“High Crimes and Misdemeanors”

 

Free Republic

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

The U.S. Constitution provides impeachment as the method for removing the president, vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials from office. The impeachment process begins in the House of Representatives and follows these steps: 1.The House Judiciary Committee holds hearings and, if necessary, prepares articles of impeachment. These are the charges against the official. 2.If a majority of the committee votes to approve the articles, the whole House debates and votes on them. 3.If a majority of the House votes to impeach the official on any article, then the official must then stand trial in the Senate. 4.For the official to be removed from office, two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict the official. Upon conviction, the official is automatically removed from office and, if the Senate so decides, may be forbidden from holding governmental office again.

The impeachment process is political in nature, not criminal. Congress has no power to impose criminal penalties on impeached officials. But criminal courts may try and punish officials if they have committed crimes.

The Constitution sets specific grounds for impeachment. They are “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” To be impeached and removed from office, the House and Senate must find that the official committed one of these acts.

DEVELOPING: Here Are the Articles of Impeachment That Have Been Sent to Congress

Conservative Tribune

Constitutional lawyer Michael Connelly has drawn up Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama in order to send them to Congress.

The document was drawn up in accordance with Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution.

That section states, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

It should be noted here that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” could refer to almost any significant breach of public trust, according to many constitutional scholars.

And there can be little doubt that Obama has violated the public trust on multiple occasions, so much so that the majority of Americans agree that he regularly lies to the American people about “important” issues.

Peter H. Schuck: Yes, Congress can impeach Obama

Free Republic

Now that President Barack Obama has granted legal relief to as many as 5 million unauthorized immigrants, Republicans are thrashing about for an effective response. Only a few hard-liners are talking about impeachment now, but more could join them out of frustration with their other options.

Many people in both parties have tried to quell such talk by saying the president is within his powers to issue the order. The problem is the pro-impeachment Republicans are right: There is a plausible case for taking that step.

By constitutional design, impeachment for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” is a political accusation and initiates a political remedy, not a legal one. It is pretty much up to Congress to define and apply “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and no court would second-guess it. The next Congress could find that the president had violated his oath to “faithfully execute” the laws by refusing to enforce important provisions of the Affordable Care Act, No Child Left Behind and, now, the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The president surely has some power to withhold prosecution, but granting legal status and work permits to millions of people most likely exceeds his discretion. No judge can decide the precise scope of his discretion because no one, including Congress, has legal standing to challenge his order in court.

Of course, many lawyers at the Justice Department and elsewhere disagree, noting that prosecutorial discretion is pervasive, that there isn’t enough money to prosecute all violators, that the president will continue to prosecute criminals and illegal border crossers, and that earlier presidents have done the same thing. These are serious arguments. But as an immigration and administrative law teacher who strongly favors more legal immigration and even broader legislative relief than Obama’s order grants….

(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com …

Dereliction of duty: Obama skipped nearly 60 percent of intelligence briefings

Family Security Matters

by LTC ALLEN WEST (US ARMY RET)

It’s called dereliction of duty when one knowingly dismisses the faithful execution of his or her prescribed duties in fulfilling their responsibility. I said so Monday evening with Greta von Susteren, and will continue to do so.

And if anything represents “high crimes and misdemeanors” it’s the dereliction of duty that has resulted in the deaths of Americans – by beheadings. Furthermore, it is a dereliction of duty that has placed the national security of the United States of America at risk.

 

As reported by Breitbart.com, “A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI)report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1 percent of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014. The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4 percent of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3 percent in his second.”

This isn’t some right-wing conspiracy, this is a report that can be cross-verified. What would shareholders or a Board of Directors do to a CEO who had attended 42.1 percent of the company economic outlook briefings and while the company’s stock was plummeting? Yep, I believe the shareholders would demand the firing of the CEO.

Obama Impeachment: GOP Faces Three HUGE Obstacles

The Daily Sheeple

EAR: GOP Very Afraid To Impeach Obama For 3 Reasons

I. Fraudulent And Forged Birth Certificate; Falsified Social Security Number: The GOP has a visceral fear of this truth tearing apart the Republic

The author has spoken to many politicos in and out of the Republican Party, disaffected Democrats, betrayed Independents, and politically nonaligned yet fully engaged folks. Particularly among the Republicans and Independents, there is a palpable fear at the prospect of impeaching Obama. They are quite literally afraid for the future of the Republic should Obama’s fake birth certificate go prime time.

Let’s face it, nothing even close has ever been perpetrated on the entire body politic. The GOP knows the seriousness of the numerous high crimes and misdemeanors (as well as felonies) which were committed — over many years — by many high-powered political operatives.  Not only would the Democratic Party be brought down by such exposure, the entire mainstream media (MSM) is deeply complicit in this multi-year crime spree against the American people.

