The Beauty of Impeachment

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

The year was 1991. “Desert Shield” was about to turn into “Desert Storm.” A Texas member of the House of Representatives, Henry B Gonzalez, rose to offer five Articles of Impeachment against the 41st president of the United States, the senior George Bush.

Congressional Record, Jan. 16, 1991, at H520-21.

Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness, and yet with equally great, if not greater, conviction, that I introduce today a resolution of impeachment of President Bush….

At a time when our Nation is deeply divided over the question of war, we find ourselves on the brink of a world war of such magnitude that our minds cannot fully comprehend the destruction that is about to be leveled. … The Iraqi people are as opposed to war as are the American people. The difference is that the Iraqi people have no choice but to support their country’s leader, but the American people not only have the right to oppose and speak out in disagreement with the President, but they have the responsibility to do so ….

When I took the oath of office earlier this month, as I had numerous times before, I swore to uphold the Constitution…. We did not pledge an oath of allegiance to the President but to the Constitution. The Constitution provides for removal of the President when he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, including violations of the principles of the Constitution. President Bush has violated these principles.

My resolution has five articles of impeachment.

First, the President has violated the equal protection clause …. Under the Constitution, all classes of citizens are guaranteed equal protection, and calling on the poor and the minorities to fight a war for oil to preserve the lifestyles of the wealthy is a denial of the rights of these soldiers.

Article II of this resolution states that the President has violated the Constitution, Federal law, and the U.N. Charter by bribing, intimidating, and threatening others…. It is clear that the President paid off members of the U.N. Security Council in return for their votes in support of war against Iraq or to abstain from voting contrariwise.

The debt of Egypt was, for example, forgiven — $7 billion, without congressional approval. That, I think, casts doubtful validity on that Presidential action. The reason for the cancellation of that debt is so that we can then provide an equally enormous amount of armament for Egypt….

The Soviet Union was promised over $7 billion in aid. This is a sum totally unreported in our country but very well discussed in foreign country presses such as Germany and others. Colombia was promised assistance to its armed forces. Zaire was promised military assistance and partial forgiveness of its debt. …Yemen was threatened with the termination of support, and the United States finally paid off $187 million of its debt to the United Nations after the vote President Bush sought was made.

This is all so ironic. When our President ran for the U.S. Senate in the 1960’s, he told the people of Texas that if he would be elected to the Senate, he would lead the fight to remove the United States from the United Nations if what he called Red China at that time was admitted. Fate and power almighty have a very, very mysterious way of working together.

The vote was bought, and it will be paid for with the lives of our poor elements who are going to shoulder the fight.

Article III states that the President has conspired to engage in a massive war against Iraq, employing methods of mass destruction that will result in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom will be children….

Article IV states that the President has committed the United States to acts of war without congressional consent…. From August 1990 through January 1991 the President embarked on a course of action that systematically eliminated every option for peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis. Once the President approached Congress for a declaration of war, 500,000 American soldiers lives were in jeopardy, rendering any substantive debate by Congress meaningless. …

Article 5 states that the President has conspired to commit crimes against the peace by leading the United States into aggressive war against Iraq….

Again, there is a violation of law by a President, who, believing and acting as if he is king, decides for the country, unilaterally, that war is the answer. …

Madam Speaker, I urge interest and support of this resolution, and to stand up to the President on behalf of the soldiers who will die, the civilians who will be massacred, and the Constitution that will be destroyed if this country goes to war in the Middle East.

Fast Forward 29 Years (shy of one month)

Today, December 13, 2019, the House Judiciary Committee voted, 23-17, to approve two articles of impeachment of President Donald J Trump — one for abuse of power in regard to Ukraine, and one for obstruction of Congress.

No doubt many people are relieved that the matter will be put to a floor vote next week on December 18.  It is predicted that the vote will be Yes, and so the matter will move to the Senate, after the Christmas break.

I’d like to offer my thoughts here. Since the story first broke a few months ago, I held off on trying to figure out if the president deserved impeachment as the Articles were not yet formulated.

It seemed as if all spokespersons were saying was that either Trump is bad or Trump is a victim of political chicanery. Members of Trump’s party could be counted on to say the latter.  Members of the opposing party were all saying the former.

