IIRC, constitutionally Congress doesn’t need a reason to impeach a president; they just need a majority. (Can’t remember if it’s 1/2, 2/3 or 3/4 majority.)
But are there other laws that could keep the impeachment process from going forward? I remember hearing some stuff during the Benghazi hearings that the these sorts of things should not (legally) be done for political gain.
SCOTUS would likely slap down such an attempt, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
Wait, could this actually a thing? I have not read the presidential election thread for a week or so…
They do need a reason.
Section 4 of the US Constitution states that the President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
The President does not serve simply at the whim of Congress and an attempt to impeach one “just because” would undoubtedly be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
It also takes two-thirds of the Senate after a majority vote in the House.
Inventing a reason to impeach a president would not be difficult - one could call almost anything a ‘high crime’.
What does ‘misdemeanor’ mean in this context?
It is not the current legal definition of a misdemeanor. It refers to things like abuse of authority, perjury of oath, bribery and other office-related misdeeds.
Curious what the impetus was here @Yack_Attack ? EDITED to fix naming the wrong OP
As to the requirements the act of impeachment in the house is a simple majority (50%+1), while the Senate trial requires a 2/3 majority to confirm.
http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/100/standards-for-impeachment
No, because a law still needs to be broken. Congress cannot impeach a President for bad taste in clothing or liking Episode 1. (I mean, it can try, but SCOTUS will toss it out.) Impeachment is still a legal process, not only a popularity contest (though it is that as well.)
What law did Bill Clinton break and was then impeached for?
Perjury.
Actually… reading on it more (the link I provided is really good, Heritage Foundation or no), that’s not quite accurate. Apparently there is an unsettled matter of language that was used during the Clinton case where misdemeanors was being used as, not illegal action, but rather misdeeds rendering one unfit for office.
The justification given was a) that the term had a different meaning when written, more accurate to misdeeds than breaking of law (as we understand the term misdemeanor today) and b) the heritage from common law whereby clearly there were cases where a person was impeached and removed from office though they had not broken a specific law, but rather had conducted themselves in some compromising manner.
Now whether you view this is the standard that should be upheld is another question. But a sufficiently determined foe could try and justify an impeachment hearing in the absence of actual illegal conduct.
And obstruction of justice, which actually garnered more votes than the perjury charge (50 to 45, with 67 being needed in the Senate).
Kindof academic at this point, though, since getting 2/3rds of the Senate would mean the vote would have to be bi-partisan. That means no shenanigans like impeaching Clinton for Bengazi or emails. The House could pass it, and I imagine would likely try.
For the record, the OP is @Yack_Attack, not me. The hypnotoad icon throws folks off, I know.
And this is why avatars are a terrible replacement for usernames, wumpus ;)
(Except in my case, because my username is fucking terrible)
Damn, ya got me. Sorry about that! (and, yeah, exactly for the reason you suspected. You are the Hypnotoad ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD)
I was expecting ‘shenanigans’. Still am, despite the above responses.
True, it would require an actual court case (and hence an actual impeachment conviction) to actually determine.
They couldn’t. It’s specifically defined in the Constitution, and they would call it a political question.
Any supreme court that went against 2/3rd of the Senate would not be a supreme court much longer.
I used to get a lot of the underground right-wing emails that are usually debunked by Snopes, et al from one of my Uncles and many swirled around how President Obama needed to be impeached, etc.
I asked him what President Obama had done which any other Democratic President would not have done and he had no answer - the hatred and lawlessness and everything else (it seemed) was more about hatred of anything Democratically supported than any other thing.