c*******e
发帖数: 5818 | 1 so true。。。。。
“A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by
the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political
adversaries or ejecting them from office.”
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed committees investigating President Trump
to “proceed under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry,” but the House has
never authorized such an inquiry. Democrats have been seeking to impeach Mr
. Trump since the party took control of the House, though it isn’t clear
for what offense. Lawmakers and commentators have suggested various
possibilities, but none amount to an impeachable offense. The effort is akin
to a constitutionally proscribed bill of attainder—a legislative effort to
punish a disfavored person. The Senate should treat it accordingly.
The impeachment power is quasi-judicial and differs fundamentally from
Congress’s legislative authority. The Constitution assigns “the sole power
of impeachment” to the House—the full chamber, which acts by majority
vote, not by a press conference called by the Speaker. Once the House begins
an impeachment inquiry, it may refer the matter to a committee to gather
evidence with the aid of subpoenas. Such a process ensures the House’s
political accountability, which is the key check on the use of impeachment
power.
The House has followed this process every time it has tried to impeach a
president. Andrew Johnson’s 1868 impeachment was predicated on formal House
authorization, which passed 126-47. In 1974 the Judiciary Committee
determined it needed authorization from the full House to begin an inquiry
into Richard Nixon’s impeachment, which came by a 410-4 vote. The House
followed the same procedure with Bill Clinton in 1998, approving a
resolution 258-176, after receiving independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s
report.
Mrs. Pelosi discarded this process in favor of a Trump-specific procedure
without precedent in Anglo-American law. Rep. Adam Schiff’s Intelligence
Committee and several other panels are questioning witnesses in secret. Mr.
Schiff has defended this process by likening it to a grand jury considering
whether to hand up an indictment. But while grand-jury secrecy is mandatory,
House Democrats are selectively leaking information to the media, and House
Republicans, who are part of the jury, are being denied subpoena authority
and full access to transcripts of testimony and even impeachment-related
committee documents. No grand jury has a second class of jurors excluded
from full participation.
Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 1835: “A decline of public morals in the
United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of
impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them
from office.” What House Democrats are doing is not only unfair to Mr.
Trump and a threat to all his successors. It is an attempt to overrule the
constitutional process for selecting the president and thus subvert American
democracy itself. For the sake of the Constitution, it must be decisively
rejected. If Mr. Trump’s policies are unpopular or offensive, the remedy is
up to the people, not Congress. | G****1
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