That in itself is ridiculous. We should not, in the 243rd year of our republic, be acting like children.  The media coverage of all this is so insulting to intelligence that it gives people the feeling there is no way to reason.  Yes, of course, there is. way to reason.

In today’s news, I heard the president himself add to this by saying “The impeachment is a witch-hunt, it is a scam, it is a hoax.”  I disagree. Bringing charges against an office holder (all officers in the United States government are impeachable) is a proper thing to do. The president should say so. It would be great if he would thus awaken the citizenry to the fact that we have an excellent source for calling a president to account.

Donald Trump, with his particular style of bombast, has frequently claimed that he is accountable to no one (even for a crime such as murder if it came to that!)

His recent predecessors also purveyed such ideas. One of them, George W Bush, had a “legal counselor,” John Yoo, who claimed a president has various “plenary powers” that any constitutional scholar would laugh at.

Who Be the King?

I am a devoted Republican. I love impeachment. I love everything in the Constitution of the US, which I consider to be a miracle.

There are three branches of government. If all the members thereof would carry out their job honestly, the first branch, Congress, would be the leader.  That is because  Congress is the people, and the people are “king.”

(To be exact, I should say the House of Reps is the people.  Per the 1787 Constitution, the Senate was not under the command of the people but sort of under the command of the states; this changed in 1913 when the 17th Amendment made senators directly elected by the citizens.)

As I said, Congress, ideally, is the leader, but it is human nature for people to want to see an individual as leader. By the time the 20th century rolled around and the US president was seen on the world stage (for instance, Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919), the notion of a president being the leader of the nation got ever stronger. He is a big, visual symbol.

No doubt around 1919 the president also became more beholden to forces other than his people. I am happy that the so-called Ukraine affair will soon be illuminated. We should know what our leader is doing as he is doing it in our name. We seldom do know, as secrecy has — like those “plenary powers” — become self-affirming.

I say we should not be diffident, thinking that the role of president is too big or complicated for us to understand. Nor should we think international affairs off limits to the layperson. This week a report about US policy  Afghanistan came out. It is shocking proof that we should keep tabs on the White House, and its offspring the Pentagon.

Dellums et al  v Bush

In 1990, the year of Desert Shield, I happened to be living in the United Arab Emirates and was furious that my country was about to drop bombs on my neighbors in the Persian Gulf. As Gonzalez said in his Articles of Impeachment, above,  the president had announced his intention to go to war without seeking Congress’s permission. (It had to do with Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait.)

This flagrantly defied Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution. One Congressman, Rep Dellums of California, got on his high horse — as indeed he should have — and recruited 52 colleagues to file the war-powers case Dellums et al v Bush, in the federal District Court of Washington DC.

The judge, the late Harold H Greene (1923-2000), denied the plaintiff’s claim on December 13, 1990. Judge Greene gave two reasons, on the theory that the matter was not yet “ripe.”

First, he noted that Congress had not yet said it would vote No to the war. Second, he said there were other options under consideration (diplomacy between Iraq Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz and US Secretary of State James Baker.)

Needless to say, I abhor that disposition of the case (and I think it was political, not judicial).  Still, Judge Greene’s stating that Congress — other than the 53 litigants — was noncommittal is correct. The duty lay on Congress, not the third branch, the judiciary, to act against a president who threatened to violate the parchment.

As soon as Bush said, in November 1990, that he was going to deploy troops, Congressional leader should have said (as Gonzalez said two months later) “Oh no you don’t, Buddy Boy. If you proceed we will impeach you.”

Surely that is why the Framers inserted impeachment into the Constitution. Let’s not feel constrained by the wording “for treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors” (Article II, section 4).  The more general point is that a president can’t get away with bad behavior, or it would lead to more of same and soon we would have unchecked tyranny –AS WE DO TODAY.

Tickler

The current “Ukraine issue” is that Trump possibly used foreign aid as a carrot for a Ukrainian president to hand over some dirt about the son of Biden who is competing with Trump for the presidency in 2020. If Trump did do that, impeachment would be proper (though not necessary; Congress is not bound to seek that remedy).

Regarding Bush’s threat to bomb Iraq in 1990, I noted that the “No you don’t, Buddy Boy” approach would suffice. But if an act has already been undertaken, the Buddy Boy threat is not available.

