Impeachment: What is a High Crime and Misdemeanor?

One thing about the three impeachments of the last 50 years. They were all about niggling little things. The Constitution says, in Article II, Section 4.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

What about Nixon? What did they threaten to impeach him for? For covering up the Watergate break-in, a foolish effort by overenthusiastic minions to figure out what the Democrats were up to? For that you name and shame and defenestrate a president? Sounds to me that Nixon was just doing politics-as-usual.

What about Clinton? He lied about Monica Lewinsky, sex in the Oval Orifice, as Rush Limbaugh likes to say. Well, of course. As the Democrats said at the time, everyone lies about sex. Especially politicians. That is what makes the "Well I Never" response to the Access Hollywood tape so amusing. Really? Women were allowing themselves to be felt up by Trump? Of course they were. That is what hypergamy is all about: women using their bodies to climb the greasy pole.

Now we have Trump. He is accused of colluding with the Russians to win the 2016 election. Wait, he didn't, although he certainly was using the power of office to blunt the investigation against him. No kidding! But now he's asking the Ukrainians to take a look at all the 2016 shenanigans, including Crowdstrike, the chaps that took a look at the DNC's computers and said the Russians did it. No kidding! He's trying to find out what kind of shenanigans -- collusion to you aficionados -- was going on in 2016 to cause trouble for the Trump campaign. How dare he!

Do any of these things amount to "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors?" I don't think so. They all sound, to me, like politicians committing politics.

Now you may say that politics-in-itself is nothing less than the comission of Treason, Bribery (and how) and all kinds of other High Crimes and Misdemeanors that damage and divide a country. And I would agree with you. It is monstrous how politics and government eat away at the body politics like meat-eating maggots. But the fact is that We the People put up with it. We regard everything the Other Party does as virtual treason. We demand that the politicians bribe us with our own money. And as for high Crimes and Misdemeanors? Well, what would that be? Probably not hiding the criminal antics of some low-level campaign aides. Probably not doing cigar things with Monica Lewinsky. Probably not requesting a bit of help from the Ukrainians.

What about the other famous impeachment, that of President Andrew Johnson? La Wik:

The primary charge against Johnson was violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress in March 1867, over his veto. Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War—whom the Act was largely designed to protect—and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas.

Well, who's a naughty boy then? Congress was trying to prevent Johnson from firing a Cabinet officer. Wouldn't that be a violation of the Separation of Powers, meddling with a president's right to staff his own administration? Sounds like a put-up job.

So the point is that Impeachment in these United States has always been used as a purely political weapon, a manifestation of severe partisan discord and the attempt to stick it to the other guys. It is a reflection of high partisan feeling. So that's all right.

My guess is that a president that did something really wrong would never get impeached. After all, if there is one thing that politicians are pretty good at it is knowing how far they can go. And the whole point of partisan politics is to whitewash what Our Guys do and blacken what the Other Guys do. Our Guy is the best president since sliced bread. The Other Guy is the worst president since slavery was invented.

So here is my analysis.

Reading the background to Andrew Johnson it seems that he was a Democrat opposed to secession and opposed to the punishment of the South demanded by the Radical Republicans. So he was not vengeful enough for the radicals.

In the Nixon impeachment the Democrats were beside themselves that a sleazy guy like him could be elected president -- the guy that accused Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas of being pinkos: the Nerve! And then he got reelected! How could that happen in 1970s America? So he had to go.

In the Clinton impeachment the Republicans were just saying: sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as they got a Republican Congress for the first time in 40 years. You impeach Nixon; we impeach Clinton. Get used to it.

In the Trump impeachment the Democrats are saying that it is inconceivable that Americans could vote in a guy like Trump. There must be something sleazy going on. Nobody like Trump could be elected in a proper election, not after America had elected its First Black President.

See what I mean? Impeachment is always and everywhere a put-up job, reflecting the particular and poisonous rage of the partisans at the time.

The question is: could we ever impeach and remove a president that really had committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors?" Frankly, I doubt it.

But there is always the next election.