FOR WEDNESDAY, DAVIDSON, CH. 12.
The Founders knew about the possibility of crooked presidents:
Article I, Section 3, Clause 7:
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist No. 72)
An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to … yield[ing] up the emoluments he enjoyed … might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients.An ambitious man, too, when … seated on the summit of his country’s honors, … would be … violently tempted to embrace a favorable conjuncture for attempting the prolongation of his power, at every personal hazard.
- Treason
- Bribery
- High Crimes and Misdemeanors
- Precedent from England?
- Gerald R. Ford 1970: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”
Andrew Johnson Impeachment -- see esp. Article Ten
Impeachment v. Bill of Attainder
Impeachment v. Bill of Attainder
The House
- "Due process" does not apply.
- The Fifth Amendment says no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Impeachment merely removes a person from office.
The Special Case of the President
- The "take care" clause
- At Harvard Law Review, Andrew Kent.Ethan J. Leib, and Jed Handelsman Shugerman have an article titled "Faithful Execution and Article II." From the abstract:
Article II of the U.S. Constitution twice imposes a duty of “faithful execution” on the President, who must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” and take an oath or affirmation to “faithfully execute the Office of President.
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