Forum: Author Hangout

The Senate can disqualify an impeached President from running for any office, but is not required to, any more than they're required to remove them from office.

If I'm reading your comment correctly (and I may not be), you're saying that the Senate could convict after the House has impeached and still NOT even remove the President from office. Is that what you meant to say or am I misreading it?

Is that what you meant to say or am I misreading it?

That is the implication of the way the constitutional language on impeachment was written.

It says the penalty on conviction shall extend no further than x and y.

That's kind of hard to read as a command that the penalty shall be x and y.

If I'm reading your comment correctly (and I may not be), you're saying that the Senate could convict after the House has impeached and still NOT even remove the President from office. Is that what you meant to say or am I misreading it?

The Constitutional clause says that judgment "shall not extend further" than removal from office and denial of ability to hold office in future. But it clearly can extend less far than that... in the two actual past impeachment cases, the Senate has adjudged that the President should not be removed from office or denied future ability to hold office.

Logically, removal from office without a ban from serving in future, or even a ban from holding office in future without removal from the current office would also be within the limits.

To be clear, I don't think it's ever likely to happen that the Senate would remove a President from office but not ban them from holding office in future, and it's even less likely that they'd go the other way around. But by the letter of the law, they could.

I think that Potomac Bob's understanding is the standard.

It not only is clear from the wording, it also is what I learned.

Remember that impeachment not only applies to the president; it applies to judges and any executive officer.

Yea. The Legislative Branch is allowed to regulate their own members. Executive and Judicial are subject to impeachment. It was intentional by the Founders to elevate the Legislative Branch over the other two in this case. In fact, the Legislative Branch can essentially overrule the Judicial Branch in a variety of ways. Much too long for a post here. But it's interesting stuff to history buffs.

I would read it that way as well. However, look at the case of Alcee Hastings he was a federal district court judge from the Southern District of Florida. He was impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and removed from office (or the bench) October 20, 1989.

In 1993 he ran for and was elected as US Representative for the 23rd district of Florida. In 1993 the district lines were changed and he was elected as Representative for the 20th district and is still serving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcee_Hastings

I didn't find anything about the specifics of the Senate "sentence".

And what if the Senate convicts, agrees that the president committed specific "crimes or misdemeanors," but decides the crime does not warrant removal from office? I supposed, under the wording, the president then would be subject to prosecution under the law. I would guess, in that event, the attorney general, who works for the president, would likely decline to prosecute.
Theoretically, if a president were impeached for jaywalking (a misdemeanor), and convicted by the Senate for jaywalking, I could see where the crime would not fit the punishment of removal from office.

I believe not until he leaves office.

Unsettled law at this point, the theory is PotUS is immune to criminal prosecution until/unless impeached(or term of office ends), at which point he should be removed from office and the prosecution can begin.

What happens in the odd event that the Senate did impeach a President, but allow them to remain in Office is an extreme edge case where I'd suspect PotUS would then enjoy a pseudo-immunity from further prosecution until they left office.

Unsettled law at this point, the theory is PotUS is immune to criminal prosecution

Unsettled at this point. The current Justice Department position seems to be, based on a past policy memo, that the President is immune from prosecution of any kind for any crime at any time until his term of office ends. At which point, he could be subject to criminal or civil prosecution. Current argument has been stated that he could stand on 5th Avenue shooting people and no law officer is allowed to interfere or bring charges. Seems absurd, but that's the argument, and not disputed by the Justice Department.

Unsettled at this point. The current Justice Department position seems to be, based on a past policy memo, that the President is immune from prosecution of any kind for any crime at any time until his term of office ends.

It's not been tested in court, but is it really that unsettled? The DOJ's authority to prosecute anyone is in itself entirely derivative of the President's authority under Article II of the Constitution and the head of the DOJ serves at the President's discretion.

For federal crimes, in effect the president would be prosecuting himself. This remains true with so called special counsels appointed under the AGs inherent authority. If Congress doesn't like this they need to re-enact the Independent Counsel Act which lapsed several presidents ago.

Unsettled at this point. The current Justice Department position seems to be, based on a past policy memo, that the President is immune from prosecution of any kind for any crime at any time until his term of office ends. At which point, he could be subject to criminal or civil prosecution. Current argument has been stated that he could stand on 5th Avenue shooting people and no law officer is allowed to interfere or bring charges. Seems absurd, but that's the argument, and not disputed by the Justice Department.

