The Instant Expert Kit - Impeachment
Published 18 December 1998
The "I" word? Sounds like it's getting serious . . .
It certainly is. No US president has actually been impeached since 1868.
So Clinton could be removed from office soon?
No. Strictly speaking, impeachment is just a formal reading of charges by the legislature (parliament or Congress). This is the stage that is now underway. A trial follows impeachment, and the punishment, if Clinton is convicted, might include being stripped of rank.
Will he be impeached, then?
Probably. The 435-seat House of Representatives (the "lower house" of Congress) has the right to bring charges and only needs a 50 per cent vote to impeach. The 100-seat Senate (the "upper house") needs a two-thirds majority to convict. The House has a Republican majority (just), so they can impeach; the Democrats have 45 seats in the Senate, so a conviction is almost impossible. The key point is that politics in the US is often far less partisan than in Europe, so it is more difficult to predict votes.
Why are they doing this?
What's what many in the US are wondering. Clinton has been forgiven by the voters. The problem is that Clinton has committed perjury, lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky (the two most convincing of the four impeachment charges relate to this). The question in Washington is: is that impeachable, and if not, what is the institution of impeachment for? The constitution was written to prevent the executive (president or monarch) gaining and abusing power as happened so often in other nations in the 1780s. This was emulated in many other countries when the US was seen as a new model state (which is why there are lots of impeachment stories from South America). Congress is allowed to impeach (a term taken from 14th-century English law) and convict the president for treason, bribery and "high crimes and misdemeanours".
But no one actually knows what that means, right?
Exactly. The few presidential precedents there are make Clinton look pretty clean. Andrew Johnson (also a Southern Democrat, who became president after Abraham Lincoln's assassination) unlawfully sacked his war secretary in order to prevent pro-black legislation being proposed. He was impeached in days - his (unpleasant) private life was irrelevant - but even he was not convicted by the Senate, escaping by the margin of a single vote. Richard Nixon was another case. His guilt was never confirmed, but on the day he resigned, over 90 senators were ready to convict and people outside the White House were singing "Jail to the chief . . ."
Is lying under oath about your adultery impeachable?
The Founding Fathers didn't tell us.
Duncan Parrish
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