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.”
The Mueller Report, despite being written by Angry Democrats and Trump Haters, and with unlimited money behind it ($35,000,000), didn’t lay a glove on me. I DID NOTHING WRONG. If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2019
…..are there no “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” there are no Crimes by me at all. All of the Crimes were committed by Crooked Hillary, the Dems, the DNC and Dirty Cops – and we caught them in the act! We waited for Mueller and WON, so now the Dems look to Congress as last hope!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2019
No Collusion, No Obstruction – there has NEVER been a President who has been more transparent. Millions of pages of documents were given to the Mueller Angry Dems, plus I allowed everyone to testify, including W.H. counsel. I didn’t have to do this, but now they want more…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2019
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.