(Updated) Why Progressives Will Underwrite Obama’s Impeachment

Rob Cunningham USA

Obama will NOT complete his 2nd term as President.

First, for Obama’s repeated lies, coverup and abandonment of two heroic Navy Seals, leaving both to die on the Benghazi battlefield on 9/11/2012, while the liberal media openly carried his YouTube video water for eight months. During last week’s House hearings, the mainstream media was shamed and embarrassed before the entire world, exposed as being lazy, partisan and incurious. The Obama-fawning media was highlighted as being unwilling to honestly report to their fellow citizens.

Secondly, the 60-day electronic DOJ surveillance blanket thrown over the Associated Press, monitoring 100 reporter’s work and personal phone calls, has and will continue to infuriate Obama’s liberal media base. This invasive crime against our freedom of the press is an illegal abuse of power that has blown a chilly wind up Obama’s cheerleader’s skirts. Now that the media’s ox has been gored, they are outraged.

Thirdly, the IRS’s (supposed) single Cincinnati villain targeted ALL Tea Party, pro-Constitution, limited government and pro-Israeli groups since 2010, using the most powerfully destruction agency of the federal government? One single progressive individual, one person, was empowered at the IRS to target every conservative, tax-exempt group in America? This coordinated abuse of power is far worse than the first article of impeachment against Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, one ironically drafted with Hillary Clinton’s help. Ah, the karma. This IRS scandal will greatly damage ObamaCare’s implementation in 2014 because citizens will never stand for criminally abusive IRS activists entering our homes and offices to gather personally invasive questions about our intimate health history, insurance premiums and policy coverages.  Any IRS “promise” to never share, leak or abuse our personal health information with any biased, political or destructive intent – the manner in which the IRS just abused conservatives simply for being conservative, will NEVER “fly” with the public, congress or media.

Obama’s Allies are America’s Enemies

Freedom Outpost

 

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.”

– Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman statesman, philosopher and orator

“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

– Article III, Section 3, United States Constitution

Recently, former U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North voiced his concerns in Washington, D.C., over Barack Hussein Obama’s presidency, calling it “Leadership Deficit Disorder.” He even stated, “Any other president would have been impeached.”

He went on to say, “In what we see happening in Ukraine, it’s evident in the failure of this Congress (the people’s representatives) to hold this administration culpable and accountable for the criminal activities in which they’ve been involved. … Why the dickens haven’t we convened a select committee to investigate Benghazi, the IRS enemies list, spying on Americans, threatening reporters?”

Another individual voicing his concerns stated that this president is “not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He’s becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid.”

Who’s Trying to Impeach Attorney General Eric Holder?

The Daily Sheeple

By Catherine J. Frompovich

Has anyone noticed that there is a Resolution [1] in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.Res.411) to impeach Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors?

Impeachment Lessons

Family Security Matters

While Democrats quite intentionally defy the Framers’ design, Republicans  frustrate it by aggressive passivity. The Constitution divides power by subject  matter, not percentage of governmental control. The party that controls the  House has full primacy over taxing and spending, every bit as much as the party  that controls the executive branch has plenary control over prosecution  decisions. Constitutional authorities are not contingent on how much, if any,  control the party in question has over the rest of government. In theory, then,  nothing in government can happen unless the House, with ultimate power over the  purse, agrees to fund it. If a corrupt administration uses the IRS as a partisan  weapon to audit and harass its detractors, the House can refuse to fund the IRS  – or other parts of the executive branch – to quell executive overreach.

Nevertheless, Republicans incessantly tell supporters that, since they  control only the House (just “one-half of one-third of the government,” as the  tired refrain goes), they are impotent to rein in Obama’s excesses. And when  conservatives in the House or Senate urge that Republicans use their command  over the purse to stop Obama’s excesses – just as congressional Democrats have  historically used the power of the purse to stop Republican presidents from  prosecuting the Vietnam War and aiding the Nicaraguan Contras – Republican  leadership turns on those conservatives with a ferocity rarely evident in their  dealings with the president.

With Democrats energized by Obama’s lawbreaking, and Republicans paralyzed by  the prospect of government shutdowns, there is no realistic prospect that  Congress will starve Obama of funding. That leaves impeachment as the sole  remaining constitutional safeguard against executive imperialism.

There is nothing else.

Calls Begin For Obama’s Impeachment & Removal Over Serial Fraud & Corruption

Gateway Pundit

In 2009, while discussing his plans to overhaul health care, Barack Obama repeated this promise to the American public:

“If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period.”

But it was all a lie. And, Obama and Democrats knew it was a lie.

So far over 4.2 million Americans have lost their health insurance due to Obamacare. That’s more than the population of 26 states. That number is likely to climb to 52 million.

Democrats expected to get away with this lie. But, Barack Obama may be looking at impeachment and removal from office.