Posted on 05/27/2018 5:32:35 AM PDT by Kaslin
Of course you can’t impeach an ex-officeholder.
How would that be a punishment?
Impeachment is limited to removal from office (alas, no Charles I scenarios allowed ;)).
But removal is pointless if the target is already out of office.
It would not be mistake. We need transparency now. The republic is in danger. Screw it. Get him.
Where does the Constitution discuss pensions?
One benefit of impeachment the Constitution does specify, however, is disqualification of a federal officer removed via impeachment from ever serving as a federal officer again.
That doesn't address pension rights, but would prevent the Muslim Traitor's appointment to federal office in the future, Senate or no Senate.
Zero holding a day job ever again doesn't seem likely, but the above fact is worth keeping in mind.
I’ve been debating one of my best friends on the subject of “late impeachment” (sometimes in print media, but usually privately) for around 20 years now. There is a theory that late impeachment is possible (because it isn’t altogether pointless due to the disqualification that you mentioned), and the Senate once voted on an impeachment when the officer resigned after being impeached by the House but right before the Senate trial (it was in the 1870s, and the officer was acquitted), but I think that the theiry does not hold water.
Impeachment is not about meting out punishment for crimes committed while in office, and does not even purport to punish (the Constitution refers to judgment in cases of impeachment in contradistinction to the possibility of judgment *and punishment* under criminal law); impeachment is about protecting the people from an unfit Officer of the United States (so one could impeach someone for crimes committed prior to such oerson taking office). True, an unfit person could become an officer again in the future, but that’s also true for an unfit person who never has served as an officer before. So impeaching ex-President Obama because he could become a SCOTUS Justice or Ambassador to the UN in the future (BTW, even if Obama was impeached and convicted he still could serve as a U.S. Senator or Representative, because those aren’t “Offices of the United States”) is as silly as preemptively impeaching, say, Casey Anthony just in case some president appoints her as U.S. Ambassador to East Timor someday. Besides, the Constitution says that the President, VP and other Officers of the United States are subject to impeachment; it says nothing about ex-presidents, and nowhere else in the constitution does the term “president” include ex-presidents as well (an ex-president can’t issue pardons or veto laws).
And even if one buys the argument that late impeachment is constitutional (or one doesn’t care that it’s unconstitutional), it would be futile for Republicans to try to impeach Obama. I doubt that they’d be able to muster 218 votes for impeachment in the House (many Republicans would see the whole exercise for the publicity ploy that it is, and ithers would be unwilling to risk their seats by wasting time on such inanity instead of dealing with real issues), and I’m certain that they wouldn’t come close to the 67 Senate votes needed for conviction (there only are 51 Republicans in the Senate). This is a terrible idea.
The time to impeach Barack Obama was when he was President. It’s too late now. If we want to keep Obama off the Supreme Court, we need to make sure that we (i) vote for the GOP presidential nominee so as to keep the Democrat from getting elected president and (ii) vote for GOP Senate nominees in order to build a large Republican majority in the Senate. If we do that, Obama won’t serve as an Officer of the United States ever again.
Once again, impeachment/guilt removes eligibility for further public office and halts benefits a federal officer might otherwise be entitled to.
Impeachment can be applied where the statute of limitations otherwise prevents prosecution.
Impeachment is insurance that the next president will not pardon and then put some disgraced federal officer on the Supreme Court. Impeachment is the final say.
100% correct. It was a way for the Founders to address criminality in an office that was supposed to be immune from local law enforcement.
It has never happened that a FORMER official has been impeached. Walter Nixon refused to resign after being charged and convicted, and was impeached and removed.
In 1876, William Belknap resigned a few fours before the House was going to vote to impeach him, and the Representatives went ahead with the (unanimous) impeachment vote under the rationale that otherwise officers could avoid certain impeachment nereky by resigning at the last minute. A majority of Senators ruled that the Senate had jurisdiction to try his impeachment case, but the 23 Senators who had voted (correctly, in my estimation) that the impeachment trial couldn’t be held because Belknap already had resigned voted to acquit for lack of jurisdiction (despite stating that they agreed that he was guilty), and Belknap was acquitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_W._Belknap
A pipe dream if I ever saw one.
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