Abuse of the Impeachment Process

by Peter J. Thomas

We know that the men who wrote the Constitution did a fine job because it has lasted, without fundamental change, for more than two centuries.  We are now seeing the wisdom of the way they framed the impeachment process, but also how it is still subject to abuse.
The delegates understood human nature, and they knew that there would be attempts to misuse impeachment for partisan purposes.  Indeed, some thought the danger of abuse to be so great that impeachment should not even be allowed.  James Madison’s published Notes tell us that on July 20 Charles Pinkney warned that impeachment would be “a rod over the Executive” that would “destroy his independence”.  Rufus King agreed, fearing that it would undermine the separation of powers, while Gouverneur Morris insisted that Constitution must not “make him [the president] dependent on the Legislature.”
Four days later, Morris again spoke up, reminding the delegates that in the government there would always be “two parties.  The Executive will necessarily be more connected with one than with the other.  There will be a personal interest therefore in one of the parties to oppose him . . . .  Some leader of [the opposition] party will always covet his seat, will perplex his administration, will cabal with the Legislature, till he succeeds in supplanting him.”
Requiring a two-thirds vote by the Senate to convict an impeached president serves as a formidable obstacle to the success of such a “supplanting”.  However, it does not prevent partisan use of impeachment to “perplex” and “cabal”.  Impeachment was intended to be a procedure by which a man who was clearly guilty of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” could be removed from office.  It was never intended as a means of harassing a president and handicapping his administration.
Given the tenuous nature of the “evidence” used to claim that the President improperly asked a foreign government to help his campaign, it is curious that the impeachers have shown no interest in the fact that several Democratic presidents are known, without any doubt whatsoever, to have obtained such assistance from Soviet and Russian leaders.
At the Tehran conference, the notes taken by State Department official Chester Bowles recount how President Franklin Roosevelt explained to Stalin that he wanted to postpone agreeing to Stalin’s plan for a Communist-controlled postwar Poland, because “we had an election in 1944. . . .  [T]here were in the United States from six to seven million Americans of Polish extraction, and as a practical man, he did not wish to lose their vote.  He said he personally agreed with the views of Marshall Stalin . . . .”  Stalin agreed to put off the formal US surrender of Polish interests so that FDR would not lose Polish votes.
When John Kennedy agreed to pull US missiles out of Turkey in return for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, he insisted that the Soviets keep the US part of the deal secret.  Robert Kennedy himself warned Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin that “if you publish any document indicating a deal then it is off.”  Kennedy wanted the appearance of a great victory, not a simple trade, so as to help Democrats in the 1962 and 1964 elections.
It is easily remembered that Barack Obama was caught speaking on what he did not realize was a live mike, asking Russian President Medvedev to wait until after the 2012 election to demand US concessions on missile defense.  If Medvedev would only help by keeping quiet, Obama was willing to cut back on American defense after the election.
   If the mere possibility that President Trump asked a foreign leader for campaign help has caused such an uproar, shouldn’t these firmly documented events from the past require stern action?
Will the impeachers demand that the FDR Memorial be torn down?
Will they form a bucket brigade so that Nancy Pelosi can extinguish the Eternal Flame at Kennedy’s grave?
Will they tell Barack Obama that he is not welcome at the 2020 Convention?
Surely, if they are dealing in good faith and not partisan hypocrisy, some such action must be forthcoming soon.
We shall wait and see.

Peter J. Thomas, President of The Conservative Caucus Foundation, served in the Reagan and both Bush administrations, reaching the position of Acting Assistant Secretary for Administration in the Department of Agriculture under George W. Bush.