Home Trump Impeaching, Are We?  Get Pence First

Impeaching, Are We?  Get Pence First

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pense and venez
Juan Guaido “Acting president” of Venezuela speaking to US Vice President Pence at meeting in Bogota, Feb 25, 2019.  Photo Mauticio Duenas Castenada, EPA/EF

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

Donald Trump, age 72, has had the chance since January 21, 2017, to fix up the problem of lawlessness in the US government. That’s 857 days. He not only hasn’t fixed it up, he has made it worse. Should he be removed from office? Personally I am dissatisfied with his record, and hope he will be removed in the non-dramatic way, by the voters replacing him at the next election.

If his removal is urgently needed before then (he’s got 20 more months in office), there are three ways to do it. One is impeachment, another is to pressure him to resign, and another is to indict him for treason. Treason is the only crime for which the punishment includes a prohibition on office holding. Per federal law:

18 USC 2381  “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.” [Emphasis added]

If Trump leaves office by any of the three above methods, Vice President Pence will immediately become president. Then Pence would be allowed to appoint his own vice president (as Ford appointed Nelson Rockefeller in 1973). The US Constitution’s 25th amendment, ratified in 1967, says:

“Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the vice president, the President shall nominate a vice-president who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”

Why Impeach Pence?

Recall that I do not recommend impeaching Trump – I’d rather the nation pressured him to be a good president. But if there is a huge impetus to use the impeachment method of ousting Trump, I think we must ensure, beforehand, that there is a good person holding the office of Vice President.

I’ll come back later to the question of impeaching Pence. If you are old enough, you may recall that when Richard Nixon was president and Spiro Agnew was vice-president there was a bumper sticker “Get Agnew first.”

What the US Constitution Says about Impeachment

As a rule, I think the constitutional provision for impeachment is wonderful. It’s what gives Congress supremacy over the Executive, exactly as the Founding Fathers intended. Congress is the people, thus it gives the people supremacy.

Article I, sec 2 of the Constitution says: The House of Representatives shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3 says: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.  When sitting for that purpose they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.”

To give an example of the breakdown of each chamber’s authority: President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House – 228 representatives voted Yes on grounds of perjury to a grand jury and 221 on obstruction of justice. But when the Senate tried him they did not quite have the two-thirds vote needed to convict. (The same happened to Andrew Johnson in 1868.)

I hear you asking What’s the role of the judiciary in this? None. The presence of the Chief Justice is a way of lending dignity to the proceeding. He has no say in what the Senate does.  And the “accused” does not have any right of due process — impeachment does not require justice, it is political.

The Dems Want Trump Out

As I am a staunch Republican, and have twice run for Congress as a Republican, my friends may be surprised that I am not firmly opposing an impeachment of Trump. Some may think I should be “loyal.” I think party loyalty is a disaster. One should be loyal to one’s nation first.

Granted, the fuss being made about Trump is party-ish. It is run by the media and is carried out by the Democrat Party. It has mainly focused on “the Mueller probe” and has to do with “Russian collusion.” I think that whole business is nonsense. As a candidate in 2016 Donald Trump had the right to seek election advice from anyone, even from the devil himself.

Recently, however the focus has switched to impeaching Trump for the crime of obstruction of justice. Now you’re talkin’! Presidents shouldn’t be committing crimes. It is proper for the people to hold their leaders to the law.

Logically, however, the reaction to a president committing illegal acts should be to indict him, not impeach him.  (There’s also the soft option – pressure him to mend his ways; Americans may prefer this, but the press grabs most of the power of public opinion, both by steering it and by misreporting it.)

The DoJ – the Department of Jerks (and That’s Putting It Kindly)

I have read only today that the Department for Justice has ruled that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Excuse me.  Wait a minute. Did someone say the DoJ “ruled”?  Oh my. Bring back high school civics classes please. There is only one branch of the US federal government that can rule that this or that must be done.

It ain’t the executive. It ain’t the judiciary (though courts rule as to the disposition of a case that is before them). So it must be the legislature.

Article I, section 8 of the Constitution famously lists 18 grants of power that the Framers (who were delegates from the 13 states) gave to Congress. These have to do with money, army, interstate commerce, etc. But the 18th one says:

The Congress shall have Power… to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any Department or Officer thereof.

In other words, if the president wishes to make an executive order that makes something legal or illegal he has to get Congress to enact that law. As for the idea that a “Department of Justice” can rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted, the only word for that is “embarrassing.”

Nixon and Clinton Were Sitting Presidents

For the record, there have been two US Supreme Court decisions on the question of whether a sitting president is sitting pretty. In United States v Nixon (1974) the court ruled that President Richard Nixon could not rely on executive privilege to spare him from having to hand over the White House tapes. He then handed them over (to the DoJ of all people!)

