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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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The impeachment procedure is remediation as a means to remove someone from office based on bad behavior. The basis of high crimes and misdemeanors would imply it being criminal, and properly as I recall it Clinton was impeached for lying to Congress about a BJ which would fall under perjury. If Trump was charged every time he lied we would never have done anything else during his term...
None of that shields someone from actual criminal charges though. There was this thought that 'if the president does it then it's by default lawful' but if that actually stood as a precident all it takes is one unhinged person getting into office and the whole idea of having checks and balances is out the window. You couldn't sanction anyone for any behavior that the president had engaged in thereafter. In practice you have an emperor with the Congress being nothing more than a token body.
That’s an incorrect reading of that phrase. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is a particular term of art that means pretty much the same thing as “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” It means someone holding office who, by virtue of using the powers of that office, abused those powers in a particularly impactful way. It doesn’t necessarily mean the violation of a specific law, although it could obviously include that. There’s obviously legal precedent that provides additional context, but as formulated at the time it was written it basically means “abuse of power.”
I expect so since I'm no lawyer, makes me kind of curious what the most mundane reason any of our relatively few impeachments where for. Even the first of Trump's I don't know would truly fit an existing criminal law without some work, more just acting like a tool against the interests of the nation.