[OldDeckHand]

I know most won't, but there may be someone who actually cares what the law says, so...

There are two kinds of contempt, civil and criminal. Generally, civil suits don't result in criminal contempt charges (unless you perhaps directly threaten an officer of the court, like the judge) - yes, it's a charge, and just like any charge, the accused has rights under the principles of due process, and that means a jury trial if they so desire.

The much more common civil contempt (which is what the judge ordered for the Obama administration) is not a crime - neither a high crime, nor a misdemeanor. Ergo, impeachment is not a possibility. Sorry.

[Diogenesis]

Well, FRiend, the Impeachment can have more than one Count.

Article III, Section 3, Paragraph 1, of the Constitution of the United States:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them,
or, in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

The "aid and comfort" prong of treason has been interpreted
by SCOTUS as requiring proof of four elements:
1. an intent to betray the United States (which can be inferred from);
2. an overt act;
3. witnessed by two people; and
4. that provides aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States.

---

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to be feared."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

[rolling_stone]

You might want to check he US criminal codes before making such an all reaching statement. Civil and criminal actions can overlap. Time to mop the deck.

defrauding the US:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00923.htm

purloins public money

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000641——000-.html

[melancholy]

The much more common civil contempt (which is what the judge ordered for the Obama administration) is not a crime

So, if it's not a crime, why shouldn't everybody disregard court rulings?

[Darren McCarty]

I think a lot of people get their law from My Cousin Vinny.

I didn't do federal practice, but I assume without reading the case that either the other party likely has to enforce the ruling, and/or this order is erased when Obama's administration backs off. Worst that happens, the executive branch as a whole gets a fine.

Even beyond that, I don't see a case of personal liability, only the administration as a whole.

Obama sucks, but this isn't impeachment worthy.

[The Pack Knight]

While of course highly unlikely and politically foolish, I am actually not at all certain that impeachment for civil contempt would necessarily be unconstitutional. It is not at all clear that the language "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" necessarily limits Congress's impeachment power only to criminal cases.

First off, a number of scholarly authorities, including Story's Commentaries and Alexander Simpson's Treatise of Federal Impeachments, hold that the language comprehends crimes other than "crimes of a strictly legal character" [Story § 762], or, stated differently, "that the word 'misdemeanors' cannot properly be limited to criminal misdemeanors" [Simpson p. 32].

That proposition has a great deal of historical support, both in England and in early American impeachments under the Constitution. The impeachment provisions in the Constitution are heavily derived from the English practice, where the very phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" was used in impeachment proceedings in Parliament dating back to the 14th century. In many of those cases, the impeached official was convicted on charges that were not criminally indictable, and Simpson at least could find no instance where a respondent was acquitted because the impeachment charges were not indictable offenses. This practice continued in the United States under the Constitution: of the first two proper impeachments, those of John Pickering and Samuel Chase, neither impeachment included charges of criminal offenses. Chase was acquitted, but Pickering was convicted and removed from the federal bench.

There is a counter-argument, of course. Earlier drafts of the Impeachment Clauses listed as impeachable offenses "Treason, Bribery, or Maladministration" - "maladministration" appeared in the impeachment provisions of a number of state constitutions at the time. Madison objected to the term "maladministration" because "So vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate." Gouverneur Morris added "An election of every four years will prevent maladministration." George Mason, who had originally proposed the addition of "maladministration", withdrew that proposal and substituted "other high crimes and misdemeanors".

The point, though, is that it is at least arguable that the Constitution does not require that impeachment be predicated on an indictable criminal offense and that there is both English and American precedent of impeachments on "high crimes and misdemeanors" that were not actually criminally sanctionable conduct resulting in conviction and removal from office.

On a more practical level, the "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" language may not be a real check on Congress's impeachment power at all in light of Nixon v. United States. If the issue of whether the respondent was properly "tried" by the Senate is not justiciable under the political question doctrine, it seems very possible, if not likely, that the issue of whether the conduct charged in the impeachment is a "high crime or misdemeanor" is also not subject to judicial review. Many of the same concerns which led to the application of the political question doctrine in Nixon would apply in a hypothetical case of Obama's impeachment and removal for civil contempt. Also, there is a strong argument to be made in light of Nixon that the Constitution's grant to the Senate of the "sole Power to try all Impeachments" includes the sole power to adjudicate the legal sufficiency of the impeachment charges.