More than 20 years ago, when President Bill Clinton was being impeached for lying to a grand jury - then as now a documented fact that no one can credibly dispute - some Democrats who today want to impeach and have the Senate remove President Donald Trump from office ASAP, were whistling a very different tune.
"Given the essentially anti-democratic nature of impeachment and the great dangers inherent in the too-ready exercise of that power, impeachment has no place in our system of constitutional democracy except as an extreme measure - reserved for breaches of the public trust by a president who so violates his official duties, misuses his official powers or places our system of government at such risk that our constitutional government is put in immediate danger by his continuing to serve out the term to which the people of the United States elected him".
"Look back at the Nixon impeachment. It took on legitimacy when a core of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee were moved by the nature of President Nixon's offenses to break party ranks and vote for articles of impeachment There was bipartisan consensus that what Nixon did was impeachable".
"The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters as expressed in a national election. We must not overturn an election and remove a president from office except to defend our very system of government or our constitutional liberties against a dire threat. And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people and of their representatives in Congress of the absolute necessity".
"There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come. And will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions We have no right to overturn the considered judgment of the American people".
"The framers of the Constitution tried to give us a heads-up, a warning about how the impeachment process could become unduly partisan. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, said that the types of crimes for which impeachment is the appropriate remedy are 'political.' And he added, 'the prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly, or inimical, to the accused'".
"If the evidence required to convict a president of the United States in an impeachment trial is allowed to be less than that required in a shoplifting trial, the constitutional foundation for the presidency will disintegrate before our very eyes. That is something that a few future presidents in this body ought to consider for just a moment".
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/04/impeachment-comments-democrats-would-rather-you-forget/
"Given the essentially anti-democratic nature of impeachment and the great dangers inherent in the too-ready exercise of that power, impeachment has no place in our system of constitutional democracy except as an extreme measure - reserved for breaches of the public trust by a president who so violates his official duties, misuses his official powers or places our system of government at such risk that our constitutional government is put in immediate danger by his continuing to serve out the term to which the people of the United States elected him".
"Look back at the Nixon impeachment. It took on legitimacy when a core of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee were moved by the nature of President Nixon's offenses to break party ranks and vote for articles of impeachment There was bipartisan consensus that what Nixon did was impeachable".
"The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters as expressed in a national election. We must not overturn an election and remove a president from office except to defend our very system of government or our constitutional liberties against a dire threat. And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people and of their representatives in Congress of the absolute necessity".
"There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come. And will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions We have no right to overturn the considered judgment of the American people".
"The framers of the Constitution tried to give us a heads-up, a warning about how the impeachment process could become unduly partisan. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, said that the types of crimes for which impeachment is the appropriate remedy are 'political.' And he added, 'the prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly, or inimical, to the accused'".
"If the evidence required to convict a president of the United States in an impeachment trial is allowed to be less than that required in a shoplifting trial, the constitutional foundation for the presidency will disintegrate before our very eyes. That is something that a few future presidents in this body ought to consider for just a moment".
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/04/impeachment-comments-democrats-would-rather-you-forget/
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