Dubious Honor
Thursday the United States House of Representatives formalized the impeachment investigation into the President of the United States. In the two hundred thirty one year Constitutional history of the nation, this is only the fourth time.
The reasons for impeaching and removing the President are defined in the Constitution: treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. The definition of treason and bribery are clear. It is what defines “high crimes and misdemeanors” that makes it difficult for Congress.
President Donald Trump now joins an ominous list. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and William Clinton: all Presidents who have faced the ultimate rebuke by Congress.
Lincoln’s Decision
Andrew Johnson became Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President in 1864, as part of the “National Union” Party. Lincoln’s Republicans were worried that they would lose the Presidential election in 1864. The war in Virginia was bloody and discouraging, and the public grew weary of long casualty lists in the newspapers. A war “hero,” General George McClellan, was on the Democratic ticket.
To gain re-election, Lincoln replaced his Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin a Republican from Maine, with a Democrat. Andrew Johnson was the military governor of Tennessee, a Democrat from the South who remained loyal to the Union.
When Lee surrendered his Confederate Army in Virginia to Grant, the nation was overjoyed. The War was soon over. But only a week later that joy dissolved when John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln’s death left the Republican Party in a true dilemma; the new President, their new President, was a Southern Democrat.
A Political Impeachment
Over the next three years, the Republican Congress constantly clashed with Johnson over how to reunite the nation, and reconstruct the South. Johnson vetoed twenty-nine bills passed by Congress, and they over-rode his veto a record fifteen times. Congress tried to restrict Johnson’s ability to determine his cabinet secretaries. They passed (over his veto) a law requiring Senate approval to remove Cabinet members, the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson refused to obey the law, and fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton anyway. His replacement was General Grant, though Grant quickly resigned from the post.
Firing Stanton was the “last straw,” and the House impeached Johnson. The charges included violating the Tenure of Office Act, but also conduct “unbecoming” of a President. Republicans had an overwhelming majority in the Senate, holding 45 seats out of 54. Nine Republicans refused to vote against Johnson, and allied themselves with the nine Democrats.
Conviction and removal required two-thirds of the Senate, or 36 votes. The President’s fate came down to one Republican, Edmund Ross of Kansas, who ultimately decided to vote in his favor. That left Johnson as President by one-vote.
The Supreme Court later ruled the Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional, and Johnson’s impeachment came to be viewed as a “political” action, rather than fitting the Constitutional mandate of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Impeachment was put aside for over a century.
High Crimes
It was President Richard Nixon’s acts that brought the impeachment power back into use. When all was revealed, it was found that he ordered his staff to commit crimes to further his political campaigns, then used the power of the Presidency to cover them up.
It was the “cover-up;” when the President used his powers and agencies including the FBI, IRS and CIA, to hide crimes and intimidate opponents, that led Congress to begin impeachment investigations. During hearings, it was revealed that the President not only knew about the crimes and cover-up, but also was the center of the conspiracy. Nixon directed the cover-up, suggested sources for payoffs, and was fully involved.
When audiotapes of Nixon participating in the conspiracy were released, the House Judiciary Committee voted out impeachment articles. Before the articles went to the full House for vote, the Republican leadership of both the House and Senate went to speak to Nixon. They presented him with a stark choice: be the first President to resign from office, or the first President to be impeached, convicted and removed from office. He chose to resign.
Moral Outrage
It was only twenty-four years later that the House of Representatives brought the impeachment power back out again, this time to punish the immorality of President William Clinton. Clinton took sexual advantage of a twenty-one year old White House intern, having relations with her in the Oval Office and halls of the West Wing.
When that information came out (a result of a different investigation into possible illegal land speculation) Clinton originally lied about it, both to the American people and in a sworn video deposition to a Grand Jury. His argument that “oral sex” wasn’t sex (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky”) wasn’t reasonable or convincing.
Clinton was impeached for lying to the Grand Jury in the video deposition. He also obstructed justice by encouraging Lewinsky and others to lie about the affair as well.
The ultimate argument in the Senate wasn’t about the fact of Clinton’s actions. The question was whether his actions constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors” as defined in the Constitution. He had an affair, and he lied about it. He committed perjury in a Grand Jury investigation of his sex life. The issue for the Senate was defining a “high” crime, one that required the President be removed from office.
It was a clear vote: 45 for removal to 55 against on the first article, and 50 – 50 on the second article, with 67 required to convict. The Senate determined that Clinton had NOT committed a removable offense. It did not exonerate him, but acknowledged that the charges did not rise to the level required by the Constitution.
Today
The House of Representatives is developing evidence of President Trump using the power of his office to extort campaign aid from a foreign country. He held military aid back to try to force Ukraine to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden.
It’s true that the Democratic House is at political odds with the President, much like the Congress of 1868 was at odds with Andrew Johnson. And, while President Trump has committed the same kinds of moral “outrages” that Bill Clinton did, those actions aren’t even mentioned in the current impeachment talk.
This is the question that the House and ultimately the Senate will need to answer. Did the President’s actions constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” important enough to remove him from office, like Nixon, or is this just a political vendetta, like Johnson. While there will be political messaging from all sides, the final analysis will be left to the one hundred individual Senators.
