Constitutional experts demolish Trump's threat to have Supreme Court to block his impeachment

[riversedge]

Source: rawstory


24 Apr 2019 at 11:06 ET





On Wednesday, law professors Joshua Matz and Laurence Tribe explained, in an excerpt from their upcoming book, why President Donald Trump’s new threat to lean on the Supreme Court to block potential impeachment proceedings is completely meritless — and why the system was set up explicitly so that a president cannot do that.

“Convinced that the House would uncontrollably boil over with irrational fury, the Framers generally agreed that it couldn’t have the final say on ending presidencies,” wrote Matz and Tribe, and so they needed to create a trial system to rule on the impeachment. They did consider using the federal judiciary, Matz and Tribe noted, and several other countries do use their judicial branch to try impeachments, including Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Djibouti, France, Mali, South Korea, and Venezuela — as well as three U.S. states for impeachment proceedings against their governors.


But ultimately, they said, “a majority of the Framers … voted against relying on the judiciary” and instead chose to hold impeachment trials in the Senate. And, they note, there are four main reasons they did this.

First, the federal courts could be filled by the president’s own appointees, whereas a Senate trial would have no such conflict of interest. Second, if a president was convicted and removed, then indicted criminally for the impeachable conduct, the same court might try the president twice. Third, because the Supreme Court is smaller than the Senate, it would potentially be easier to corrupt or buy off a majority of justices than senators. And fourth, the founders were still shaky on the idea of the Supreme Court as a co-equal branch of government and feared it might not develop the legitimacy to manage such a proceeding.

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Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/constitutional-experts-demolish-trumps-threat-supreme-court-block-impeachment/

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Long story short---The SC is unlikely to step in in help Trump (but, one never knows when it is controlled by trumpies)

Link to tweet

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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/nitwit-former-nixon-white-house-counsel-slams-trump-not-knowing-impeachment-works/






President Donald Trump in the Oval Office (screengrab)

[msongs]

1. analysis and opinion nt

[PoliticAverse]

2. The Supreme Court has already weighed in on the issue...

Nixon v. United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_v._United_States

A review of the Constitutional Convention's history and the contemporary commentary supports a reading of the constitutional language as deliberately placing the impeachment power in the Legislature, with no judicial involvement, even for the limited purpose of judicial review.

[madaboutharry]

3. "Troubling when the POTUS is a NITWIT"

Love John Dean.

[patricia92243]

4. I don't understand. He knows the GOP senate will not vote for impeachment

so why would he think he would even need the SCOTUS

[PoliticAverse]

5. He throws out things like this to distract/troll democrats. n/t

[dragonlady]

6. Maybe his infractions are so terrible and/or numerous

that they will persuade enough Republican senators to vote to remove him.

[ChiTownDenny]

8. Ha! Good one.

[JohnnyRingo]

7. VP Pence is president of the Senate.

Obviously, having him preside over the trial would cause a conflict of interest. That must be why the Supreme Court Chief Justice takes on that role. Taking an impeachment decision to the highest court would mean John Roberts would just have to hear the case again. Clearly, he's not about to overrule his own decision.