By Hans von
Spakovsky & Thomas Jipping | The Daily Signal
Does an impeachment inquiry require a vote of
the full House of Representatives? President Donald Trump and House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., maintain that it does. Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., claims that it doesn’t.
Pelosi is correct that the Constitution doesn’t
explicitly require it. It simply gives the House the “sole Power of
Impeachment.” But the gravity of even considering impeachment, fundamental
principles of fair and impartial justice, and preserving our republican form of
government, do require it.
Pelosi alone announced on Sept. 25 that the House
was opening an impeachment inquiry, directing six different
committees to investigate the president. This is radically different, and much
more partisan, than how this serious step was taken in the past.
In 1974, like today, a Republican was in the White House
and Democrats controlled the House. On Feb. 6, the full House voted 410-4 to
authorize an impeachment investigation of President Richard Nixon by the
Judiciary Committee. Similarly, on Oct. 8, 1998, the full House voted
258-176 for the Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment investigation of
President Bill Clinton.
Pelosi’s claim that there is no “House precedent that the
whole House vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry,”
therefore, is simply false.
Other than declaring war, there is no more serious
undertaking by the House of Representatives in our constitutional republic.
Why? Because through impeachment, the House is charging a president with
misconduct so serious that he should immediately be removed from office. In
other words, the House is effectively seeking to neutralize the choice—and the
votes—of the American electorate.
That is an extraordinary action, especially in a system
of government based on the people electing their own leaders. And it’s also the
reason that impeachment alone cannot remove the president; that requires
conviction by two-thirds of the Senate (67 senators). Neither of the presidents
who were impeached—Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999—were
convicted and, therefore, stayed in office.
In an Oct. 3 letter, McCarthy asked for a vote of
the full House. He reminded Pelosi that the Judiciary Committee report on the
Clinton impeachment investigation said:
“Because impeachment is delegated solely to the House of
Representatives by the Constitution, the full House of Representatives should
be involved in critical decision making regarding various stages of
impeachment.”
An investigation to determine, in the words of the
Clinton resolution, “whether sufficient grounds exist” for impeachment should
be authorized by the body with the “sole Power of Impeachment”—the House of
Representatives. Moreover, such a resolution should, as it did for the Clinton
impeachment investigation, outline the rules under which it will be conducted.
McCarthy asked important questions that Pelosi’s
announcement did not answer. Will the ranking minority member of the
investigating committees have the authority to issue subpoenas and to question
witnesses, or simply be ignored by the majority? Will the president’s lawyers
be able to attend all hearings and depositions; to present evidence; to object
to the admittance of evidence; to cross-examine witnesses; or to recommend
witnesses to be interviewed?
As McCarthy says, if Pelosi says “no” to these questions,
then she will be “denying the president the bare minimum rights granted to his
predecessors.” Doing so would indicate that Pelosi and these committees do not
intend to provide the fundamental due process rights we extend even to those
accused of wrongdoing in our courts.
All Americans have an interest in the integrity of our
government and the legitimacy of its actions. Departing from precedent;
single-handed directives; freewheeling roving investigations by multiple
committees; and running roughshod over the minority undermine that interest.
On the other hand, that interest is served by the entire
House considering and authorizing an impeachment inquiry; a transparent
investigation; authority for both the majority and minority committee members
to investigate, subpoena, and call witnesses; and outlining the scope of the
investigation.
America’s Founders did not put impeachment into the
Constitution as a partisan tool to be used for overturning an election. How
this process is conducted today will reveal who in the House of Representatives
agrees with them.
Hans
von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights,
civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government
reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III
Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election
Law Reform Initiative.
Thomas
Jipping is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
___________________
RELATED
ARTICLES
The Unfairness of the Left’s Impeachment Push
Against Trump
By Rep. Andy Biggs | The Daily
Signal
President Donald Trump talks to reporters
Friday on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One and
traveling to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. (Photo: Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images)
What would you do if you were prosecuted and the
prosecutors never named the alleged crime? Or if they kept changing the rules
by which they were prosecuting you?
