Home of the Jim Heath Channel and Fact News

President Trump, more unhinged on Twitter than ever, today said he would turn to the Supreme Court if the House moves to impeach him, though it is unclear what role the nation’s highest court could play if Trump were to seek its help in such a situation.

Trump claimed in a series of tweets this morning that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was written by a team biased against him with “unlimited money” for an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Still, he said, the report “didn’t lay a glove on me.”

Although Trump claimed he would seek the Supreme Court’s help if the House were to impeach him, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1993 that authority for impeachment trials resides in Congress and ”nowhere else.”

A number of congressional Democrats have called for the initiation of impeachment proceedings against the president after a redacted version of Mueller’s report was released to the public Thursday.

The special counsel’s probe found proof of Russian meddling in the 2016 election but did not establish evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Mueller also did not take a stance on whether the president obstructed justice, but detailed 10 episodes in which Trump tried to interfere with the Russia investigation.

He wrote that Congress has the authority to conduct its own probes into the president’s actions, a passage fueling much of lawmakers’ conversation about impeachment.

The power of impeachment belongs to Congress and proceedings must be launched in the House, according to the U.S. Constitution.

If representatives vote to impeach, the case is tried in the Senate, where the votes of two-thirds of the members present is required to remove an individual from office.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution lays out the grounds for removal from office as: “Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

The Constitution mandates that the chief justice preside over the Senate impeachment trial of a president.

Two sitting U.S. presidents — Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton — have been impeached by the House.

Both were subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

Former President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 after the House Judiciary Committee adopted articles of impeachment against him, which argued that he “prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice” by interfering in the Watergate investigation.

Pin It on Pinterest

Shares
Share This