In Jones v Clinton (1998), Paula Jones had sued the president for sexual harassment that occurred when he was governor of Arkansas. Clinton was now halfway through his second term. Could the matter of a private civil suit wait two more years?  especially as it would be a juicy case and harm America’s prestige abroad?  I think the answer should have been Yes but the Court voted No. So the Jones case proceeded.

In short, there is not the slightest constitutional basis to protect a president from lawsuit, and of course there could never, ever, ever be a protection of any person in the US from being accused of crime.

For that matter, if the DoJ really did make the claim that a sitting president cannot be indicted, the head of the DoJ ought to be charged with treason.

What Are the Responsibilities of a President?

Presidents have been treated as celebrities since the reign – and I do mean reign – of FDR. FDR, who was elected 4 times starting in 1932, gave fireside chats on radio. Starting with Kennedy’s presidency in 1961, TV has made a big thing of whoever occupies the White House. By the 21st century the public may have come to believe that a president is omnipotent. But, no, his job is narrowly prescribed.

The role of the executive is laid out in Article II of the Constitution. It says he can make treaties, and appoint officers, with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the senate. He is commander in chief of the armed forces. He can pardon persons convicted of federal crime. He is to give information to Congress about the state of the nation. Most importantly:

Sec 1: “Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—‗‗I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Section 3 shows us who is the enforcer of law: “He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

What One Can Impeach a President For

Article II, Sec. 4, says:

“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 word “misdemeanors” indicates that anyone wanting to get the president out of office can succeed on the flimsiest charge. (A misdemeanor is a crime for which the punishment doesn’t include prison time.) If you catch the president jaywalking, you’ve got him. – provided a simple majority in the House will vote to impeach him and 2/3rds of the Senate will vote to convict.

But jaywalking is done in personal life. I hope Congress would only ever get involved in impeaching a president for offenses committed in his official role.

My Articles of Impeachment of Trump

I will write later about impeaching President Trump, which, to repeat, I do not favor doing. For the moment I will cite two examples:

Article I of Impeachment. In April, 2017, Trump launched an attack on innocent civilians in Syria.

Did I hear you say “he can do that, as president”? No he cannot. He can strike an enemy if it is urgent for the defense of the US; otherwise the power to wage war belongs to Congress. (See my claim in Maxwell v Trump, that was improperly dismissed by the First Circuit Court in 2018.) Furthermore he committed a war crime by hitting civilians. United States federal law at 18 USC 2441 says:

“(a)Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

(c)As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct— (1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party.”

Article II of Impeachment [please remember it does not have to be a crime] In 2018, Trump scandalized the world and American citizens by saying he would not permit the entry into the US of persons from 7 Muslim countries, even if they already held a green card of US Immigration. (Do we know what is written on the Statue of Liberty? “Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me…” It doesn’t say “If I approve of your religion.”)

Article III of Impeachment of Trump

Donald Trump, as a candidate for president in 2016 said he would “Lock up Hillary Clinton for her crimes such as regarding the Clinton Foundation.  He then failed to indict her, scandalizing the whole world.

(I hear you saying, “Thank God, Mary shows her true Republican colors at last.” No! My complaint about  Hillary has nothing to do with her being a Democrat.)

I can think of plenty more articles of impeachment of Trump, but now to the matter at hand.

Impeachment of Pence

I know some people will say I am being unfair to Pence. Please, Folks, get a grip. The Constitution does not want us to be “fair” when contemplating impeachment. It wants us to assert the rule of the people over office-holders who step out of line. If Pence has broken the rules he wants to be kicked out. Nevertheless, I admittedly am only going for Pence in the sense of “Get Agnew first.” It is a political strategy. Are you with me?

Article I of Impeachment of Vice President Pence.  When asked by CNBC, “Is a military option on the table for Venezuela?” Pence replied “All options have been on the table for two years.”

Article II of Impeachment of Vice President Pence Pence. In the CNBC interview, Pence said (deceptively) that “We were the first to recognize Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela.”

Conclusion

Notice to US citizens. Are you ready for a new field of regime changes, a la Iraq and Libya, in which countless people died for no benefit to the US?  An impeachment of Pence would teach the current president and all future presidents that you do not subscribe to an American right to crush people all over the planet.

Get Pence first.

 

 

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29 COMMENTS

  1. What the ?. The President is doing everything that he can do against a corrupt evil variety of so-called U.S.Legal departments and Democrats at the same time as pretending that the U.S. is not
    utterly bankrupt. I am sure that I am not the only one who has been praying for the President for many years.Jim Willie admits that prior to this President the USA was fascist,don`t forget John Howard fell for it post 9|11.