How about if the prosecutorial team suggested you be
arrested and held in solitary confinement before they even stated the charge?
In fact, what if they repeatedly admitted that their attacks were motivated
solely by the fact that they don’t like you?
Now, I ask every fair American to consider what the
Democrats led by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, House Judiciary
Chairman Jerry Nadler, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the radical four leftist
House freshmen are doing to President Donald Trump.
The day after the 2016 presidential election, the
Democrats began talking about impeachment. They haven’t let up since. The fact
that they stated their intent to pursue impeachment before Trump was even in
office reveals that they are motivated by hatred.
Democrats have spent the past three years chasing their
dream of impeaching the president, which is an American nightmare of
divisiveness. They stated no charge. They have flitted around like a moth drawn
to the light.
First it was the Russian collusion
narrative. Democrats forced multiple investigations, which all failed and
embarrassed them. They should have felt shame for the evaporation of this fairy
tale, but we still hear Democrats say that there is actual proof that Trump
colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 election.
Then it was the crazy obstruction of justice allegation
based on the non-collusion fact. They were cornered into arguing that the
president must prove his innocence, not that the impeachment-mongers had to
prove obstruction. Imagine asking a judge to overturn the U.S. Constitution
like that.
Then it was the July 25 telephone call with the Ukraine’s
president. This thing unraveled fast. Day One, they claimed Trump had
threatened President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eight times. When that wasn’t
true, as shown by the White House transcript of the call, Democrats and leftist
media types went on a coordinated kick, claiming the president is a mob boss
and his threat was implicit or not overtly stated after all.
When Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian foreign minister said
there was no pressure, it wiped that narrative, too.
Next, Democrats all got on the same page by claiming
there was a cover-up by the administration because the call between the two
world leaders, which contained pointed criticism of other leaders, was
classified.
Well, that approach was also met with derision because
all of the documentation pertaining to that phone call was released with other
documents. Hard to cover up something you were open and transparent
about.
And that brings us to the leftists’ point person on the
legislative harassment of the president: Rep. Adam Schiff. Unlike a real
impeachment investigation or a court of law, Schiff inexcusably fabricated and
publicly read a transcript of the call in question. Let’s make it as clear as
possible: There wasn’t anything true in his statement.
Then Schiff followed up the whole thing with a secret
hearing last week in which he tried to prevent the public from hearing the
truth from the witness who was giving testimony to committee members.
Unlike a real impeachment inquiry, the president doesn’t
get counsel, Republicans are precluded from calling witnesses, and no charges
have been lodged by the pro-impeachment mob.
Again, imagine you were being attacked in this way. You
probably would join the president and me in calling for a censure of the
ringleader and demanding that he be removed from his position of leading this
coup attempt.
You can’t carry on a case in court with these types of
anomalies, so why should these opponents of the president be allowed to
overturn the election of 2016?
Rep. Andy Biggs a Republican, represents
Arizona's 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House. He is chairman of the
House Freedom Caucus and serves on the Judiciary and Science, Space and
Technology committees.
_________________
A
READER”S COMMENTS:
I
wasn't a Trump supporter in 2016. I wasn't a Clinton supporter either...I
haven't voted in Federal election since the 1st Bush election. I am a Native
American an unlike Warren my father was full blooded Lakota Sioux. I am retired
and live in MN. I have tickets to see Trump rally in Minneapolis on the 10th.
The House is out of control. The majority of those in my small commuter town
within driving distance to the Twin Cities is backing Trump. They are tired of
Democrats lies and the obvious smear campaign that they have chosen to follow.
They would vote for Donald Duck because they are voting against the horrid
democratic socialism that is being pushed by them. I can't find one specific
charge that the President would be impeached for? Enough is enough vote against
the Democrats in MN!!!!!!!
