High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (36 page)
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Authors: Ann Coulter
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In fact, the framers assumed Congress would leap to the task of impeachment with a little more alacrity than has been the case over the past fifty years. From the founding to 1945, there were fifty-four “documented House impeachment investigations” of federal judges alone. Since 1945 there have been four. Two of the four were convicted felons.
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There have been fourteen impeachment trials in the Senate in the history of the country. In the past fifty years there have been only three, and these were rather unavoidable. All three concerned federal judges who had been indicted and tried for criminal offenses. Two were sitting in jail—continuing to draw their federal salaries—before the House and Senate finally moseyed around to removing them from office.
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There have been fourteen impeachment trials in the Senate in the history of the country. In the past fifty years there have been only three, and these were rather unavoidable. All three concerned federal judges who had been indicted and tried for criminal offenses. Two were sitting in jail—continuing to draw their federal salaries—before the House and Senate finally moseyed around to removing them from office.
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The framers may have hoped for virtuous men in public office, but they weren’t necessarily counting on it. The Constitution is nothing if not contingency-oriented. There is a backup mechanism in the Constitution for every imaginable glitch (except a populace indifferent to self-government). Presidents and any other “civil officers” who were not fit for office could be—were expected to be—removed from office.
A president who is so lacking in virtue that a V-chip is required to discuss his conduct in office surely warrants the impeachment remedy—“removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.” A president who is merely incompetent or neglectful—as the president would have us believe from his own explanations for the endless series of corrupt acts, abuses, and obstructions that have occurred on his watch—deserves the same: removal from office.
And if the president also happens to have perjured himself or conspired to break the laws in order to cover up his personal vices, he is also “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”
HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS THROUGHOUT HISTORYThough an impeachable act need
not be a criminal offense, it does need to be a particular kind of conduct, and not just an unpopular policy decision. As the Rodino Report notes, the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was a “term of art” that must be construed “according to what the Framers meant when they adopted them”—an oddly originalist argument.
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Perhaps more to the point, records from the Constitutional Convention make clear that the framers were familiar with the English practice of impeachment and the particular technical meaning of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” in that context.
not be a criminal offense, it does need to be a particular kind of conduct, and not just an unpopular policy decision. As the Rodino Report notes, the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was a “term of art” that must be construed “according to what the Framers meant when they adopted them”—an oddly originalist argument.
35
Perhaps more to the point, records from the Constitutional Convention make clear that the framers were familiar with the English practice of impeachment and the particular technical meaning of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” in that context.
Congressman Gerald Ford’s famous formulation—in this book, infamous—was that “an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.”
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It could also be said that a constitutional right is whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is. That doesn’t mean the words in the Constitution have no meaning, or that justices of the Supreme Court aren’t supposed to give effect to those meanings. All it means it that there is no appeal, even when the court or Congress is wrong—such as when the Senate concluded in 1787 that senators were exempt from impeachment.
The framers did not choose the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” because it was imprecise; it was not imprecise to them. There is a fixed meaning to the term “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” no more uncertain or malleable than the meaning of “cruel and unusual punishment,” “free press,” or “reasonable man.” The last thing the framers intended was to leave the Senate free to declare any conduct it chose to be an impeachable offense. Madison, for example, opposed a proposed version of the impeachment clause with the
reductio ad absurdum
argument that it would “be equivalent to tenure during pleasure of the Senate.”
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(Whose tenure Madison was talking about did not have to be explained.)
reductio ad absurdum
argument that it would “be equivalent to tenure during pleasure of the Senate.”
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(Whose tenure Madison was talking about did not have to be explained.)
When the framers chose the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” they were designating specific types of conduct that would constitute an impeachable offense.
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Hamilton described impeachable conduct as “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
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(Consequently, one of the punishments for impeachment is disbarment from ever holding an office of “Trust” or “honor” with the United States.)
