Against that concept I'd like to suggest that there is a set of misdemeanors around feasance, that is, the performance of one's duty. Impeachment is appropriate for cases of nonfeasance, in my opinion: consider the case of these prosecutors who were apparently elected not to enforce the law in major cities. Prosecutorial discretion is legal, but prosecutorial discretion on this scale has led to a large scale rise in crime in our cities, and is tantamount to usurpation of the legislature's constitutional power to define the laws that apply.
That, in turn, denies the citizenry a representative government -- instead of living under laws enacted by their legislatures, they find themselves effectively denied the protection of (say) shoplifting laws, and thus are forced to live in a society in which theft is effectively legal. Nor can they turn to their representatives for relief, for the law has already been passed and placed on the books: there's nothing more the legislator can do.
It seems to me that it would be perfectly appropriate to impeach or recall a prosecutor over this practice. Removal from office is exactly the correct remedy.
Similarly, misfeasance -- which this horror show in Afghanistan certainly is -- and malfeasance are both proper reasons to impeach someone in my opinion. Even if they are not very serious crimes, and might not be punished with prison time, because they are crimes of duty they are get to the heart of why someone might be properly removed from office. Officers are charged with the duties that define their office, and if they fail to do their duty removal is entirely proper.
high Crimes and Misdemeanors, in the end, are what the House and Senate say they are; although that's not a looseness to be operated on lightly.
ReplyDeleteThe President's oath of office, as laid out in Art II, Sect 1, is I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
The immediately pertinent part of his duties, IMNSHO, is in Art II, