The impeachment procedure...let's talk

[SummerSnow]

At the federal level, the impeachment process is a three-step procedure.

First, the Congress investigates. This investigation typically begins in the House Judiciary Committee,

Second, the House of Representatives must pass, by a simple majority of those present and voting, articles of impeachment, which constitute the formal allegation or allegations. Upon passage, the defendant has been "impeached".

Third, the Senate tries the accused. In the case of the impeachment of a president, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the proceedings. For the impeachment of any other official, the Constitution is silent on who shall preside, suggesting that this role falls to the Senate's usual presiding officer, the President of the Senate who is also the Vice President of the United States. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds supermajority vote of those present. The result of conviction is removal from office.

So, what do you will happen in this process? IMO, the first procedure is being done, with pushback of course. The second procedure will be done , with pushback of course. Now the third, Pence will never convict Trump to remove him from office, nor will the Senate majority have him removed, they will exonerate him.

* What is your take on it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States

[Claritie Pixie]

1. Pence doesn't decide conviction. Roberts presides, the Senate as a whole decides.

How do you know the Senate won't convict him? Using the word "never" about a future event is, in my experience, not a wise thing to do.

No one can predict the future, and a lot of things can change between now and then.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. There will be a point at which R's in the Senate will find Rump more of a problem than he is worth..

I don't know when that will be, but that will be the end of him.

[elleng]

3. 'Impeached,' similar to INDICTED,

part of the process 'some' have likely heard of.

Anyones clamoring for OPEN Grand Jury process???

[onenote]

4. Pence doesn't have a vote on whether to convict or not.

And it doesn't require the "Senate majority" (I assume you are referring to the Republican majority in the Senate) to vote to convict. It requires 2/3 of the Senators voting, which could be 20 Republicans (or possibly fewer if some decide not to show up).

[GoneOffShore]

5. Jill Lepore wrote a very good piece this week in the New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-invention-and-reinvention-of-impeachment

Impeachment is an ancient relic, a rusty legal instrument and political weapon first wielded by the English Parliament, in 1376, to wrest power from the King by charging his ministers with abuses of power, convicting them, removing them from office, and throwing them in prison. Some four hundred years later, impeachment had all but vanished from English practice when American delegates to the Constitutional Convention provided for it 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.”

It’s one thing to know this power exists. It’s another to use it. In one view, nicely expressed by an English solicitor general in 1691, “The power of impeachment ought to be, like Goliath’s sword, kept in the temple, and not used but on great occasions.” Yet this autumn, in the third year of the Presidency of Donald J. Trump, House Democrats have unsheathed that terrible, mighty sword. Has time dulled its blade?

And you can listen to the piece if you want to.