Impeachment Distraction | Eastern North Carolina Now

    First, let's look at the impeachment of President Bill Clinton to see what it teaches us about the kinds of crimes that warrant removal from office. As mentioned earlier, Kenneth Starr, a brilliant and respected attorney, was appointed as the Special Counsel to investigate the charges that stemmed from Clinton's sexual conduct (that is, misconduct) and especially from the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who was sexually assaulted by then Arkansas Governor Clinton. Ken Starr found eleven felony charges that Clinton was guilty of and, as he summed up in his famous Starr Report: "The President has pursued a strategy of (i) deceiving the American people and Congress in January 1998, (ii) delaying and impeding the criminal investigation for seven months, and (iii) deceiving the American people and Congress again in August 1998." His repeated false statements to the American people about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky "represents substantial and credible information that may constitute grounds for an impeachment."

    The House of Representatives took up Starr's Report and compiled the felony charges into four Articles of Impeachment. The House only approved of two of them: (1) Lying Under Oath ("perjury"), and (2) Obstruction of Justice. The charges stemmed from the sexual harassment suit filed by Paula Jones, and specifically, arose out of Clinton's testimony before a grand jury. The testimony addressed his harassment of Ms. Jones and his relationship with Ms. Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was impeached by the House by bi-partisan support: He was impeached on the "Perjury" charge (228-206) and on the "Obstruction of Justice" charge (221-212). His presidency was saved in the Senate. All 45 Democrats in the Senate voted "not guilty" on both charges, and were joined by Republicans as well. He was acquitted by the Senate.


    I didn't agree with the Senate's vote regarding President Clinton's conduct. I saw him perverting his obligation to the Office of the Presidency and subjugating it in order to hide his sexual misconduct and to hopefully continue it. I interpreted the results of the Senate's vote either of two ways: (1) First, I assumed the Senators didn't believe Clinton's conduct - as bad and derelict as it was - was serious enough and of the type to warrant removing him from office. Sure, it was bad conduct... very bad. It evidenced a lifetime of poor judgement and sexual predation, but it was of a personal nature and the Senate should understand that and excuse it. I didn't buy that. It was of a serial nature. He simply had no will power or any other power to decline his sexual urges, even when it touched on his work in the White House Oval Office. (2) Second, I assumed the Senators were simply voting along partisan lines, which clearly the Democrats did. As I mentioned above, none of the Senate Democrats voted to convict.

    But Clinton did face some degree of justice. Being a notable attorney, a state Governor, a US president, a Rhodes scholar, he proved his skills were more adept at lying. He was immediately disbarred and his license to practice before the Supreme Court was taken away.

    So, whether it was politically partisan or not, it appears that Democrats didn't believe that conduct as willfully deceptive and sexually predacious as Clinton's was of a nature sufficient to remove a president from office.

    Next, let's look to see where Impeachment was first used as a "weapon" for strictly political reasons. That would be the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1686.

    In 1864, Abraham Lincoln won re-election. He had run as the Republican Party's first presidential candidate in 1860, but he was looking to expand his base in 1864. Adding Andrew Johnson to the ticket was just the way he would do so.

    Johnson proved to be a sharp and independent thinker. This was most evident following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln when Southern states began to secede. While the secession convention met in Charleston, South Carolina in December 1869, Johnson addressed the Senate and proclaimed his allegiance to the Union. He was born in North Carolina to a poor family but when he was still young, he and his family moved to Tennessee. Johnson was a Democrat and didn't necessarily see eye-to-eye with Lincoln.

    Tennessee seceded in 1861, but Johnson decided to remain in Washington.. In March of 1862, President Lincoln rewarded Johnson's loyalty with an appointment as military governor of Tennessee. When Lincoln sought a second presidential term in 1864 and needed the support of "Union Democrats" (as opposed to "Southern Democrats"), he chose Johnson as his running mate. He chose a Democrat as a running mate. Johnson became Vice-President on March 4, 1865, and just forty-two days later, after Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, he was sworn in as President of the United States.

