HARVARD Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said that a post-presidential impeachment wouldn’t work and goes against the Constitution, after House Democrats voted to impeach the president last week.
“It will be unconstitutional, but that probably won’t bother the senators,” Prof Dershowitz told the US’s Fox News on the weekend.
“The Constitution is very clear. The subject, the object, the purpose of impeachment is to remove a sitting president. And there are two precedents. One is very obvious. When President Nixon resigned in anticipation of being impeached and removed, there was no effort to impeach him after he left office.”
- Outgoing President Trump charged by US House members after speaking to supporters.
- Sole purpose of impeachment is to remove a sitting president.
- US Senate members warned not to proceed with 'unconstitutional' trial.
Former President Richard Nixon opted to resign instead of facing the possibility of a Senate trial in the early 1970s.
“It was clear that the Senate had lost jurisdiction at that point,” he said of the Nixon impeachment.
“The proponents cite another precedent. In 1876, there was a failed effort, a failed effort to remove the secretary of war. In an initial vote, the Senate voted close, in a close vote, that they did have jurisdiction to try somebody who had resigned.”
House Democrats and 10 Republicans impeached Trump for a second time, making Trump the first president in US history to be impeached twice. No president has ever been convicted in the Senate.
Last week’s impeachment was based on a speech that Trump gave to supporters as a small group breached the US Capitol building on January 6, forcing lawmakers to flee to secure areas.
Several people died at the protest, according to law enforcement officials, while more than 100 rioters involved in the breach have since been arrested.
“There is no jurisdiction. You cannot put citizen Trump on trial. If you could do that, it would be a bill of attainder, number one, putting somebody on trial who was not a sitting president,” Prof Dershowitz said, adding that the “implications would be horrendous”.
POWER
“It would mean that if the Republicans came up with a terrific candidate, say, not Donald Trump, to run against President Biden in 2024, the Democrats could simply impeach him,” he remarked.
“If you can impeach anyone who is not a sitting president, there are no limits to the power of the Congress to try ordinary citizens. It is plainly unconstitutional. And the Senate should not proceed with this unconstitutional act.”
Prof Dershowitz, a self-proclaimed Democratic Party supporter, defended Trump during his Senate impeachment trial in 2020.
A spokesperson for Trump said Saturday that it hasn’t been decided who will represent Trump during the impeachment trial.
“President Trump has not yet made a determination as to which lawyer or law firm will represent him for the disgraceful attack on our Constitution and democracy, known as the ‘impeachment hoax,’” Trump campaign spokesperson J Hogan Gidley said in a statement early Sunday. “We will keep you informed,” he added.
What’s more, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to say when she would transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate.PC
Bring it on! Donald Trump has evidence that Antifa activists did the false flag and should be able to subpoena those that gave the orders to let them in. As defence has the right to bring out whatever evidence they have in their defence, the truth will have its day in court. As for inciting violence, there is absolutely NO evidence that anything he said was incendiary. As the proceedings will be broadcast live, the baying hounds of mainstream media will get egg on their face. As they will cut off transmission when it becomes clear that Trump has trumped them, it will show their hand. THIS will be the time for the Patriots to go out to tell the People of the treachery from mainstream media and the Democrats.
At the end of the day, it is the People that control freedom v slavery.
Constitutionally, of course they cannot impeach ordinary citizen Trump! What a galling disappointment to the phalanx of venomous haters!