You're confusing and conflating things. A Law Officer would be able to intervene in such a scenario.

What would happen is the Prosecutor would be unable to pursue anything beyond the matter of pressing charges(for the record/preserve the statute of limitations), as the case would likely be unable to be heard until after the President left office.

You're also left in a legal grey zone regarding the Secret Service and other associated Presidential support apparatus. Their only oath is to obey lawful orders and while the Secret Service detail is there to protect the President. I doubt many in the detail would stand idle while the President goes about unlawfully killing people as the protection of life is one of their primary missions--not just the Presidents.

The other matter is you're dealing with a Justice Department opinion, not a "finding of fact" that happened in a court of law. Until the courts rule one way or the other, it is "unsettled law."

The current Justice Department position seems to be, based on a past policy memo, that the President is immune from prosecution of any kind for any crime at any time until his term of office ends

In a recent court hearing before a federal judge, the Justice Department took the position that not only could the President not be prosecuted, he couldn't even be investigated for crimes or misdemeanors. The federal judge asked the Justice Department rep - let's take the oft-cited case that the President shoots somebody on Fifth Avenue. Is it your position that the President would not be subject to prosecution by county officials. The Justice Department confirmed that that is their position. Most news stories I've read had previously said the department's position was that the president could not be prosecuted for Federal crimes, but could be prosecuted for state crimes. This comment is based on news report I read about a recent court hearing - so those who don't trust reporters can assume the hearing did not happen.

the President shoots somebody on Fifth Avenue.

Why Fifth Avenue? Surely Pennsylvania Avenue is more logical?

Given the current President's history, would his first words be, "I've fired..!!" ??

Why Fifth Avenue? Surely Pennsylvania Avenue is more logical?

Because, as a candidate, our current president boasted that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue without losing any of his voters.

Because, as a candidate, our current president boasted that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue without losing any of his voters.

As long as it's a native New Yorker and not a tourist...

As long as it's a native New Yorker and not a tourist...

Safer to target a tourist. Native New Yorkers shoot back...

Safer to target a tourist. Native New Yorkers shoot back...

With what?

boasted that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue without losing any of his voters.

Surely that depends on what firearm he chose and how good his aim was?

Those NRA voters can be picky about that stuff...

Surely that depends on what firearm he chose and how good his aim was?

Oh, come on! He could not possibly miss. He's the most perfect gun shooter in the history of the universe - a stable genius, too.

You're confusing and conflating things. A Law Officer would be able to intervene in such a scenario.

No. It's not my argument, but the argument presently put forth by certain lawyers and supporters. "They" are saying, quite clearly, that the Chief Executive is immune under the mantle of Executive Privilege. As for the SS and "lawful" orders; that's in the mind of the supervisor's supervisors. It's hard to imagine any mere agent laying hands on the Exalted One to interfere with his fusillade... short of physically stepping in front of the muzzle.

BTW, the entire premise is absurd beyond belief, but those are the types of arguments being put forth to support the Chief Executive these days.

No. It's not my argument, but the argument presently put forth by certain lawyers and supporters. "They" are saying, quite clearly, that the Chief Executive is immune under the mantle of Executive Privilege. As for the SS and "lawful" orders; that's in the mind of the supervisor's supervisors. It's hard to imagine any mere agent laying hands on the Exalted One to interfere with his fusillade... short of physically stepping in front of the muzzle.

Presidents have been manhandled by the Secret Service in the past, although that's usually in response to someone shooting at the President, not the President shooting at someone else.

Still pretty sure the response on the part of the agents would be to tackle the President, disarm him, and then get him out of there asap.

They wouldn't let him keep shooting.

Of course, then there is Dick Cheney who actually DID shoot somebody while VP.

Of course, then there is Dick Cheney who actually DID shoot somebody while VP.

Cheney was Quayle hunting and shot the wrong lawyer.

"Rex solutus est a legibus." The King is released from the laws.
A President expecting impeachment could pardon himself in advance, a form of lettre de cachet. "What has been done has been done with my authority and for the good of the State."

"Rex solutus est a legibus." The King is released from the laws.
A President expecting impeachment could pardon himself in advance, a form of lettre de cachet. "What has been done has been done with my authority and for the good of the State."

Not true, as Impeachment stands apart from the Legal Process, all the Presidential Pardon would do is protect the PotUS from being prosecuted under Federal Law. It does nothing to prevent Congress from being able to impeach him. The courts have spoken on this matter previously.

