Twenty Questions About Impeaching A Vice President, by Dr. Mary Maxwell

[pnwmom]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAX20051105&articleId=1185

Mary Maxwell, P.O. Box 4307, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA, is a political scientist. She can be emailed as ‘mary’ at her website marymaxwell.us. She hereby permits anyone to distribute this article as long as it is unaltered and credits the author.

Global Research, November 5, 2005

1. Q: How long would it take to eject a vice president from office by impeachment?

A: Theoretically it could be done in a day. In the morning a member of the House of Representatives could propose one or more Articles of Impeachment and then a vote could be called. A simple majority (50% plus one vote) is all that is needed to impeach. In the afternoon the Senate could try the case. A two-thirds vote is needed in the Senate to convict.

2. Q: Why is it so simple?

A: Because ejecting a person from high office is political, not judicial. The only punishment to be meted out is removal from office.

3. Q: What is an impeachable offense?

A: An impeachable offense can be as nebulous as “He practices cronyism.” We can call this a misdemeanor. According to the Constitution, 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.” President Gerald Ford was correct when he said in 1970 that, “An impeachable offense is whatever the majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at any given moment in its history.”

4. Q: Is there any good argument against impeaching a vice president based on the notion that the person of greater authority – the president - should take responsibility for whatever happens in his administration?

A: No, none whatsoever.

5. Q: Would the Senate have to provide such things as reasonable time for the defense to prepare its case, and a close scrutinizing of evidence?

A: No. The Senate is procedurally bound only by the rules it makes for itself. The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 5 (2), says, “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.”

6. Q: Doesn’t the accused have rights? Where are the wheels of justice here?

A: Justice does not come into it. Think of it this way: If a congresswoman has done a fabulous job for two years, but fails to win reelection, does she have any redress? Of course not. She holds office at the pleasure of the voters, and they indicate their pleasure every two years. A president takes office at the pleasure of the voters, but he holds onto office at the pleasure of Congress. At any time in our history, Congress could have ejected a president or a vice president.

7. Q: Has this ever happened?

A: Congress has never impeached a vice president, but it impeached two presidents – Andrew Johnson and William Clinton. In both cases, the Senate subsequently failed to convict. Many people mistakenly believe that Richard Nixon, too, was impeached. The House Judiciary Committee had voted three Articles of Impeachment against him, but the matter was never put to the full House for a vote because Mr. Nixon promptly resigned.

8. Q: What does an impeachment trial look like?

A: It is held in the Senate Chamber and looks like a normal Senate session, except that all Senators are sworn in as jurors. Article I, Section 3 (6) of the Constitution says, “When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.” The man of the hour may attend or send someone to represent him. He can plead guilty or refute the charges. Each Senator must stand at her place and pronounce her judgment as ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’ The Constitution requires that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court come over to the Senate Chamber to preside when a president is being impeached. In 1986, the Senate extended this to cover vice presidents.

9. Q: Is it easy to eject a vice president with whom the people are dissatisfied?

A: Yes, it’s a snap. It takes only one House member to propose impeachment. Then, 219 out of the 435 members must agree, if all are present and voting (fewer, if some are absent from the House or abstain from voting). So your question boils down to: Are there 219 House members willing to vote to impeach? The answer is “Yes, if they feel that it is in their interest” - whatever way they may calculate that interest. Part of their calculation may be to look ahead and see if 67 Senators would be willing to convict the vice president.

10. Q: The number sixty-seven seems very high. Would it ever be possible to get that many votes?

A: It is possible to get the full 100 Senate votes if all you are asking about is ‘possibility’. In reality, during President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial in 1867, only a single vote in the Senate spared him from conviction (since there were fewer states then, the two-thirds majority was smaller than 67). At Clinton’s trial, the vote on one of his two Articles of Impeachment was 55-45. On the second one, it was 50-50.

11. Q: Regarding the current vice president, Richard Cheney, are we precluded from impeaching during the time that his former assistant, Mr. Lewis Libby, is facing prosecution for alleged crimes?

