It’s really not that complicated. In explaining the Founder’s deliberations on Impeachment, Alexander Hamilton wrote that Impeachable offenses “…proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. “(Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 65.).
The deliberations that took place in Philadelphia during the Summer of 1787 involved the most esteemed delegates to the Constitutional Convention (aka founding fathers) – Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Elbridge Gerry, James Wilson, Edmund Randolph, and George Mason. They worked hard to craft an impeachment provision (high crimes and misdemeanors) that would collectively reflect an abuse of power (“misuse of official powers”; “neglect of duty”; “maladministration or corruption”; “malpractice or neglect of duty”. The Founders saw to it that such abuses of power would be labeled as high crimes and misdemeanors, which was consistent with traditional terminology in English law and were included in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment. But they also included as impeachable offenses two wrongdoings had traditionally been considered crimes against the state: treason and bribery.
The handful of successful impeachment cases against Federal judges suggests that impeachment has been most often directed against individuals whose behavior was considered contrary to generally accepted public values and expectations, including using their position for financial gain, showing overt favoritism to litigants, income tax evasion, disclosing confidential information, unlawfully charging people with contempt of court, filing false expense reports, and habitual drunkenness. With the exception of the latter, a national consensus is now emerging that the current President has committed acts for which others before him (federal judges) have been impeached and removed from office.
Many who are offended by the current president’s action are concerned that his transgressions do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. In their continuing search for legal sufficiency, they would do well to reflect on the words of Hamilton, who wrote in Federalist 65 that:
“…impeachable offenses were “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men; they are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done to the society itself.”
Impeachable offenses cause no legal sanctions to be administered to those that commit them. Nor do they confer any legal remedies to those who may have been wronged. However, if a president is believed by the people’s representatives in Congress to have committed any offense that was thought to betray the public trust, the Congress must be empowered to take corrective political action. Thus, impeachment as a political act must be so determinative as to require both a majority of the people’s representatives in the House to officially accuse the President of betraying the public trust and 2/3rds of those present in the Senate (which officially represented the states) to convict.
While the country has struggled to precisely define the nature of an impeachable act, President Trump has perhaps unwittingly solved this problem by “running the table”. After the first round of the Impeachment hearings, it is quite plausible the President may be guilty of Treason, Bribery and Other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Witnesses testifying at the recent hearings of the House Impeachment Committee made it clear that President Trump conditioned the release of congressionally approved funding for Ukraine security (a public act) on the initiation of a corruption investigation against his chief political rival (a private benefit). The net result of all this was to threaten to deprive the Ukraine (a US ally) of weapons urgently needed for its ongoing military defense against an aggressive Russia (a US adversary), and to make it clear that funding for the needed military assistance (the quid) would be made available only if Ukrainian President Zelensky complied with the President’s request for a “favor” (the quo). At the end of those hearings, Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff, leading Democrats, most of the media appear, and at least half of the country appear to have deemed it legitimate to describe the President’s efforts to persuade President Zelensky as bribery.
What should give the Congress pause and what should concern the country is not whether the President has crossed the technical/legal threshold of bribery. What should concern the nation is whether his actions provide aid and comfort to an adversarial nation. If so, it comes very close to treason. This should be our collective concern.
Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution, and both the definition of and conditions for finding a person guilty are set forth in the Article III provisions of judicial power. While case law and precedent in the area of treason is very limited and very old (most cases occurred in the 19th Century and earlier, and all occur in an environment of military hostility) the Constitutional criteria for treason includes giving aid and comfort to the adversary. Current US policy clearly considers Russia an adversary and the Ukraine an ally.
If it is found that the President engaged in bribery through policy and practices that provided an advantage to our adversary (Russia) and a clear disadvantage to our ally (The Ukraine), then the President must provide a compelling explanation of why his policy, is not, ipso facto, an act of treason.
For the past three years, the country has engaged the President in a political dance of the seven veils. What is behind the veil? The washingoto post recently editorialized on how difficult it was to contemplate a charge oof bribery – and yet, here we are. Contemplating treason is certain to be equally difficult. But I afraid it will be just as certain.
Merely to reflect on treason and bribery should give us pause. No president has ever been even accused of these heinous offences against the public trust. However, that is not a reason to shirk from our responsibility. It should serve to unite all Americans in an effort to fulfil the Founders intention to provide the new nation with the tools to purge injuries to the public trust from our national consciousness. This ability to self-correct, after all, is the very essence of American Exceptionalism. So, it is really not that complicated, but may be very hard to accept.