How Can the Senate Remove a “Former” POTUS From Office?

This impeachment fiasco gets more bizarre daily. And I’m still stuck on how the House of Representatives decided to impeach President Trump for the second time in a year, especially when he was set to leave office on January 20th. Even more bizarre than the impeachment itself is that House Democrats did not call one witness nor enter one piece of evidence during President Trump’s trial!

Put those two mysteries in a basket of Adam S—! Never before in history has any American president been treated so cavalierly, so cretin, and so unjustly by ANY Congress. History books (unless Democrats or their media henchman rewrite the history of Trump) will certainly NOT be kind to Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Swalwell, Chuck Schumer, and even Mitch McConnell.

Before we wade into the pending fake trial in the Senate, get a load of what the Senate did on Tuesday — even before a trial took place.

On Tuesday, Senator Rand Paul entered a motion to cancel holding the trial based on the fact that there are not enough Senators who support a conviction sufficient to meet the two-thirds necessary. Paul’s premise was that it would be unconstitutional to impeach a former president. All but five GOP senators sided with an effort proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), sending a signal that there are not enough votes to convict Trump. Convicting a president during a Senate impeachment trial requires a two-thirds majority.

Republican Sens. Mitt Romney (UT), Ben Sasse (NB), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Pat Toomey (PA) voted with Democrats to reject Paul’s order, suggesting the five senators will vote to convict Trump. Romney was the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump during his first impeachment trial in early 2020.

The Senate ultimately voted 55–45 to table Paul’s point of order, meaning that the impeachment trial will go forward.

This is simply CRAZY! And this brings to the table an issue that MUST be resolved and resolved immediately. Does the U.S. Constitution allow the U.S. Senate to “convict and remove” a “former” President even though Article 2 states the Senate’s power is to remove a “sitting” President?

Hmmm…

A former federal judge insists that the U.S. Senate has no constitutional authority to try to impeach President Trump after he leaves office and becomes a private citizen, in what appears to be a common-sense reading of the U.S. Constitution.

In the aftermath of the U.S. Capitol riot, the Democrat-controlled U.S. House passed one impeachment article against President Trump before Trump’s term in office expired. An impeachment trial in the upper chamber was not scheduled nor occurred before Mr. Trump’s leaving office. Can there be such a trial now?

Given the current timetable, according to ex-U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig who also worked in the Reagan and G.W. Bush administrations, the effort might amount to perhaps just political theater.

“Once Trump’s term ended on Jan. 20, Congress lost its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even though the House had already approved an article of impeachment,” Luttig wrote. “Therefore, even though the House of Representatives impeached the president before he left office, the Senate cannot thereafter convict the former president and disqualify him under the Constitution from future public office.”

“The reason for this is found in the Constitution itself. Trump is no longer an incumbent in the Office of the President at the time of a delayed Senate proceeding and would no longer be subject to ‘impeachment conviction’ by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president,” Luttig asserted, citing Article 1, Section 3, and Article II, Section 4, of the founding document.

If he were to be convicted in the Senate, Trump would be disqualified from running in 2024, which may be the end-game for the Democrats and the Never-Trump Republicans.

If the dispute over the Senate’s impeachment jurisdiction winds up in court, “It is improbable the Supreme Court will yield to Congress’s view that it has the power to impeach a president who is no longer in office when the Constitution itself is so clear that it does not,” Luttig concluded.

Luttig was a judge on the Richmond, VA -based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006 and later became general counsel for Boeing.

But There’s More…

Harvard Law professor emeritus and lifelong Democrat Alan Dershowitz also contends that the Senate lacks the legal authority to move ahead. He spoke to Maria Bartiromo of FOX News about the Trump impeachment matter before the House actually impeached the President, knowing there was little time for the Senate to act before noon on January 20 — when Trump’s term expired.

“But the case cannot come for trial in the Senate because the Senate has rules, and the rules would not allow the case to come to trial until – according to the majority leader – until 1 p.m. on Jan. 20, an hour after President Trump leaves office,” he told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo.

“And the Constitution specifically says, ‘The President shall be removed from office upon impeachment.’ It doesn’t say the former president. Congress has no power to impeach or try a private citizen, whether it be a private citizen named Donald Trump or named Barack Obama, or anyone else. The jurisdiction is limited to a sitting president, and so there won’t be a trial.”

“What I worry about deeply is the impact of impeachment on the First Amendment,” Dershowitz continued, citing the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio and noting that Trump’s speech is constitutionally protected.

The words spoken by the president as he addressed the thousands of supporters gathered to support him “comes within core political speech, and to impeach a president for having exercised his First Amendment rights would be so dangerous to the Constitution,” the law professor told Bartiromo, noting he personally disapproved of the president’s remarks.

“It would lie around like a loaded weapon ready to be used by either party against the other party,” he said, “and that’s not what impeachment or the 25th Amendment were intended to be.”

Guilt by association has never been part of the American tradition, at least prior to the onset of Trump derangement syndrome.

“Many Democrats, including members of Congress, refused to accept Trump as the legitimate president when he was elected and refused to do so as rioting broke out at the inauguration.  Many of the same members have used the same rhetoric to ‘take back the country’ and ‘fight for the country.’ The concern is that this impeachment will not only create a precedent for an expedited pathway of ‘snap impeachments’ but allow future Congresses to impeach presidents for actions of their supporters,” George Washington University law professor and self-described liberal Jonathan Turley warned.

Why not turn to someone who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard University who really knows how the Constitution addresses such issues: Alan Dershowitz. (click on the link to hear the audio from that interview)  Alan Dershowitz on Impeachment Trial

 

Summary

Let’s face facts: After hearing from several Constitutional experts, it is evident that the Democrats rush to impeach Donald Trump and then, to break Constitutional specifics and historical precedent, push to hold a trial of Donald Trump AFTER he left office can be for one purpose only: Democrats are deathly afraid that without THEIR reaching some type of conviction which they can use to attempt to disqualify him from future federal service. They are petrified of Donald Trump!

Why could that be? It’s simple: Democrats entered the November 3rd election feeling Americans shared their hatred for Donald Trump and would send him packing. That’s not what happened. Even if one believes that Joe Biden DID legally win the election, Democrats know that margin was slippery-slim.

But what they saw that horrifies them daily is that Americans trusted Trump, even in the face of the Democrats’ incessant blathering allegation after allegation of Trump’s wrongdoing to diminish his standing in the eyes of Americans!

They failed.

Impeachment with expulsion was their “hail mary” attempt to salvage their crumbling party.

What will they try next? Remember: TruthNewsNetwork predicted before Trump’s first impeachment that they WOULD impeach Trump. When the Senate failed to convict and remove Trump in that trial, we told you Democrats would attempt a second impeachment, even if Trump won reelection. Sadly, we were correct both times.

What will happen now? “If” the Senate actually holds a “monkey trial” in a futile attempt to send Trump “permanent-packing,” it will fail. And even if somehow they find more Republicans who will join Republicans Senators Pat Toomey, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Ben Sasse to vote their way, it will be a dismal failure for Democrats and those Republicans.

Meanwhile, former President Trump lives in MarLago, plays golf, meets with fellow conservatives, assists his children in running the Trump Empire, and plots his future in politics — in Washington D.C.!