A: No. There is no reason to hold back - the Libby case may take years. However, persons wishing to take care not to prejudice Mr. Libby’s trial may wisely urge that any impeachable offense brought forward against the vice president be of a type pertaining specifically to him.

12. Q: Could the president offer a pardon to thwart the process of impeachment?

A: No. The Constitution puts only one restriction on the president’s power to pardon, namely it cannot be used in cases of impeachment.

13. Q: Does this mean that if by any chance Mr. Cheney has committed a crime he can never enjoy a pardon?

A: No, it does not mean that. President Bush, or a later president, could pardon Mr. Cheney. The president is prevented only from interfering in the process of impeachment.

14. Q: Could Mr. Cheney seek a presidential pardon right now?

A: Yes. Indeed, for all we know, the current president may be holding a batch of signed (and witnessed) pardons in his desk at this very moment.

15. Q: Are you suggesting that President Bush could pardon a person’s crime in advance of the person being convicted of any crime?

A: Yes. The elder President Bush (president from 1989 to 1993) issued a pardon a few weeks before he left office, for Caspar Weinberger, who at that point had not been convicted of anything. Quite possibly his motive was to avoid being subpoenaed as a witness at Weinberger’s trial. As a witness, Bush could be cross-examined and his own dealings in the Iran-Contra affair could have been revealed.

16. Q: Did the president dishonor the Constitution by doing that?

A: No. He played the Constitution for all it is worth. That is what the Constitution is for. It is not an idealistic statement; it is a scheme for allocating power and controlling power by checks and balances. The Founding Fathers put many restraints on the president but gave him his head when it came to pardons. They probably wanted the president to have bargaining chips that he could use in difficult or dangerous circumstances.

17. Q: Strategically, from the viewpoint of the current vice-president, what would be the best move to make if rumors of impeachment start to swirl?

A: Presuming that Mr. Cheney would hate to lose the position of immense power that he now occupies, his options would be a) to hasten to correct any offending behaviors, or b) to try to get the president ejected from office, in which case he himself would immediately become president.

18. Q: When a vice president leaves office before his term is up, how is he replaced?

A: If a vice president dies, resigns, or is impeached, the president can nominate any American-born citizen, age 35 or older. That nomination must then be confirmed by a majority in both Houses of Congress before the person can be sworn in as the new vice president.

19. Q: How can a citizen start impeachment activity?

A: By ‘talking it up,’ by seeking publicity for the idea, and by persuading a Congressperson to propose it. Since 2001 when President George W. Bush took office, there have been numerous public calls for his impeachment and some of these extend their proposal to include the impeachment of Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. One proposal that names all of those persons is sponsored by Ramsey Clark, who was Attorney General in the 1960s. So far, 607,000 citizens have signed his petition. Number 16 in Clark’s list of complaints sounds particularly relevant to the vice president, namely “refusal to provide information and records legislative oversight of executive functions.”

20. Q: Is Mr. Cheney currently threatened with any prosecutions?

A: The case of Rodriguez v. Bush, names Bush, Cheney, and several others as defendants in a RICO suit. This is not a criminal prosecution, but is a civil suit that asks for criminal penalties, if appropriate. ‘RICO’ stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. A judge recently transferred this case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York because it accuses the government of crimes related to September 11th and the U.S. Attorney has decided to coordinate numerous September 11th cases at that court. The mainstream media never mentions the Rodriguez v. Bush case, but it is available on the Internet.

Mary Maxwell, P.O. Box 4307, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA, is a political scientist. She can be emailed as ‘mary’ at her website marymaxwell.us. She hereby permits anyone to distribute this article as long as it is unaltered and credits the author.

[coznfx]

1. BushCo as Defendant in a RICO suit?

That's great! How appropriate. And yes, the media would not whisper a word of it until after the guilty verdict was announced.

Thanx for clearing up a couple of things I was wondering about. Glad to be Rec #2; I try harder.

