Democrats, common sense and the Constitution — Trump's second impeachment conviction fiasco?

19 January 2021

The Pelosi train rolls on

Toot, toot:

The House impeached President Donald Trump on Wednesday for a second time, charging him with "incitement of insurrection" for his role in the violent riot by a pro-Trump mob in the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead and terrorized lawmakers as they sought to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

The House is expected to immediately send the article of impeachment to the Senate, requiring it to begin the process of holding a trial to determine whether to convict Trump and potentially bar him from ever running for any federal office again.

One glitch

The Senate is on recess, so that Trump will be out of office (and Joe Biden in) by the time the Senate meets to vote for or against Trump's conviction:

This is raising questions about whether [Trump] can even be tried for impeachment, since he'll already have moved out of the White House — and whether he'd still enjoy the benefits accorded to former presidents if the Senate convicts him.

Constitutional semantics intrude

A problem with Democrats' logic arises in the Constitution's Article I, section 3, clause 7's wording:

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.

Article I's semantics are important

The "and" in the above clause implies that:

we can only bar the officeholder from future office

he (or she) is still in the one

that

we are kicking him or her out of.

Interpreting the clause in the reverse-logic way (that Pelosi and Herd do) runs against ordinary speech-based cognitive patterns.

The Pelosi interpretation is like firing someone, days or weeks after they have already quit their job.

Who does that?

Are there twists to this interpretation?

The one exception — to being in office at the time of Senate conviction vote — is Secretary of War William Belknap (in 1876). He resigned even before the House voted to impeach him.

The Belknap "precedent" only exists because the Senate itself resolved that it could bar him from future office under those circumstances. That politically based vote is, arguably, different from the Supreme Court holding that the Senate could do what it did, under the Constitution's governing wording.

Furthermore — regarding the same Belknap precedent — there is also the difference between voluntarily resigning from an office in mid-course, versus having the term constitutionally expire under the culprit, as in Trump's case.

The difference is conceptually similar to the distinction between kicking a still-squirming person and a dead one.

In sum

In my legal estimation, it is a semantic stretch to go in the direction that Pelosi and Gang are headed.

Time-wasting will be the result. While America continues to wallow in massively real problems.

Democrats' excuse for this excursion into weeds is that Trump deserves punishment for being a bad guy, as well as for having insurrection-motivated the Capitol riot mob.

Overlooked is the fact that the only reason Democrats want to censure Trump is so that they will not have to face his political clout again.

In essence, Democrats' future survival in office is much more important (to them) than diligently advancing the nation's wellbeing.

I also wonder how offending close to half the nation's voting population passes as a good idea.

The moral? — The Biden Administration kicks itself off with a characteristic dose of . . .

. . . the Democratic Party's societal uselessness.

The Party of Fake Opposition rules.

PeteFree.com

Democrats, common sense and the Constitution — Trump's second impeachment conviction fiasco?