LogFAQs > #933314661

The_tall_midget posted...

Political impeachment is a legal process

Political impeachment is not a legal process; it's a political process and always has been. That's why the branch of government involved is the legislative branch rather than the judiciary, in whom sole power to decide matters of criminality is invested, and why congress is explicitly barred by the constitution from levying any penalty except removing the impeached party from office and/or barring them from ever holding office again (notably, the constitution also explicitly states that double-jeopardy does not apply to impeachment proceedings, so that actual legal proceedings can be levied against the politician in question once impeachment has been sorted out).

This is Impeachment 101, bro. Keep up if you want to stay with the discussion.

The_tall_midget posted...

and does not concern the peanut gallery filled with ignoramuses who aren't intelligent enough to understand what constitutes an actual crime or not according to the law

Sure. This is exactly why courtrooms don't have galleries where the public is allowed to sit and observe the proceedings. Oh, wait.

Anyways, whether or not something is a crime has surprisingly little to do with whether or not it is an impeachable offence. True, most crimes are impeachable and most impeachable offences are crimes, but what meets the standard of one does not necessarily meet the standard of the other.

If Donald Trump stole a candy bar from a convenience store, drove away while speeding, then tossed the wrapper out of the window, he's committed three distinct crimes (petty theft, speeding, littering) but no one would reasonably say those crimes constitute an impeachable offence. By the same token, if Donald Trump invited Russia to invade Hawaii to try and reduce Democratic influence on the government and refused to deploy the military when they did, or if he gave out free pardons to any felon who was selected by someone who had donated at least a million dollars to his re-election campaign, or said he was going to spend the rest of his presidency golfing rather than tending to anything related to his job, those would all be impeachable offences despite being 100% legal actions.

This is exactly why impeachment is a political rather than legal process - the constitution recognizes that the law does not necessarily capture all situations whereby an executive may need to be removed from office, nor does it lay out what crimes would meet the hypothetical threshold to merit removal.

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