[Hissyspit]

2. Rodriguez V. Bush

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102404K.shtml

WTC Rescue Hero Sues Bush and Others under RICO Statute
By Philip J. Berg, Margaret Atheling Rowe
YubaNet.com

Saturday 23 October 2004

On September 11, 2001, William Rodriguez, a maintenance worker at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, single-handedly rescued fifteen people. The only employee with the master key to the North Tower staircases, he led firefighters up the stairs, unlocking doors as he went, aiding in the evacuation of hundreds of additional people who, but for his efforts, might have perished. Although his job description did not include saving lives, Rodriguez re-entered the building three times after the first plane struck, and was the last person to exit the North Tower alive. He survived the collapse of the North Tower by diving beneath a fire truck to avoid the avalanche of concrete and steel. After onsite treatment for his injuries, Rodriguez plunged right back into rescue efforts at the site. At dawn the next morning, Rodriguez returned to Ground Zero from his home in Jersey City, to continue to aid in rescue efforts.

Later, Rodriguez became an unofficial spokesman for survivors, among other things helping to secure an amnesty for undocumented aliens, many of them Latinos, and in the creation of the World Trade Center Memorial Fund. Although he lost his job of 19 years and his means of livelihood - even falling into homelessness for a time - Rodriguez has continued in the three years since 9-11 to continue his work in honor of the heroes and the victims of that awful day, as president of the Hispanic Victims Group, Director of the 9/11 United Services Group, and member of the Family Advisory Council of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

Now, this native of Puerto Rico and remarkable American hero is taking his 9-11 activism to an even higher level. He has commenced, as Plaintiff, a federal court lawsuit against George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld and others alleging that they and others were complicit in the 9-11 attacks, and either planned the attacks, or had foreknowledge of the attacks and permitted them to succeed, in order to exploit a "New Pearl Harbor" to launch wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. (The phrase "New Pearl Harbor" comes from a declaration of principles by the neo-conservative "Project for the New American Century," in which it is proposed as an event needed to steel American public opinion to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and U.S. military domination of the Middle East.)

Attorney Berg acknowledges that Rodriguez's action will shock and offend many Americans. But he urges critics to read the detailed complaint, posted on the internet at www.911forthetruth.com, before forming conclusions. "The 'Official Story' of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie," Berg flatly maintains. "We do not pretend to have put together a full and definitive account of how, and by whom, the attacks were carried out. But information reported in mainstream media, and viewed in the light of common sense and the laws of physics, demonstrate that the 'Official Story,' examined closely, is not credible. The 'Official Story' contains an alarming number of inconsistencies and implausibilities. The major media have reported many of the raw facts, but have studiously avoided analysis, because doing so would reveal that the government is lying to us. The 9-11 Commission, a suspect collection of government and intelligence insiders, restated without question or examination all essential elements of the 'Official Story' of the actual events of 9-11. It failed almost completely to refute, or even to mention, the great body of evidence that suggests the 'Official Story' cannot be true, and it failed completely to hold anyone accountable. From the foregoing facts, it ought to be obvious that a cover-up, or a "limited hang-out" admitting only bureaucratic mistakes for which no one is to be held accountable, has taken place and is continuing."

Berg maintains that many prominent figures in politics, the military and the mass media consider the 'Official Story' of 9-11 to be untrue. But while the truth is emerging bit by bit, thanks to anonymous whistleblowers and researchers posting on the internet, to date no one with the stake in being a Senator, a Presidential candidate, or a media celebrity has found the courage to risk being ridiculed as a "tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist." Berg points out that the only Senator who has dared to publicly question even parts of the 'Official Story," Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota, has received threats ominous enough to impel him to shut down his Washington, D.C. office until after the coming election.

MORE

Latest Update Here:
http://www.911forthetruth.com/

[pnwmom]

3. Thank you, Hissyspit. He was a hero.

And his story is very interesting.

[Senator]

4. 21. Q: How will history judge those who failed in their duty to impeach bushcheney??

Very, very badly.

Some may even be tried at The Hague for failing to even attempt to stop the ongoing war crimes of this never-elected, never-legitimate regime.

