What it takes to impeach a President & why we're not remotely close to impeaching President Trump. [UPDATED 08/21/18*: It's getting close.] [UPDATED 02/27/19**: We're there.]

UPDATED: 02/27/2019**

 Graphic Updated after Michael Cohen Hearing 2/27/2019* 

To Impeach or Not to Impeach...
Conventional wisdom informs us that impeachment proceedings against a sitting President will not happen while the legislative branch is in control of the same party as the President. History bears this out, as impeachment actions against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were all initiated when the House of Representatives was controlled by the opposition party. But with President Trump, history and conventional wisdom may be steering us in the wrong direction, as many establishment Republicans would far prefer Mike Pence as President. Regardless, it is certainly true that divided government would make impeachment easier and the 2018 midterm election looms large.

The unfolding James Comey testimony, and in particular his opening statement published a day earlier, has precipitated predictably contradictory analysis of whether the threshold for impeachment has been crossed or not.

That is the Question
For those of us of a certain age, the question of what it takes to impeach a sitting President, or force a President to resign under threat of impeachment, is not a hypothetical historical exercise. We've seen it twice in our lifetime. We saw President Clinton impeached but not convicted. We saw President Nixon resign under threat of impeachment. In both cases, congressional leadership from the party of the President calling out the President were critical factors.  In both cases, there was an evidentiary Rubicon that had to be crossed before impeachment became a realistic possibility.

Punishing Prevaricating Politicians & Parsing Partisan Perspectives

Not a pardon, but a sentence commuted. For convicted felon Scooter Libby there will be no time served, but he will continue to carry the burden of a guilty verdict (assuming no subsequent pardon). A decision was granted not at the end of the President's term, but now. Truth be told, I take no satisfaction in the President's decision, nor am I gnashing my teeth. Last March, when the Libby verdict was read, DWSUWF offered this "Partisan Hypocrite Test" in the post "Looking Glass Liars" :

"The Test. One question. It is multiple choice.

Which of the following choices do you believe? Chose only one:

1. It was right for both Clinton to be impeached and Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, even though there was no underlying crime.
2. It was wrong for both Clinton to be impeached and Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, since there was no underlying crime.
3. It was right for Clinton to be impeached but wrong for Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, even though there was no underlying crime.
4. It was wrong for Clinton to be impeached but right for Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, even though there was no underlying crime.

If you answered "1" or "2" - Congratulations! You are not a partisan hypocrite.
If you answered "3" or "4" - there is no point in continuing to read this blog. You should go listen to podcasts of Anne Coulter or Bill Maher. Enjoy.

Full Disclosure: DWSUWF agreed with both prosecutors, both prosecutions, and chose "1". I don't care which political party they are in. If a high-ranking official lies under oath, you take that official to the wall. No one is above the law. No one has the option of lying under oath without paying the consequences.

An identical rationale was used for impeaching Bill Clinton and prosecuting Scooter Libby. Clinton lied under oath during an investigation. He was impeached for lying under oath in an investigation into a blowjob. Libby was tried and convicted for lying under oath in an investigation about the leak of the identity of a CIA operative. It is completely irrelevant if the underlying reason for the lie under oath was a crime or not a crime."

Now the other shoe has dropped. George Bush commuted Libby's sentence. His felony conviction remains on the record, his fine, and consequent likely disbarment remains in force, but he will do no time. Not my preferred outcome, but by the standards of the Partisan Hypocrite Test, reasonable.

Bill Clinton lied under oath. As a consequence he suffered the humiliation of being impeached and tried in the Senate. He narrowly avoided being the first President in history to be removed from office as a result of an impeachment. Although he was disbarred and precluded from practicing law, he did not face a criminal trial and potential incarceration. His partisan supporters have largely absolved him of all guilt, his reputation is intact in their eyes, and he has profited handsomely since leaving office.

Scooter Libby lied under oath. As a consequence he was tried and convicted of a felony and forced out of office. Although his sentence was commuted, his felony conviction stands and he is likely to be disbarred and precluded from practicing law. He has extensive legal bills and was fined $250,000 but is unlikely to suffer financially. His partisan supporters have largely absolved him of all guilt, his reputation is intact in their eyes, and they will continue to support him. Quite probably, his loyalty in politically protecting the uber-rich Cheney will not be forgotten.

I would have preferred to see Libby do some time, but fully expected to see him pardoned before Bush left office. On balance, I am not going to cry out in lamentations and rend my garments over this outcome. In my mind, in both cases, the extenuating consideration is motivation. I ascribe an understandable motivation to both Clinton and Libby. Clinton lied to protect his reputation, his marriage, and his family from a perceived partisan witch-hunt. Libby lied to protect Dick Cheney out of a misplaced sense of loyalty and misguided sense of patriotism from a perceived partisan witch-hunt. He is not a bad guy. Neither is Clinton. Both suffered consequences from their actions, but jail time was not required for the integrity of legal system to be preserved.

Now Dick Cheney is another matter altogether ...

Vote for this post at Real Clear Politics.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Scooter Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Dick Cheney, perjury, pardon, George Bush,Bill Clinton, impeach.

Looking Glass Liars & The Partisan Hypocrite Test

UPDATED: Wednesday, June 6, 2007

I am in Cabo San Lucas waiting for Morpheus, apparently becalmed about 100 km off-shore. I didn't bring the laptop, thinking this would be good time to take the blogging "needle" out of my arm for a few days. As it turns out, "cold-turkey" is not a viable option for me. I am taking one shot of blogging "methadone" at an internet cafe, and probably compromising my blogger password in the process. Just one quick post, and I am sure I will be able to hold out until returning on the 18th.

