Here's the video:https://t.co/ffje5ZSOLE pic.twitter.com/2Ccfb0PNIi
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) January 20, 2020
Needless to say, Dersh has now determined that this logic only applied to Democrats in the office.
By the way, the attorney general also wrote that presidents who misuse their authority are subject to impeachment.
My left-field theory is that Dersh is working for Trump to prevent more coming out regarding him and their mutual buddy Jeffrey Epstein.
That sounds like more of a sensible, center-field theory to me, fwald. A left-field theory would be that Dershowitz actually believes that Trump is a fine man and a skillful president who has been unfairly smeared in the press and railroaded to impeachment. And also that Dershowitz never touched any of those young girls.
The Constitution also mentions bribery and treason as impeachable offenses. As has been mentioned before, ‘bribery’ around the time of the writing of the Constitution was a broader term that included abuse of power.
Most of the things you mentioned were included in what the term ‘misdemeanor’ meant at the time.
Finally, I realize this is just from one state, but I was reading through the brief history section of a World Book Encyclopedia I own and two governors of Oklahoma have been impeached within the last 100 years:
“In 1923, John S Walton became governor. He was impeached for abusing his powers. The state legislature removed him from office after only 9 months and 14 days. Among other things, Walton had used the National Guard to prevent a grand jury from meeting.”
“Henry S. Johnston became governor in 1927, but, he too, was impeached. After two years in office, Johnston was found guilty of incompetence and removed by the legislature.”
The convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used “high crimes and misdemeanors” as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.
http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.html
So when you get down to it, he should have been impeached and removed for giving Ivanka a senior position over many more deserving candidates. And, of course, for not spending money allocated by … er … Parliament.
(Light) kidding aside, I find the “no crime” argument disingenuous. If you look at the first article of impeachment, although “abuse of power” is not the NAME of a crime, it incorporates many crimes.
Plus, if you want crimes, Trump has committed those as well, but they were not as important as the major abuse of power. Michael Cohen is now in a freakin’ jail cell for a crime that he and Trump committed together!
And don’t forget — he’s come up before in Othercrap discussions — my personal hero, Rep. (former federal judge) Alcee Hastings, who was impeached for conduct that he had already been tried for, and for which a criminal jury had already decided he should be ACQUITTED of. And under principles of double jeopardy he can never be tried criminally again for accepting the bribes that he (without doubt) solicited and accepted. But he can surely be impeached and removed from the federal bench, as he was.
That’s as air-tight an example of someone being impeached — and convicted — without proof of an underlying crime you could possibly have.
I think the Dems are simply too embarrassed to mention the Hastings precedent because the ornery dude is STILL in Congress, on their side of the aisle, and is the second ranking member on the Rules Committee, that drafted the rule under which this entire Impeachment of Trump is being prosecuted.
Has anyone asked Dershowitz to reconcile his then-and-now statements on impeachment? I would think that kind of thing would be child’s play for a lawyer as highly regarded as he is, or as he used to be. Although perhaps, like Rudy Giuliani, he is no longer what he used to be.
Yes
Now, Dershowitz says he’s “far more correct” in his argument that abuse of power and obstruction of Congress do not amount to impeachable offenses, even if proven. “I’ve done the research now — I wasn’t wrong (in 1998) … I said you didn’t need a technical crime back then. I still don’t think you need a technical crime.”
I will have to remember that. “I was not wrong in the past, I am just MORE correct now.” But what do I do when people roll their eyes and walk away (or, worse yet, burst out laughing)? I will have to check to see what Dershowitz does about that.
Dershowitz is like Robin Hood. When young he hit the bull’s-eye, but slightly off center. Now he can place arrow after arrow so dead center that each arrow splits the previous one.
That reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s remark about Wernher von Braun (look him up, kids): “In his youth, he aimed for the stars, but often hit London instead.”
“If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, it will all have been worth the while.”
Did you know Lehrer is still alive? It seems impossible because he disappeared 50 years ago, but he’s still out there somewhere, probably poisoning pigeons in the park.