IMPEACHMENT IGNORANCE

Sometimes smart people say dumb things.

Want proof?  Here is the beginning of celebrated scholar/legal mind/constitutionalist Lawrence Tribe’s article for Washington Post:

The time has come for Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice.

The remedy of impeachment was designed to create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It operates by removing executive-branch officials who have so abused power through what the framers called “high crimes and misdemeanors” that they cannot be trusted to continue in office.

No American president has ever been removed for such abuses, although Andrew Johnson was impeached and came within a single vote of being convicted by the Senate and removed, and Richard Nixon resigned to avoid that fate.

Now the country is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of government.

Ample reasons existed to worry about this president, and to ponder the extraordinary remedy of impeachment, even before he fired FBI Director James Comey and shockingly admitted on national television that the action was provoked by the FBI’s intensifying investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia.

Nice history lesson, Professor Tribe.  And a great line about the “intensifying investigation” – in which the only actual intensification is your fellow Democrats’ increasingly desperate calls to keep trying to make something of an accusation which, after over a half year, still has exactly no evidence to back it up.

But let’s forget about that.  Instead, let’s remind ourselves of how impeachment is accomplished and see what its prospects are.

In order for an impeachment, and then conviction/removal from office, to take place:

-a simple majority of the House of Representatives must vote in to impeach,

-and then, after a trial in the U. S. Senate, two-thirds of the senators must vote to convict.

So who would be doing the voting?

Well, the last time I checked (five minutes ago), the current House of Representatives is comprised of 238 Republicans and 193 Democrats.  Therefore, in order to impeach, every Democrat must vote in favor, and 23 Republicans must join them.

That has about as much chance of happening as Bernie Sanders getting a fair shake if he challenges Hillary Clinton in presidential primaries.

But, just for fun, let’s suppose that impeachment did take place – accompanied, no doubt, by herds of unicorns, Santa Claus, Paul Bunyan and Waldo.  (Hey, if a Republican majority house would vote to impeach the Republican President, who’s to say they wouldn’t show up too?).  Then what would be needed to convict?

Well, since the U.S. Senate is currently comprised of 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats, every Democrat would have to vote in favor of conviction…and be joined by 15 of the 52 Republicans – about 29% OF ALL Republican Senators voting against their own party.

Hmmm.  That actually makes the likelihood of impeachment by the house look good by comparison.

So go get ’em, Mr. Tribe.  Continue to advocate for impeachment.  I’m sure it will be no problem at all…

…provided you can find a way of restricting the vote to, say, New York, Massachusetts and California, that is.

Too bad about the other 47 states, though.