It has been one month since they've had the power, and the duty, to act in accordance with Geneva Article 3 protections.

That failure now allows the US to be literally described as a War Criminal Nation.

--

[pnwmom]

5. We don't have the 2/3 majority in the Senate that would be required

to eject Bush from office.

Impeaching him in the House would be premature, without an ability to convict him in the Senate. He would be able to tell himself and the world that he had been found "not guilty." Is that what you want?

Our only practical choice is to continue to gather evidence and support until we have that 2/3 majority. But we're not even close now.

On the other hand, depending on the outcome of the Libby trial, we may be close to that point with Cheney.

[Senator]

7. It's not a House Member's (or our) luxury to consider the Senate outcome

And there is nothing to "gather." They admit and "defend" (rationalize) the torture and illegal spying.

If 34 Senatore defend torture, so be it. At least the objection will have been made and the Dems will not be guilty of the war crime of complicity with the ongoing torture. At least the American People will be off the hook.

The next option is to "gather evidence and support" for a different charge and impeach again. It's not like there is anything else for a non-veto-proof majority to actually DO under "rule by signing statement" (a third prima facia offense).

Only Impeachment ... is a substantive act. Everything else is just masturbatory blather.

It IS our positive agenda.

It is our ONLY moral, patriotic option.

--

[radfringe]

6. maybe bush and cheney can be first at this?

7. Q: Has this ever happened?

A: Congress has never impeached a vice president, but it impeached two presidents – Andrew Johnson and William Clinton. In both cases, the Senate subsequently failed to convict. Many people mistakenly believe that Richard Nixon, too, was impeached. The House Judiciary Committee had voted three Articles of Impeachment against him, but the matter was never put to the full House for a vote because Mr. Nixon promptly resigned.

cheney can be the first vp to be impeached, and bush can be the first to be impeached AND convicted

[KingofNewOrleans]

8. Took about 18 months to push Nixon out of office

and would have taken even longer if he had stuck around for Impeachment. It's a fantasy to think that impeachment and removal from office is something that can be cranked out at the snap of the fingers.

[Senator]

9. No, It Didn't

It took months to investigate and discover what happened.

That is not the case now. As the regime admits and "defends" (rationalizes) its torture and illegal spying. There is nothing to investigate.

This also means there are no "fact witnesses" as there were in the Clinton farce. So a Senate trial could proceed on argument alone -- without any testimony at all. The Senate could allow them to make their case for "Urinary Authoritarian Executive**" (monarchy) then decide to restore the Constitution instead in less than a week.

The entire process should not take much more than a month.


-----
**Based on the newly-discovered, "inherent" (i.e., faith-based) Constitutional Authority for an appointed ruler (as opposed to elected leader) to piss down the back of the American People and tell them it's raining.

[KingofNewOrleans]

10. You're living in a fantasy world

if you think impeachment will occur on what the administration currently admits to and "defends".

Impeachment is a long shot at best, but if it occurs it'll follow closer along the lines of Watergate. Underlings get convicted, slowly the circle tightens around the President, major Congressional investigation, etc....

[Senator]

11. I agree your imagined scenario is much more dramatic...

...with its terrified, convicted underlings, turning on each other with tension building circles tightening around the doomed president, and super-major media circus hearings with riveting Perry Mason moments.

That sure would make for a smashing film.

Sadly, reality is much more simple and depressing. The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan that Geneva applies -- that 3 years of war crimes had already been committed at Gitmo and in secret prisons. Those violations, including torture, continue to this day.

A single count of impeachment, based on this reality can be introduced by discharge petition and voted on in a single day. No committee involvement required. Up or down on torture -- a far more important, lasting matter than Iraq, spying, or even terrorism.

All Congress needs to do is say "No, we will not become complicit with war crimes. We will not tacitly render the US a War Criminal Nation. We take our oaths of office seriously."

The chips should fall where they may. If bushcheney spares the Senate from having to take a stand by resigning in sequence, all the better.

But there is no need for the "movement" you describe. They just need to move.

--