  2. Garrick, “Jim Willie admits that prior to this President the USA was fascist.”

    Can you name some things that have actually changed? I am keen to learn.

    As for Trump doing everything he can do, do you think he can prosecute?

    And if I may ask, are you OK with the US invading Iraq in 2003?

    • Hi Mary
      Was and has been fascist.
      The situation is in a state of flux watch out for the Fisa decision.
      AG Bill Barr is tasked to drain the swamp.
      Was anybody OK with that ? Mr. Blair and others should pay for their stupidity.
      Weapons of Mass Destruction, hurrump !
      Now lets talk about the Supremes, fabulous music,my love of Blues and Jazz since a child transcends all things mortal.
      Best Wishes and Take Care
      Garrick

      • Garrick, why not upload a fave. Mary does it all the time and gets away with it. By the way, there is a terrific book called “Instrumental” by James Rhodes as to how music saved his brain. He was an abused child but then he heard Chopin….

    • Hi Mary, I can name a few things Trump has done, so far..
      TPP,-stopped a blatantly fascist corporate takeover
      Paris climate accord, -blew the climate changers out of the water
      Southern border wall construction -inhibiting illegal smuggling including drug, people,children.
      STOPPED HILARY BECOMING PRESIDENT!!!!! – definitely his(and the World’s) biggest win

      Read the rest for yourself:

      https://www.conservapedia.com/Donald_Trump_achievements

      Forget about impeachment. Never gonna happen..

        • And don’t forget Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, (ex Goldman Sachs) and Wilbur Ross, his Commerce Secretary- (ex N.M.Rothschilds)….his whole cabinet is/was stacked with potential Cabal members. Maybe he’s using them for their special talents, maybe he’s keeping “his enemies closer” or maybe he needs the good optics of arresting lost of Dems and Republicans at the same time, when the time comes, to avoid the charge of political bias. Your guess is as good as mine. Or maybe Trump IS Cabal after all. (I don’t believe so)

        • https://prepareforchange.net/2016/08/30/u-s-presidents-and-leaders-are-agents-of-the-roman-catholic-knights-of-malta/
          John Robert Bolton
          SMOM Knight of Malta
          American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
          Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
          Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
          Institute of East-West Dynamics
          National Rifle Association
          US Commission on International Religious Freedom
          Council for National Policy (CNP)
          Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG)
          Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
          Federalist Society
          National Policy Forum
          National Advisory Board
          Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
          New Atlantic Initiative
          Project on Transitional Democracies
          U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
          Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice
          Ambassador to United Nations
          2001 – Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security

    • Thanks, Dee. I had not known there was a “Space Force” in the making. Now I’ve gone to DefenseOne.com and found this:

      “Senior committee aides speaking to reporters on Thursday were short on details, but the move marks the first time a Senate panel has voted to support a separate service for space. In the same measure, senators also called for an overhaul of how the military buys satellites and launch services.

      “’I think we’ve got a really good path ahead for not only a U.S. Space Force, but space acquisition in the long term,” a senior committee aide said Thursday after the Senate panel finished its review of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.”

      Dee, do you see the phrase “senior committee aides”? That tells us who runs Congress. There are many committees in the house and the senate, and some are conjoined, but also running around Capitol Hill are many non-elected persons who steer legislation.

      I wonder who runs Pence. Did you see in that video that he looks truly depressed?

  5. Well they did not impeach the criminal cabal Bush family nor the Marxist Obama as the Congress is corrupted, bribed and blackmailed. I agree that Congress must act as in accordance with the U.S. Constitution but they are part of the problem as well. President Trump has surrounded himself with Zionists which is not a good sign at all for their US proxy wars for a ‘Greater Israel’. President Trump continues to be part of the military industrial complex war machine as did his predecessors and were untouched. So who is going to instigate proceedings of a U.S. President for war crimes and crimes against humanity? As most of us know the US is no longer a Republic but has morphed into a Fascist Empire which goes unchecked. It is a vast hybrid of organised or disorganised criminal syndicate that makes up the rules as it goes along and dismisses anything to do with proper government.

    It is not the working Republic as Congress is Supreme.
    https://channel411news.com/2019/01/14/congress-is-not-a-coequal-branch-of-government-its-supreme/

    There are three main reasons that Congress is supreme. First, Congress can get itself involved in the actions of the other branches. It can override presidential vetoes. It can deny appointments to the executive and judicial branches. It can impeach officers of the executive and judicial branches. It can set legislative and judicial pay. It also has wide discretion in determining the size and shape of the executive and judicial branches. Every executive department and indeed every officer except the president and vice president are creations of Congress. And Congress also has total authority to design the court system as it sees fit. While there are aspects of foreign affairs it cannot attend to, it can basically govern the domestic affairs of the country by itself. Indeed, it actually did this during the period 1867–69, when Radical Republicans in Congress acquired a veto-proof majority over President Andrew Johnson. The main domestic power that Congress cannot exercise by itself is amending the Constitution — for that, it needs the assent of the state legislatures.

