Here’s Why No President Will Be Impeached | مركز سمت للدراسات

Here’s Why No President Will Be Impeached

Date & time : Wednesday, 8 May 2019

Faisal Alshammeri

 

Whenever we discuss the current political climate in the US people, ask about the government shutdown or the presidential impeachment.

I ask them, how many President were impeachment. Their first answer president Nixon got impeached. Of course, It is a trick question president Nixon did not get impeached, much less convicted by the Senate although A congressional committee did report three articles of impeachment to the U.S.House Representatives in July 1974. Nevertheless, before any hearing or vote at the U.S. house floor, a delegation of Republican lawmakers, visited the White House to advise Nixon that both his impeachment by the House and his conviction by the Senate were an inescapable outcome.

In the white house meeting late in the afternoon of Aug. 7, 1974, the  Republican leadership told Nixon his only way out was to resign.  In a televised address to the American people, Nixon took their advice and resigned a political deal was mad. Bill Clinton 18 years later was impeached however he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate to finish his second term. To answer the question was a president ever impeached?  I mention these two presidents only to remind the reader how difficult to remove an incumbent president from office.

To learn why, we need to return to Nixon story, whose presidency stopped before he could be impeached, and Bill Clinton, who held power despite his impeachment by a hostile House.

On August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first president to resign. Though, Nixon spent two and half years battling the water gates scandal allegations ( The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal a break-in by five men at the (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in 1972, President Richard Nixon’s administration’s subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement). The three articles of impeachment recommended in the Senate were for three crimes: obstructing the investigation of the Watergate scandal; abusing his executive powers and illegal surveillance of his political enemies; and refusing to turn over evidence subpoenaed by Judiciary Committee.

Despite so, Nixon vowed to defend his administration in the Senate, where the Democrats  57 the Republican  43 ten seat difference. Not enough for two-thirds vote needed to remove Nixon from office. Nixon hopes to survive dealt an enormous blow a week before the Judiciary Committee vote when the Supreme Court required him to hand over the tapes made in the Oval Office. One of those tapes, which became public after the Judiciary Committee approved the third and final article of impeachment, exposed Nixon’s direct role in obstructing the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Which caused the downfall of any Republican support in the Senate was justly climactic. On Aug. 7, Goldwater told Nixon he could expect no more than 18 of the 43 GOP senators to support him. Two days later Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as Nixon’s successor.

Clinton impeachment is a different case with different lessons. Kenneth Starr was appointed to investigate Clinton real estate dealing two years after Clinton assumed the presidency. However, it was after Clinton’s re-election to another term that Starr started focusing on Clinton’s sexual relationship with young women interning at the White House, Monica Lewinsky. When the relationship went public in 1998, it would become scandalous under any circumstances. Starr had the evidence that President Clinton had lied about the relationship under oath while testifying in another sexual harassment claim. Lying under oath is impeachable, criminal and immoral. The public was doubtful of that case from the beginning. In midterm elections, the democratic party gained seats in the House, although Republicans retained a small majority.

Even though the republican had midterm losses, the House voted to impeach Clinton, approving two articles of impeachment on mostly party-line votes. The first article, claiming perjury. Passed 228-206; accused Clinton of obstructing of justice, went through by just only nine votes. By the time Clinton’s impeachment trial started, the Republicans held a 55-45 majority, public viewpoint had turned decisively against the incumbent’s removal. Not even 51 senators supported this article of impeachment.

Lessons from HISTORY

The resignation of President Nixon teach us the strength of bipartisan legislative, the survival of Clinton teach us how nonpartisan impeachment can come back to hunt the political party prosecutes it even if the public opinion agrees that the president actions were not moral. Even though the Democrats took over the house, they will be hesitant to try to impeach the president without having 67 senators votes to convict him. The Republicans still control the Senate 53 – 45 with 2 independent.

The tide could turn quickly if the Mueller investigation provided no evidence of Russian collusion or Obstruction of justice so Trump didn’t commit impeachable offenses which after two years of the special counsel work I do not think they have a smoking gun similar to the incriminating recording that prompted Republican to abandon Nixon in 1974.

However, if Trump’s support in the Senate decline as precipitously as Nixon’s did, the president will know before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer do.

A delegation of Republican senators will visit the White House, and Trump will understand, as Nixon did, the limited options facing a President who has run out of friends in his party.

Without a dramatic turn of events, it’s doubtful that the Senate would take Trump down even if the House were to impeach him. For Republican senators, Trump popularity among the party base will keep them with the president. Many Democratic senators, would relish the opportunity to use Trump’s record against him in the 2020 presidential race trying to take back the presidency.

Without the president’s party turning on him, which took down Nixon seems unlikely in the foreseeable future, removal from office by an article of impeachment will remain very tough battle to win.

 

*Writer and Political analyst

@Mr_alshammeri

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