The Libby verdict precipitated a surprising reaction from right-of-center blogs and pundits. At least from those with selective or short memories. The apparent "argument" being that that Libby's lies should not have been prosecuted, since there was "no underlying crime." The argument triggered a Deja Vu moment - Where have I heard this before? Ah yes, I remember now. I think we can use this as an aid to help bloggers understand themselves better.

DWSUWF submits for your consideration: The Partisan Hypocrite Test.

The Test

Consider these quotes from two special prosecutors in two high profile investigations into high ranking members of the executive branch of government.

"Any lie under oath is serious. Any prosecutor will tell you... we cannot tolerate perjury. The truth is what drives our judicial system. If people do not come forward and tell the truth, we have no hope of making the judicial system work. If someone knowingly tells a lie under oath during any investigation, it is every prosecutor's duty to respond by investigating and proving that if you can. That is a serious matter in any case. It is obvious it is a serious matter here in a case here where there is a national security investigation. The nature of any person telling a lie under oath to a grand jury is a serious problem. Having a high level official do that under oath under a national security investigation is something can never be acceptable. And that just made it mandatory that we pursue it. " -Patrick Fitzgerald - Press Conference after verdict - March 6, 2007

"The whole idea of equal justice under law means that you've got to play by the rules. It has nothing to do with the underlying subject matter. You just tell the truth. "Lying under oath, and encouraging lies under oath, does go to the very heart and soul of what courts do. And if we say we don't care, let's forget about courts and we'll just have other ways of figuring out how to handle disputes," he said. "There is no excuse for perjury -- never, never, never," he said. "There is truth, and the truth demands respect." - Ken Starr -Time Interview - Nov. 25, 1998

Now The Test. One question. It is a multiple choice.

Which of the following choices do you believe? Chose only one:

A) It was right for both Clinton to be impeached and Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, even though there was no underlying crime.
B) It was wrong for both Clinton to be impeached and Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, since there was no underlying crime.
C) It was right for Clinton to be impeached but wrong for Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, even though there was no underlying crime.
D) It was wrong for Clinton to be impeached but right for Libby to be prosecuted for lies under oath, even though there was no underlying crime.

If you answered A or B - Congratulations! You are not a partisan hypocrite.
If you answered C or D - there is no point in continuing to read this blog. You should go listen to podcasts of Anne Coulter or Bill Maher. Enjoy.

Full Disclosure: DWSUWF agreed with both prosecutors, both prosecutions, and chose "A". I don't care which political party they are in. If a high-ranking official lies under oath, you take that official to the wall. No one is above the law. No one has the option of lying under oath without paying the consequences.

So for all you non-hypocrites who are still with us, some other items we might agree on:

An identical rationale was used for impeaching Bill Clinton and prosecuting Scooter Libby. Clinton lied under oath during an investigation. He was impeached for lying under oath in an investigation into a blowjob. Libby was tried and convicted for lying under oath in an investigation about the leak of the identity of a CIA operative. It is completely irrelevant if the underlying reason for the lie under oath was a crime or not a crime. The blowjob was also not a crime. Clinton was still impeached for the lie about the blowjob. It is true that Cheney authorizing the public identification of Plame as a CIA operative was not a crime. It was not a crime since the President gave Cheney the authorization to disclose any secret information he deemed neccessary. No matter that his reason was to cover his ass politically and hide his role in selling the war to the American public under false pretenses. It was still not illegal. Just like Clinton's blow job was not illegal. But the lies under oath are another matter.

We also know from the trial that the release of Plame's identity was authorized by Dick Cheney, We know that Plame and Wilson's trip to Niger was a direct consequence of President Cheney pushing the CIA for follow-up on the uranium yellow-cake story. We know that Cheney was obsessed with the coverage that Wilson got on his report that the the yellowcake story was wrong. We know that he instructed Libby to attack Wilson in the press.

Libby is guilty. He perjured himself. He lied. No one else is going be convicted because Libby is taking the fall for others in the administration. Does he deserve it? Is he really a criminal? I don't think he is a bad guy. He is loyal and he thinks he is being a patriot by protecting Cheney. I feel sorry for him. But he made a choice. He chose to protect the Vice President and probably Karl Rove's politically, while keeping the American people in the dark about what really happened. You can admire his misguided loyalty to the people he worked for (who clearly don't deserve it). But he owed that loyalty to the American people. He made that choice.

He might spend a year in jail for that choice, before Bush pardons him on the way out of office. So it goes.

UPDATE: Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Libby is sentenced to 30 months in prison. The same night as the sentence is handed down, during the third Republican debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer opens the door for pandering politicians to reanimate the nonsensical, putrefying "there is no underlying crime" meme which rises zombie-like from the grave:

MR. BLITZER: So yes or no, would you pardon him?
MR. GIULIANI:"...and ultimately, there was no underlying crime involved."
MR. ROMNEY: "...in this case, you have a prosecutor who clearly abused prosecutorial discretion by going after somebody when he already knew that the source of the leak was Richard Armitage."
SEN. BROWNBACK: "Yes. The basic crime here didn’t happen."

DWSUWF welcomes the opportunity to once again pound a stake into the heart of this argument by updating and republishing this post.

Judge Reggie Walton said it best as he handed down the sentence (from the Wahington Post):

"Individuals should understand that when you transgress the law, there are consequences," Walton said. When those in high positions "step over the line," he continued, "it causes people to lose faith in our government."

It's a good thing.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Scooter Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Kevin Starr, perjury, Cabo San Lucas, Bill Clinton, impeach.