    A true Republic not a democracy was the foundation of the United States The Presidents veto power has come into question by scholars in the past two decades.

    Bush junior said the “US Constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper” The 3 past presidents and Reagan have all paid homage to the pope in which the Latin Roman Catholic Church-State abhors and despises plus the separation of church-state. This evil satanic organisation has by stealth seeking civil powers once again to do her deadly deeds upon the world.

    Futhermore we tend to forget that the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a CORPORATION and the CEO is Trump as compared to the geographical location of the United States of America.

    U.S. Presidents pardon criminals
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_granted_clemency_by_the_President_of_the_United_States

    The Democrats are a Socialist-Communist political organisation with ties to ANTIFA. I would go after Obama and HRC first and all of their cohorts involved in sedition, treason, murder, blackmail, selling Uranium, the Libya invasion, espionage as traitors of the U.S Constitution. There is no comparison of their evil deeds compared to President Trump.

    • +1

      ” President Trump has surrounded himself with Zionists which is not a good sign at all for their US proxy wars for a ‘Greater Israel’.”
      Trump has depended on votes from the evangelical class who also believe in a Zionist Israel. Many christians are happy the jews are trying to speed the arrival of the Mosiach (‘The Messiah’ I think I spelled that wrong) and of course the christians are happy because this also signifies the arrival of the antichrist.

      The democrats tend to believe the constitution is a ‘living, breathing document’ their code for saying it is flexible in its intent or language.

  6. The US Vice President’s(handlers) are so interesting. A lot have to step up and do the main job themselves because of such poor candidates.
    Slogan bumpersticker : Put the Veep in a Jeep

  7. In an ideal world , we are all equal free and all our
    votes are accountable . If you believe that , you
    probably think that man walked on the moon .
    This election was theatrical and that’s all it was .
    In my suburban electorate there was a plain clothed
    ccp official standing next to the boxes as we put our
    votes in !
    The order is a one world global government .
    The moneymen turned China into the powerhouse it is today . Problem is that party members are the only ones that benefit . Same old 10% equation , east west north south , that is the formula for total control . They have all the money guns and hardware . We , the 90% outsiders , are all suspect terrorists simply by typing our thoughts on the internet keyboards . Thought has become a crime !
    They create opposing forces to profit from war and to remain hidden .
    Get away from their influence , go for a walk on the beach or the wilderness of nature and enjoy His paradise here on earth . Love is in every living thing.
    Evol is in all machinations .

  8. 56
    Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world as we have all found out in different ways throughout our lives. Those who are Christians have a much better world to come. That is the hope of all Christians and all of these horrible things must come to pass.

    This may change your mind
    Nvidia Debunks Conspiracy Theories About Moon Landing

  9. Mary There was a day we all played by the rules, Maybe back when, what you mention should could or would happen but not today. Washington is a swamp and the swamp is filled with alligators. Nothing short of the second coming of Christ can fix our problems.

  10. A kith and kin soul mate told me today he needed to sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic before he could face the day–it stirred him to action-he said it worked.
    I then got inspired and listened to a few versions and read up on the history.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/11/the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic-americas-song-of-itself/66070/

    “On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to speak in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. “I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,” King announced. “And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.” And then he closed in his lyrical voice: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” The next day he lay dying on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel, struck in the cheek by an assassin’s bullet.”

    “The “Battle Hymn” has inspired generations of activists. Women’s rights campaigners adopted their own version in 1890: “Battle Hymn of the Suffragists” which went: “They come from every nation, women fair and strong and brave.” Union organizers embraced the tune in 1915 under the title “Solidarity Forever.” Some of the original lyrics are so radical they’re often edited out. “ s there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,/ Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?”

  11. United [in song] we stand. The power of song.

    DRUNK BEGGAR ENTERS A CHURCH AND ASK TO SING (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

  12. Here ya’s go, Diane:
    .
    I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
    They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
    I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
    His day is marching on.

  13. Your comment below Mary:

    “Trump scandalized the world and American citizens by saying he would not permit the entry into the US of persons from 7 Muslim countries, even if they already held a green card of US Immigration. (Do we know what is written on the Statue of Liberty? “Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me…” It doesn’t say “If I approve of your religion.”)”

    It’s a well known fact that a large majority of those ‘persons’ left their homes for the US or wherever they decided to go. A lot of them lived in luxury, they weren’t homeless in other words!

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