    At first things went well. It appeared, from the Radical Republicans, that President Johnson was a god-send. Relations between he and the Republicans was quite well. However, soon Johnson's views on mending the Union and on Reconstruction became clear and they were not in line at all with the Republican plan. Johnson opposed political rights for freedmen and called for a lenient reconstruction policy, including pardoning former Confederate leaders. The president looked for every opportunity to block action by the Radical Republicans and freely used his veto power. It became obvious that had no interest in compromise. When Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and then vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau bill in February of 1866, he officially broke any final ties with his Republican opponents in Congress. They responded with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, promising civil rights to freed slaves and then guaranteeing them the right to vote. In March of 1867 Radical Republicans also passed, over Johnson's presidential veto, the Tenure of Office Act which was designed to limit the president's ability to shape his cabinet by requiring that both appointments and dismissals be approved by the Senate. The bill was a clear unconstitutional exercise of legislative power - as violative of the Separation of Powers doctrine.

    Johnson's biggest point of contention was with a particularly nasty hold-over from Lincoln's cabinet - Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War. Stanton was a bad guy - a very bad guy. He supported total war against the South, supported General Sherman's devastating treatment of the southern states, supported his "scorched Earth policy (as Lincoln did), and supported his "March to the Sea" (an overt act of supremacy and over-kill). Stanton supported strong punishment of the former Confederate States and demanded total control of the those vanquished states. According to Stanton, they would not be permitted a seamless transition back into the Union.

    When Johnson tried repeatedly to remove Stanton, Congress responded quickly by passing the Tenure of Office Act. Stanton, a Radical Republican, was critical to the Republican plan to re-make the Union after the Civil War.

    By mid-1867, Johnson's enemies in Congress were repeatedly promoting impeachment. Johnson would have to go. The precipitant event that resulted in a third and successful impeachment action was the firing Stanton. Stanton was not aligned with the President and persisted in opposing his Reconstruction policies. Johnson hoped to replace him with Ulysses S. Grant, whom Johnson believed to be more in line with his own political thinking. In August of 1867, while Congress was in recess, Johnson suspended Stanton and appointed Grant as secretary of war ad interim. When the Senate opposed Johnson's actions and reinstated Stanton in the fall, Grant resigned, fearing punitive action and possible consequences for his own presidential ambitions. Furious with his congressional opponents, Johnson fired Stanton and informed Congress of this action, then named Major General Lorenzo Thomas, a long-time foe of Stanton, as interim secretary. Stanton promptly had Thomas arrested for illegally seizing his office.

    Johnson believed the Tenure of Office Act to be unconstitutional [and Congress must have ultimately agreed. It repealed the law in 1887 and the US Supreme Court, while evaluating the constitutionality of a similar law in the case Myers v. United States (1926), stated that the Tenure of Office Act was likely unconstitutional] and so he didn't take it seriously as a bar to him getting rid of the pesky Stanton.


    And that's all Congress needed to finally bring, in their minds, a solid case of impeachment against Johnson. In 1868, Congress brought eleven articles of impeachment against him, most of them stemming from his suspension of Stanton - his alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Article 1 stated that Johnson ordered Stanton removed with the intent to violate the act. Articles 2, 3 and 8 alleged that the appointment of Thomas, to replace Stanton, without the advice and consent of the Senate was a further violation of the Constitution. And so their political assassination of Johnson proceeded.

    In the Senate, the vote fell short by one. The votes of all Senators was carefully noted and it was clear that Johnson would have been convicted. But at the last minute, Senator Edmund Gibson Ross of Kansas, decided not to vote to convict but rather to acquit. And thus, Johnson was acquitted and allowed to remain in office by one vote. The reason given by those who voted to acquit was that they "could not agree to destroy the harmonious working of the Constitution for the sake of getting rid of an unacceptable President."

    In other words, to convict Johnson on the specious charges brought by the rabid Radical Republicans in the House would be to plunge the country in a constitutional crisis.

    That was 1868.

    History repeated itself these past two months. As it was done with Andrew Johnson, angry and desperate political opponents weaponized the impeachment option for purely partisan political purposes.

    In our history, twenty government officials have been impeached - including the three presidents I mentioned. Eight of them have been found guilty and have been removed from office - ALL FEDERAL JUDGES.

    References:

    "Civil Officer," in Lectlaw. Referenced at: https://www.lectlaw.com/def/c236.htm

    "Persons Subject to Impeachment," in Justia US Law. Referenced at. https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/48-persons-subject-to-impeachment.html

    "Due Process," in Cornell Law School. Referenced at.

    The Starr Report (Full report submitted to the House of Representatives by Special Counsel Kenneth Starr on September 9, 1998.

    The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1868), United States Senate. Referenced at.