The way the media has run the case, the focus of interest was whether The Dems would get The Repubs. Yes I blame the media for a lot, but I blame Congress and its puerile members for buying into the theme that it’s “us against them.”  No, sorry, it’s the legislature against the executive. Give James Madison a call and ask him.

Congress needs to be punished, and Americans will have a chance to wield “Tickler” on November 3, 2020. There is no impeaching of congresspersons and no “recall.” You have to wait till his seat is vacant, every two years, and replace him then. (You could, I suppose, pressure him to resign. And of course he can be indicted and prosecuted if he committed a crime.)

The one other method for removing a bad member is for the other members to kick him out per Article I, section 5: “Each House may, with the Concurrence of two-thirds of the members , expel a member.” But they never do it. Too nervous, I guess.

The parchment also gives Congress control over members of the US Supreme Court who “hold their Offices during good Behavior” Article III, section 1. Otherwise, they should be impeached, though they never are (Abe Fortas resigned under threat of impeachment in 1969). That is a pity as a bad judge is hell for us all.

So just to clarify the punishment options: a president who acts ultra vires deserves Tickler 1 (impeachment); a lazy member of Congress deserves Tickler 2 (dumping at the voting booth); and bad judges deserve Tickler 3 (deportation — oops sorry, impeachment).

Tonight (December 13, 2019) Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that Republican senators “have pledged total cooperation with the White House” to make sure an impeached Trump does not get convicted by the Senate.

I hope any American reader of this will readily recognize that it is not OK for party members to say they will do such-and-such on the basis of party membership. And it is wrong to brandish an alliance of the senate with the executive branch of government.

If McConnell were a constitution lover — which, alas, he is not — he would say “OK, Everybody. if the House sends us a dishonest set of Articles of Impeachment, we can deal with that by using the protocols of the trial.  Calm down, Folks, all is well with our nation’s soul.”

Fact is, the Framers knew what they were doing. They got it right in 1787 and it is still absolutely workable. The Constitution is a system of checks and balances; it is suspicious of power. It is the duty of all five parties in the Constitution — the states, the people, and the three branches of the federal government — to keep the system in good order.

Will the Senate vote to convict Trump? A two-thirds vote s needed.  When President William Clinton was impeached in 1998, he missed senate conviction by one vote. It is predicted that Trump will sail through.

On the Ukraine issue (Article 1),  the evidence is not yet on the table.  On the obstruction of Congress issue (Article 2),  the evidence is glaring — Trump boasts of his right not to give certain information to “the king.”

Since that behavior is ongoing, an “Oh no you don’t Buddy Boy” approach may suffice, rather than a punitive impeachment.  Anyway, in the scheme of the Constitution, it is Congress that should be blamed, not the president, for presidential bombast!

Your reps and senators should have made a huge stink. Note: they can show contrition now by dealing with John Yoo’s “approval” of president Bush’s war crimes. Oh, didn’t you know? In 1996 Congress passed the War Crimes Act. If the DoJ fails to enforce that act, the Attorney General can be impeached by the House of Reps.  And you, as a party to the Constitution, have a duty to see to that.

Impeachment is a marvelous, marvelous thing.

A Salute to Henry Gonzalez

A final word: Think how happier the world would be today if Henry Gonzalez’s Articles of Impeachment had been taken up. (I assume that the House Judiciary Committee of the time declined to “report it out.”) Here are those five articles again:

Article I — the President has violated the equal protection clause … calling on the poor and the minorities to fight a war for oil….

Article II — the President has violated the Constitution, Federal law, and the UN Charter by bribing, intimidating, and threatening others…. in return for their votes in support of war against Iraq.  The vote [in the UN Security Council] was bought.

Article III — the President has conspired to engage in a massive war against Iraq, employing methods of mass destruction that will result in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom will be children….

Article IV — the President has committed the United States to acts of war without congressional consent. Once the President approached Congress for a declaration of war, 500,000 American soldiers lives were in jeopardy, rendering any substantive debate by Congress meaningless. …

Article V — the President has conspired to commit crimes against the peace by leading the United States into aggressive war against Iraq….

102nd Congress H.Res.86    1st Session. Signed, Henry B. Gonzalez____

Impeachment is beautiful. Let the king rule!  That’s 308 million kings, according to the last census. What a blast!

How about a  song to put us into a celebratory mood: