RE: Why Bush Should Be Impeached, #84

>>>>> "jack" == Jack Bornstein <[email protected]> writes:

  jack> Ummm... you can't impeach a president for something he did long before
  jack> assuming office.  You might as well have impeached Clinton for smoking
  jack> pot in college.  -Jack

What makes you think that a president cannot be impeached for high crimes or
misdemeanors which occurred before the term of presidency?

I can't find anything in the Constitution which states or implies such a
view. The only thing I can imagine would matter is a Supreme Court decision or
injunction directly on point, and I'm not aware of any such.

U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 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.

That's just about the Constitution says about impeachment, save for the bit
about it being the House's sole responsibility. As we've seen, the House has
amazing latitude in pursuing impeachment. I take it that it's merely customary
and not obligatory that impeachment and trial proceedings take place under the
guise of common law and tradition.

And, more to the point than marijuana usage, I take it that all the special
prosecutor inquiry into Whitewater was intended to create a bill of impeachment,
had it amounted to anything at all.

But, fine, let's imagine a different case altogether; imagine a president is
elected, and the electorate only later discovers that the president had formed
an alliance with a foreign power, say Israel, but had not yet acted upon that
alliance. I don't know that treason is purely a crime of intent, i.e., I don't
think one is guilty of the crime of treason simply by virtue of forming the
intent to commit a treasonous act. Surely that president could be impeached and
convicted without having to have committed the treasonous act?

Or, even simpler, suppose that it were discovered that Bush, during his drunken
frat boy days, had committed vehicular manslaughter, which had been neatly
covered up by the local Texas political machine. Would that not constitute an
impeachable condition? Or, even more realistically, suppose it were determined
beyond doubt that Bush had only *pretended* to review requests for clemency and
other death warrant materials while he was governor of Texas? Suppose some
journal were discovered in which he bragged about being able to sign death
warrants and deny clemency in total, willful ignorance of the details of each
case? In other words, gross and substantive incompetence and dereliction of
official duties, which lead to the deaths of more than 150 people deprived of
due process?

Kendall