How Should the Senate Deal with an
Unconstitutional Impeachment by the House?
Gatestone Institute,
by
Alan M. Dershowitz
Original Article
Posted By: earlybird,
12/12/2019 5:48:20 PM
If the House of Representatives were to impeach President Trump on the two grounds now before it, the senate would be presented with a constitutional dilemma. These two grounds— abuse of power and obstruction of Congress— are not among the criteria specified for impeachment. Neither one is a high crime and misdemeanor. Neither is mentioned in the constitution. Both are the sort of vague, open-ended criteria rejected by the framers. They were rejected precisely to avoid the situation in which our nation currently finds itself. Abuse of power can be charged against virtually every controversial president by the opposing party. And obstruction of Congress (Snip) cannot extend to a president
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DoneinCalif 12/12/2019 5:53:12 PM (No. 260355)
I say drag it on as long as possible. Bleed the dems everyday.
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
OBX Pete 12/12/2019 6:02:25 PM (No. 260367)
The Senate should refuse to accept the impeachment that the house presents to them on grounds of un constitutionality as noted by Dershowitz. In other words......tell the house to stick it !!!
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
udanja99 12/12/2019 6:06:46 PM (No. 260369)
I’m in favor of telling the House demonrats to stick it, but I’d still like to see both Bidens, Schiff, CIAramella and all the rest of the deep state thugs on trial.
One advantage to a senate trial though, would be having Warren, Sanders and the rest of the senators running yanked off the campaign trail for several months. Then Buttplug would get the nomination and would lose in a massive landslide.
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bad-hair 12/12/2019 6:12:35 PM (No. 260375)
I'm inclined to agree with #1 Drag this out as long as it will stretch. The quickie trial only serves the Republican senators who have been milking quid pro Joe's cash cow for decades. Have WH lawyers call Kid Biden, Lindsey Graham, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton for that matter.
Or have a quickie acquittal and turn bill Barr loose on the lot of them.
6 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
GW_Rider 12/12/2019 6:18:19 PM (No. 260381)
I would love to see the corruption of our garbage elite exposed to the world, but the danger is this: the corruption extends to members of the Uniparty (dems and reps). Faced with the prospect of a lengthy trial and exposure of their crimes as the only option, enough nominal reps will vote for impeachment and an end to the procedings to protect themselves.
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 12/12/2019 6:21:11 PM (No. 260385)
From the article:
"The most likely option for the president — and the one hinted at by White House sources — is for the Senate to conduct a scaled down trial focusing on the constitutional defects in the articles of impeachment. No fact witnesses would be called: that would turn the proceeding into a he said/she said conflict with no clear resolution. Only legal arguments — neater and quicker — would be presented before a vote was taken.
This is most likely, if the Dems are so stupid as to shoot themselves in the foot this way. It fits nicely with the need for the ENTIRE Swamp to keep President Trump from having a field day exposing the massive corruption that most of them have engaged in. Graham is reported by OANN to have corrupt money connections to Ukraine, so you can bet he wants this shut down and covered over, dead and buried as fast as possible and with as little added information coming out as possible.
9 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 12/12/2019 6:22:48 PM (No. 260387)
For more info, so the article posted two above this one.
1 person likes this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
davew 12/12/2019 6:49:39 PM (No. 260410)
In the early days of the Republic the executive branch based its arguments for vetoing bills from Congress on their unconstitutionality. This was later rendered unnecessary after Marbury v. Madison that established the principal of judicial review on the part of the Supreme Court.
The President's lawyers should simply refuse to come to the Senate on the basis of the unconstitutionality of the articles rendered by the House. Then the Senate would have to go to the SCOTUS to either compel them or dismiss the charges as not valid. If the court rules for the Senate then they can take up the matter there. The Senate has no power to hold a trial of anyone if the charges are unconstitutional.
The obstruction of Congress charge is equivalent to prosecuting someone for exercising their 5th amendment rights against self incrimination. No one should be allowed to abuse their office like this.
9 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Quigley 12/12/2019 7:16:58 PM (No. 260435)
Now we know why the dims crafted such BS articles: so they can blame the Senate or the chief justice- or anyone who has a role-for whatever happens.
0 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
kennedylaw 12/12/2019 8:06:43 PM (No. 260471)
For complete fairness, they should adopt the same rules that the Democrat House adopted. That means that the Republican committee heads would be able to subpoena any witnesses and documents that they want, decide whether the witnesses will testify in public or in private, and selectively leak whatever portions of private testimony and documents that they want, while the Democrat minority will only be able to call witnesses that are approved in advance by the Republican committee heads and will be prohibited from asking any questions that the Republican committee heads decide are off limits. The President's attorneys should also be afforded the right to subpoena any witnesses and documents that they think are relevant, since they were permitted no discovery in the House.
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
judy 12/12/2019 8:09:15 PM (No. 260473)
If they find no facts, bring it up for a vote & move on.
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Omen55 12/12/2019 8:12:04 PM (No. 260475)
The GOP should ask Prof D to be lead counsel.
Just think of the fun.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 12/12/2019 9:45:21 PM (No. 260521)
The Senate Judicial Committee should state that should the House vote to Impeach and send it to the Senate that their very first witness will be Barack Obama.
5 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
lakerman1 12/12/2019 11:18:33 PM (No. 260566)
The dimocrats in the House are caught up in their own whirlwind, so it is likel;uy tjat if and when the Senate finds in favor of the President, Schiff Head and friends will come up with new, bogus charges.
This is beginning to look like a man stuck in a bad marriage, and he doesn't want to leave her because of money and children.
0 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
NYbob 12/13/2019 12:24:00 AM (No. 260593)
A simple trial focused on the rat ringleaders, the traitors in the W.H., FBI, CIA, and NSA. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. Some will be disbarred. some will be imprisoned and a few might be shot. Too bad. A functioning system of justice that would actually do it's job would have no other choice. Actually pretty tame compared to other coups in history. Or we can do it the hard way.
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 12/13/2019 5:07:34 PM (No. 261366)
Shut it down immediately. I do not want to see Di-Spy Feinslime and Up-Chuck Shoomer making speeches. Shut them down, fast.
1 person likes this.
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