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Hamilton described impeachable conduct as “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
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(Consequently, one of the punishments for impeachment is disbarment from ever holding an office of “Trust” or “honor” with the United States.)
Citing Berger,
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the Rodino Report recites the categories of impeachable conduct to “emerge from 400 years of English parliamentary experience with the phrase ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’”:
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the Rodino Report recites the categories of impeachable conduct to “emerge from 400 years of English parliamentary experience with the phrase ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’”:
• corruption
• abuse of official power
• neglect of duty
• betrayal of trust
• encroachment on Parliament’s prerogatives
• misapplication of funds
Both the drafters of the Rodino Report and impeachment scholar Raoul Berger provide examples from each category.
CorruptionLord Treasurer Middlesex, was charged with “corruption, shadowed under pretext of a New Year’s-Gift,” and with “using the power of his place, and countenance of the king’s service to wrest [from certain persons] a lease and estate of great value.” There is also a charge of corruption in that Middlesex bought assets conveyed by the King for the benefit of creditors at much less than their value. (1624)
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Perhaps, as with the first lady’s financial wizardry in cattle futures, the lord treasurer just read the
Wall Street Journal
, which allowed him to make shrewd business moves in the land-leasing and asset businesses.
Wall Street Journal
, which allowed him to make shrewd business moves in the land-leasing and asset businesses.
Earl of Suffolk and Lord Treasurer Middlesex “were charged with obtaining property from the King for less than its value.” (1388)Buckingham Danby, the Earl of Arlington, Earl of Orford, Lord Somers, and Lord Halifax were charged with procuring large gifts from the King to themselves.Lord Chancellor Macclesfield was charged with the sale of public offices.Lord Halifax was accused of “opening a way to all manner of corrupt practices in the future management of the revenues” by appointing his brother to an office which had been designed as a check on his own, the profits to be held in trust for Halifax.
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Poor Lord Halifax engaged in a little cronyism in a single appointment of his brother to “an office which had been designed as a check on his own.” Upon assuming the presidency, Clinton fired all the United States attorneys—more than ninety—to replace them with, as Hillary might say, “his people.” No other president in memory has fired all top federal prosecutors like this.
Abuse of Official PowerAt least one impeachment
charge against the Earl of Oxford suggests, painfully, that we could have gotten rid of this guy after the 1993 tax bill.
charge against the Earl of Oxford suggests, painfully, that we could have gotten rid of this guy after the 1993 tax bill.
Edward Earl of Oxford, was charged in 1701 with “violation of his duty and trust” in that, while a member of the King’s privy council, he took advantage of the ready access he had to the King to secure various royal rents and revenues for his own use, thereby greatly diminishing the revenues of the crown and subjecting the people of England to “grievous taxes.”
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Many examples of “abuse of official power” involve bad appointments.
Oxford was also charged with procuring a naval commission for William Kidd “known to be a person of ill fame and reputation” and ordering him “to pursue the intended voyage, in which Kidd did commit diverse piracies… being thereto encouraged through hopes of being protected by the high station and interest of Oxford, in violation of the law of nations and the interruption and discouragement of the trade of England.”
44Duke of Suffolk (1450), treason and high crimes and misdemeanors: procured offices for persons who were unfit and unworthy of them; delayed justice by stopping writs of appeal (private criminal Prosecutions) for the deaths of complainants’ husbands.
45Duke of Buckingham (1626), misdemeanors, misprisions, offenses, and crimes: though young and inexperienced, procured offices for himself thereby blocking the deserving: … procured titles of honor to his mother, brothers, kindred.
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Oxford’s offense was to use his office to get a government job for a crook. Though it is not clear how much Oxford knew of William Kidd’s piracies, Oxford was charged with having allowed Kidd to believe Oxford would protect him by virtue of his “high station and interest.”
The Duke of Suffolk “procured offices for persons who were unfit and unworthy of them,” and was impeached for it. Maybe that’s why we still don’t know who procured Craig Livingstone’s job for him.