POTUS can not be prosecuted. First, he would have to be impeached by both the House and the Senate and removed from office.

My previous post in this thread quoted the relevant section of the Constitution regarding this (Article 1, Section 3, final clause). I won't bother to repeat it.

I believe this point is directly addressed there. Paraphrasing, the Party is liable and subject to indictment under law upon conviction. Now it's interesting that said indictments aren't limited to Federal law, just under Law. I take that to mean said Party can be indicted under State law also.

Additionally, it states this applies to "the Party convicted". It doesn't say "the Party removed from office". I take that to mean that it kicks on upon conviction of impeachment by the Senate.

As I said in my previous post, pretty straightforward stuff.

And 67 yes votes in the Senate - which has a 53 seat Republican majority at this time - isn't going to happen.

There recently was a claim that it doesn't actually require 67 yes votes.

It just requires a 2/3rds majority of those present. So depending on what Senate rules are for being able to convene the hearing and have the findings from that hearing be considered valid, you could end up with 30 Republicans "staying home" so the impeachment vote goes 47(D)/23(R) in favor of conviction.

Having said that, I can pretty much guarantee that about 2 seconds later, what happened at Fort Sumter would happen again. Note that my comment is, of course, about the current things going on.

Depends on the circumstances of the 30 Republicans not bothering to be present to vote. If there were "shenanigans" in play keeping them away, that's one thing. If they however decided they simply weren't going to participate and opted out(and "freely declared" as such), well..

Depends on the circumstances of the 30 Republicans not bothering to be present to vote.

The whole scenario is absurd. Republicans being the Senate Majority, they control the scheduling of everything that comes before the full Senate.

There is no way that the Democrats could even get the trial scheduled like that without MAJOR shenanigans, much less an actual vote on conviction.

The whole scenario is absurd. Republicans being the Senate Majority, they control the scheduling of everything that comes before the full Senate.

There is no way that the Democrats could even get the trial scheduled like that without MAJOR shenanigans, much less an actual vote on conviction.

The Republicans in Congress want Trump gone probably more than the Democrats do. He's changing the Republican "brand" in very unflattering ways. Ways that they'll be dealing with for a decade or more after he's gone.

The problem they have is they cannot go after him themselves. While the processes the Democrats are using to do so is a bad joke, so joining in on it is stupidity at its finest.

But if they can create a circumstance where they can "allow" the Democrats to do the dirty work for them, it gives them a possible way out, "for the party" if not the congressional members themselves. It gets Trump out, it allows them to blame the Democrats for doing it. Even if it is also equally valid that they fully enabled it knowing what would happen.

I highly doubt they'll go that route, as there is no way they can spin "abandoning their post" in a positive light.

So if the Dems do refer it to the Senate, it'll be a choice of vote to impeach and get skewered by the Trump Voters, or vote against it and try to weather the anti-Trump response to that.

I'm still skeptical that the Democrats will ever refer it to the Senate. They have their legal justification to get their hands on all kinds of potentially embarrassing documents involving Trump. Once they have those and have the ability to leak them at will, they'll declare victory, and start leaking those documents over however long Trump remains in office.

edit: I also strongly suspect Trump wants them to move the proceedings into a venue where his team is able to cross-examine, which would be the Senate. I also strongly suspect that once in that venue, some of those people refusing to appear before the House would suddenly turn up. And what they have to add may not help the case the Dems are trying to build.

Perhaps, but the ending would be the same again and in a lot less than four years, General Lee.

I wouldn't bet against "Team Red" in a Civil War Scenario, so long as they don't declare war for a completely stupid reason.

"Team Blue" would have a number of rather significant issues to overcome in very short order. Good luck running a high technology, high population, highly urbanized society when you're not getting food shipments, the power has been cut, and your water supplies are likely to be compromised.

I wouldn't bet against "Team Red" in a Civil War Scenario, so long as they don't declare war for a completely stupid reason.

"Team Blue" would have a number of rather significant issues to overcome in very short order. Good luck running a high technology, high population, highly urbanized society when you're not getting food shipments, the power has been cut, and your water supplies are likely to be compromised.

Sounds like it would make an interesting story!

Google 4chan Red Team Planner. Its a discussion on 4chan from 2016 that spread across the net. As with anything posted on an anonymous forum, there is no way of checking the bona fides of the poster. Being 4chan it may have been chum to bait the sharks into a frenzy. Those caveats aside, his posts do seem logically consistent as he lays out the probable results of a rebellion / armed resistance by Red State types.
The entire Q Anon phenomena, which also started on 4chan, could be seen as a psych-warfare extension of this, to quash any attempt at ad-hoc armed resistance by getting the would be rebels to "Trust the Plan".

