Yoni Applebaum (The Atlantic)Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs.
Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia
As a House Judiciary Committee staff report put it in 1974, in the midst of the Watergate investigation: “The purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment; its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government.” Impeachable offenses, it found, included “undermining the integrity of office, disregard of constitutional duties and oath of office, arrogation of power, abuse of the governmental process, adverse impact on the system of government.” ❧
January 18, 2019 at 07:36PM
The question of whether impeachment is justified should not be confused with the question of whether it is likely to succeed in removing a president from office. ❧
January 18, 2019 at 07:41PM
Here is how impeachment would work in practice. ❧
January 18, 2019 at 08:01PM
The Nixon impeachment spurred Charles L. Black, a Yale law professor, to write Impeachment: A Handbook, a slender volume that remains a defining work on the question. ❧
January 18, 2019 at 08:07PM
In fact, the Nixon impeachment left Weld with a renewed faith in the American system of government: “The wheels may grind slowly,” he later reflected, “but they grind pretty well.” ❧
January 18, 2019 at 08:12PM