a case unless he or she thinks that there is a reasonable chance of obtaining a conviction. In other words, people should not be indicted just to make a statement.
The Clinton impeachment broke new ground. Everyone knew that the Senate would not convict President Clinton, but the House impeached him anyway. This was a defensible position in the sense that the House and the Senate are independent bodies. The House of Representatives is within its rights to impeach someone no matter what the Senate thinks. After all, maybe the Senate is partisan, maybe the Senate is wrong, etc. Once the House started down that road, though, a restraint on presidential impeachment was removed.
Posted by Gerard Magliocca on December 16, 2019 at 09:29 PM
Comments
The respectable author of the post, claims that, I quote:
“…….there is some similarity here to the thought that a prosecutor should not bring a case unless he or she thinks that there is a reasonable chance of obtaining a conviction. In other words, people should not be indicted just to make a statement.”
End of quotation:
But, and as explained not once. This is not really a Senate. This is a court. Bearing very unique features as such, yet, a court. Now, a prosecutor, wouldn’t bring a case unless there is reasonable chance of obtaining a conviction, yet, not because of the composition of judges typically, but:
Because of objective assessment about the : gravity, the conclusiveness, the sufficiency of evidences and so forth…. So, the issue is the objective standard, has to do with the case, not judges. The fact that one should expect the vote to split in accordance with political affiliation, has nothing to do with the material and the case simply.This is simply very common mistake to think so.
Thanks
Posted by: El roam | Dec 17, 2019 6:43:45 AM
The Clinton impeachment was always massively unpopular with the public at all points during the process, as all the polls on the subject demonstrated. The Republicans impeached Clinton because they had become unhinged ideologues, and they’ve only gotten worse since then.
Trump is being impeached because he’s a career criminal who has basically begged to be impeached since his first week in office, and will continue to do so as long as he occupies it.
Posted by: AnotherAnonProf | Dec 16, 2019 11:34:14 PM
Cool story, bro.
Posted by: thegreatdisappointment | Dec 16, 2019 11:13:55 PM