____________________
End Impeachment Secrecy
By Byron
York | Townhall
Source: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
There have so far been two hearings in the House
Democrats' effort to impeach President Donald Trump over the Ukraine matter.
Both have been held in secret. One was last Thursday, the other Friday, and the
public does not know what was said in either. Two more are scheduled for this
week, and they will be held behind closed doors, too.
The hearings are part of an effort to remove the
president from office. There could not be a matter of more pressing public
concern. There could not be a matter in which the American people have a
greater stake. And yet the public has no idea what is being discovered.
Last week's sessions weren't just secret. They were
super-secret. The first hearing, in which the witness was former Ukraine
special envoy Kurt Volker, was held in what is known as a SCIF, which stands
for sensitive compartmented information facility. It is a room in the Capitol,
built to be impervious to electronic surveillance so that lawmakers can discuss
the nation's most important secrets without fear of discovery.
The second hearing, in which intelligence community
inspector general Michael Atkinson testified, was also held in the SCIF.
Were highly classified matters discussed at the Volker
and Atkinson hearings? Apparently not. Neither interview was classified. And
even if some classified information were involved, it would be astonishing for
Democrats to believe they could attempt to remove the president on the basis of
information that is not available to the public.
The secrecy, decreed by House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Adam Schiff, has taken Republicans by surprise. Some are now speaking
out about it.
"Adam Schiff is running an impeachment inquiry
secretly, behind closed doors, and he's making up the rules as he goes
along," said Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe.
"These proceedings should be public," added
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. "Democrats are trying to remove the president
13 months before an election based on an anonymous whistleblower ... and
they're doing it all in a closed-door process."
"This is nothing more or less than a show trial for
the media," said Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the
Intelligence Committee, noting that with secrecy rules in place, the public
knows only what is leaked to the press. "The Democrats leak what they want
to leak to build narratives."
Of course, that is not how Democrats would describe it.
For his part, Schiff has said that secrecy is needed to protect the identity of
the CIA whistleblower who started the entire process. "The whistleblower
has the right in the statute to remain anonymous," Schiff said recently,
referring to the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which
lays out the process through which intelligence community whistleblowers can
file complaints.
In fact, the law says: "The inspector general shall
not disclose the identity of the employee without the consent of the employee,
unless the inspector general determines that such disclosure is unavoidable during
the course of the investigation."
First, the inspector general is the only official
specifically prohibited from disclosing the identity. And second, even if the
statute's use of "investigation" refers to the inspector general's
probe, the fact is, the whistleblower is now part of an impeachment proceeding.
Disclosure is, in fact, unavoidable; Democrats cannot keep entire hearings
secret, keep vital information away from the American people, in the name of
preserving the anonymity of a whistleblower.
Yet that appears to be what Schiff and his Democratic
colleagues are doing. This week the U.S. ambassador to the European Union,
Gordon Sondland, was scheduled to be interviewed, but the State Department
nixed his appearance at the last minute. That session was set to be held behind
closed doors. Also this week, lawmakers will interview former U.S. ambassador
to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich -- behind closed doors. Republicans can complain,
but Democrats, in firm control of the House, can do as they like. (An inquiry
to Schiff's office went unanswered.)
The Democratic drive to impeach President Trump over
Ukraine is the first impeachment proceeding solely about foreign policy. The
exercise of foreign policy sometimes involves secrecy. The imposition of
secrecy was an enormous problem in public understanding of the Trump-Russia
affair, which ended with the special counsel unable to establish that there had
been any conspiracy or coordination involving Russia and the Trump 2016
campaign. In that investigation, the public would have been better served by
more disclosure, more quickly.
Now, the American people deserve to know precisely why
one party in the House proposes to remove the president. They deserve to know
the facts behind the Ukraine matter. It is simply inconceivable that a party
could seek to remove a president but say to the American people, in essence,
"Trust us, we've got good reason."
The impeachment proceedings should be opened up -- now.
Byron York is chief political correspondent
for The Washington Examiner.