Anyone who is thinking of heroically becoming a militia leader should consider the fate of those that have gone before them. Just larping as a seperatist has resulted in jail time, dead wives and kids, minds broken and now castration has been added to the list.

As for it making an interesting story, real life has become so weird that, to quote Instapundit, the Babylon Bee has become the Newspaper of Record.

As for it making an interesting story, real life has become so weird that, to quote Instapundit, the Babylon Bee has become the Newspaper of Record.

It has managed to turn Snopes into an even bigger joke than it had already turned itself into over the past many years. I miss the days when they were reputable.

So to be clear, with this group-think mentality, anything could be feasible and nothing is beyond the realm of belief, even to the point that "Alice in Wonderland" could be one of the Banned Books of the Bible? Or that Philip Pullman's tales of the Magisterium are actually a war plan?

with this group-think mentality, anything could be feasible and nothing is beyond the realm of belief

In the last week we have seen a man set a world athletic record as a woman and a court rule that a father cannot stop the chemical castration of his seven year old son. So the short answer to your question is "Yes".

Ask any older American if in 1972 they thought that The Weather Underground would end up having their darling serve two terms as President. Having a pacifist peanut farmer who would run from a rabbit or a Hollywood actor who made a movie with a chimp as President was already a bridge too far at that point. The current reality TV star is just a continuation of a trend in the apparently unbelievable becoming real.

In 1994 the US Military first surveyed recruits to see if they would fire on citizens if they refused to surrender firearms. That was after Waco & Ruby Ridge.

Ad hoc test runs were made using out of state police during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Alan Greenspan spoke publicly about the choke points in exports and regional food & fuel suppies due to Katrina. The event was a learning experience for govt in more than just disaster relief.

Potential armed rebels have always been heavily suppressed, regardless of the niceties of law, going back to Shay's rebellion. The Late Unpleasantness was the one time it was allowed to get out of hand.

In the last 50 years the American Indian Movement, Black nationalists, independent militias & Christian Identity movements have all experienced the wrath of the Federal Government as part of that ongoing policy.

The areas of discussion in the Red Team Planner posts have already been publicly canvassed and if the US military planners are not keeping their current version of War Plan Red up to date then they would soon be out of a job.

Its suffice to say that for the purpose of story telling there is enough of a skeleton in real world events for a story to be hung on. If the Red Team Planner posts are story telling, then its well done, appealing to the audience that its aimed at.

If its a leaker leaking, then its possibly an experiment in memetic warfare, as people with security clearances who leak risk losing their freedom & their pensions. If they are as bad as Bradley Manning, their brain and their balls.
Who by and why a leak would be authorized I don't know.

Memetic Warfare publicly became an area of study by the US military in 2008 & the Bilderberger Conference of 2011 was on the effects of Social Media on society and their control of same.

This was before social media really was a thing, let alone pervasive. In other words planning and preparation was already being put in place. Kony 2012, the first manipulated 'viral' internet campaign that I am aware of came soon after. It appeared to have no achievable purpose other than to see how a viral campaign spread.

I had a long screed about the nature of belief systems both organic and imposed, along with the means of maintenance and manipulation, but have cut it.

Thanks for the tip on Pullman's books, I'll give him a try.

One might reconsider 'messing' with our Dear Leader. Now that China has declared the entirety of the South China Sea as their territorial waters; and Russia has 'appropriated' the entirety of the Sea of Azov as their territorial waters, our Dear Leader has likewise proclaimed the Salton Sea as off limits to anything other than legitimate US interest. A bold move in anyone's book.

And the standing record for Presidential impeachments is 2-0.

As for the crime he committed he asked a foreign government to investigate a rival and use that info in a election.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a bridge too far as a factual statement. Which election are you talking about? 2020? I hate to tell you this, but that's in the future. So that means it hasn't happened yet. So, even if it was a crime (which it isn't), said action hasn't happened.

Laz, this is fast approaching a political discussion. Please pull the plug.

Please, can we just stop this insanity? As a man once said, you are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts.

Anyone who would promote the threat of another US civil war is certifiably insane and should confine their remarks to their psychiatrist after surrendering their weapons.

The intent is the crime.

So asking for an investigation of a crime is a crime?