A slew of other “abuse of power” cases concern highly placed government officials’ interference with legal processes—which included discouraging plaintiff’s counsel, reviling the grand jury, and invoking phony points of law.
Justice Berkley (1637), treason and other great misdemeanors: reviled and threatened the grand jury for presenting the removal of the communion table in All Saints Church; on the trial of an indictment, he “did much [to] discourage complainants’ counsel” and “did overrule the cause for matter of law.”
47Viscount Mordaunt (1660), high crimes and misdemeanors: prevented Tayleur from standing for election as a burgess to serve in Parliament; caused his illegal arrest and detention.
48Chief Justice Scroggs (1680), treason and high misdemeanors: discharged grand jury before they made their presentment, thereby obstructing the presentment of many Papists; arbitrarily granted general warrants in blank.
49Attorney General Yelverton (1621), high crimes and misdemeanors: committed persons for refusal to enter into bonds before he had authority so to require; commencing but not prosecuting suits.
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One wonders if Justice Berkley’s attempts to “discourage complainants’ counsel” included outing homosexuals on the counsel’s staff. Berkley was also charged with improperly overruling a cause of action as a “matter of law.” Clinton has repeatedly invoked invented principles of law for no other purpose than to delay legal proceedings—as former presidential adviser Dick Morris has expressly admitted in the case of Clinton’s “presidential immunity” claim.
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The contrived nature of this claim was evidenced by the fact that it was rejected by all nine Supreme Court justices—including the two Clinton himself appointed. Later, Clinton would begin introducing privilege claims ranging from the absurd secret service officer “protective services privilege” to the outrageous claim of “executive privilege” for communications about the president’s interactions with a White House intern. This last claim was directly at odds with the president’s media strategy: the president’s defenders themselves all insisted his relationship with the intern was a purely personal affair, making it completely off-limits to executive privilege claims.
Neglect of Duty51
The contrived nature of this claim was evidenced by the fact that it was rejected by all nine Supreme Court justices—including the two Clinton himself appointed. Later, Clinton would begin introducing privilege claims ranging from the absurd secret service officer “protective services privilege” to the outrageous claim of “executive privilege” for communications about the president’s interactions with a White House intern. This last claim was directly at odds with the president’s media strategy: the president’s defenders themselves all insisted his relationship with the intern was a purely personal affair, making it completely off-limits to executive privilege claims.
Duke of Buckingham (1626), misdemeanors, misprisions, offenses, and crimes: … neglected as great admiral to safeguard the seas….
52Peter Pett, Commissioner of the Navy (1688), high crimes and misdemeanors: negligent preparation for the Dutch invasion; loss of a ship through neglect to bring it to mooring.
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Buckingham and Pett were charged with safeguarding the seas; the president is charged with safeguarding the executive branch. Yet the president has habitually deflected charges of corruption or abuse of power by eagerly claiming the mantle of negligence and incompetence. That was the White House’s defense of, for example, Lippo operative John Huang’s access to classified material at Clinton’s Commerce Department; the disappearance of subpoenaed documents, such as the first lady’s billing records; the Travel Office firings; the FBI investigation of Billy Dale; the nine hundred FBI files being illegally reviewed by Craig Livingstone; the obstruction of the FBI’s investigation of Vince Foster’s office; the felonious solicitation or receipt of campaign donations by Vice President Al Gore
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and the first lady’s chief of staff, Maggie Williams; the presidential audience accorded “hustler” Johnny Chung. And so on, and on, and on.
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and the first lady’s chief of staff, Maggie Williams; the presidential audience accorded “hustler” Johnny Chung. And so on, and on, and on.
The one common thread running through all these corrupt practices and abuses has been that Clinton was president. But forget what that might mean. The very least President Clinton can be accused of is neglect of duty—an impeachable offense. And this is the very claim the president invariably raises as his
excuse
.
excuse
.
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