Impeach (pronounced im-peech)
(1) To accuse (a public official) before an appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office.
(2) In law, as “to impeach a witness”; to demonstrate in court that a testimony under oath contradicts another testimony from the same person, usually one taken during deposition.
(3) To bring an accusation against; to call in question; cast an imputation upon:
(4) In British criminal law, to accuse of a crime, especially of treason or some other offence against the state
(5) In the US and some other jurisdictions, to charge (a public official) with an offence committed in office.
(6) To hinder, impede, or prevent (archaic).
(7) To call to account (now rare).
1350–1400: From the Middle English empechen & enpeshen, from the Anglo-French empecher (to hinder) from the Old French empeechier from the Late Latin impedicāre (to fetter, trap, entangle or catch), the construct being im- + pedic(a) (a fetter (derivative of pēs (foot))) + -ā- (a thematic vowel) + -re (the Latin infinitive suffix) and cognate with French empêcher (to prevent); The most usual Latin forms were impedicō & impedicāre. Impeach is a verb, impeachment & impeachability & are nouns, impeaching & impeached are verbs and impeachable & impeachmentworthy are adjectives (although not all authorities acknowledge the latter as a standard form); the noun plural is impeachments.
An English import the Americans made their own
Although most associated with the US where the constitution permits the House of Representatives to impeach government officials (most notably the president) and send them for trial in the Senate, the concept of impeachment is a borrowing from the procedures of the UK Parliament. Always a rare mechanism, impeachment was first used in England in 1376 with the last UK case in 1806 and while technically extant, is probably obsolete although it’s not unknown for relics of the UK’s long legal past occasionally to be resuscitated. What is more likely is that matters once dealt with by impeachment would now be brought before a court although most historians and constitutional lawyers seem to believe it remains part of UK constitutional law and abolition would demand legislation. That was exactly what select committees recommended in 1967 and again ten years later but nothing was done and despite the New Labour government (1997-2010) imposing some quite radical structural changes on the legal system, the mechanism of impeachment remained untouched. In September 2019, it was reported that opposition politicians in the House of Commons were considering impeachment proceedings against Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) "on charges of gross misconduct in relation to the unlawful prorogation of parliament", as well as his threat to break the law by failing to comply with the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (which required the prime-minister in certain circumstances to seek an extension to the Brexit withdrawal date of 31 October 2019). Mr Johnson survived that one though it proved a temporary reprieve for his premiership.
Although
the Sturm und Drang of Donald Trump’s
(b 1946; US president 2017-2021) unprecedented two impeachments was
entertaining for political junkies, as a spectacle the two trials were muted
affairs because the verdicts were both predictable. Under the US Constitution, the House of
Representatives has the “sole Power of Impeachment” (essentially a form of
indictment in other proceedings) while the Senate is vested with “the sole Power to try all Impeachments”. An act of impeachment requires only a majority
vote on the floor of a House but conviction in the Senate demand “the concurrence of two thirds of the members
present”. Given the numbers and the state
of partisan which these days characterizes the two-party system, nobody in
Washington DC believed there was even a vague prospect of Mr Trump being
convicted. Still, the dreary, confected,
set-piece speeches on both sides were like slabs of raw meat thrown to the attack
dogs watching Fox News and NBC so in that sense it was a kind of substitute for
what the Founding Fathers might have hoped would have been the standard of
debate in the Congress, 250-odd years on. In an ominous sign, the Republicans have since made attempts to stage a retaliatory impeachment trial of
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.
The
best impeachment in the US was the one which never was, the one Richard Nixon
(1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) avoided by resigning the presidency on 9
August 1974. That an impeachment became
inevitable was Nixon’s own fault. The
evidence of those acts of Nixon which met the standard of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” existed
only on the tapes which came to the knowledge of those investigating the White
House’s involvement in the Watergate affair only through a chance remark by an
aide; prior to that the existence of the president’s recording mechanism had
been restricted to a small circle around Nixon.
There was a wealth of other material which hinted or suggested there may
have been unlawful acts by Nixon but what was lacking was what came to be
called the “smoking gun”, the undeniable proof.
That proof was on the tapes and as soon as knowledge of them became
public, Nixon should have destroyed them and the ways and means existed close
to home. Even in oppressively hot
Washington summers, Nixon would have the air-conditioning turned high to
provide a wintery ambiance and have a log fire burning in the fireplace, close
to which he would sit while writing his noted on yellow legal pads; it was a
lifelong habit.
The
tapes should have been tossed into that fire and that would have solved the
problem, a smoking tape no smoking gun.
It would of course have created other problems but they were political
and could be handled in a way legal difficulties could not. However, as soon as the tapes were subpoenaed
they became evidence and their destruction would have been an obstruction of
justice or worse. Nixon had a narrow
window of opportunity and didn’t take it, apparently convinced the doctrine of executive
privilege would operate to ensure he wasn’t required to surrender the tapes to
the investigators although in some of his subsequent writings he also
maintained he genuinely believed they contained nothing which could cause him
problems. Given he genuinely would have
had no knowledge of what exactly was on the tapes, that is at least plausible
but all the material since published suggests his opinion of the protection
executive privilege affords a president was the critical factor. As it was the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) limited
the application of the doctrine and compelled Nixon to hand over the tapes.
With the release of the “smoking gun tape” which contained recordings proving Nixon was implicated in the cover-up of the involvement in the Watergate break-in by staff connected to the White House, his support in the Congress collapsed and those Republican representatives who previously had refused to vote for impeachment switched sides and the same day, after sounding out the numbers in the Senate, a delegation of senior Republican senators told the president he would be convicted and by a decisive margin. What was revealed on the tapes was enough to seal his fate but the verdict of history might have been worse still because To this day, mystery surrounds one tape in particular, a recording of a discussion between Nixon and HR Haldeman (1926–1993; White House chief of staff 1969-1973) on 20 June 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in. Of obviously great interest, when reviewed, there was found to be a gap of 18½ minutes, the explanations offered of how, why or by whom the erasure was effected ranging from the humorously accidental to the darkly conspiratorial but half a century on, it remains a mystery. Taking advantage of new data-recovery technology, the US government did in subsequent decades make several attempts to “un-delete” the gap but without success and it may be, given the nature of magnetic tape, that there is literally nothing left to find. However, the tape is stored in a secure, climate-controlled facility in case technical means emerge and while it’s unlikely the contents would reveal anything not already known or assumed, it would be of great interest to historians. What would be even more interesting is the identity of who it was that erased the famous 18½ minutes but that will likely never be known; after fifty years, it’s thought that were there to be any death-bed confessions, they should by now have been heard. Some have their lists of names of those who might have "pressed the erase button" and while mostly sub-sets of Watergate's "usual suspects", one who tends not to appear is Nixon himself, the usual consensus being he was technically too inept to operate a tape machine though it's not impossible he ordered someone to do the deed. However it happened, the suspects most often mentioned as having had their "finger on the button" (which may have been a foot-pedal) are Nixon's secretary and his chief of staff.
To leave office before
my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as
President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time
President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we
face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my
personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both
the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on
the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.
Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice
President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
Herblock's (Herbert Block; 1909–2001) Watergate affair-era take on Richard Nixon's then novel position on the presidency and the US Constitution, Washington Post, 13 March 1974. The cartoon has been noted by some in the light of Donald Trump's comments about the extent of presidential immunity.
No comments:
Post a Comment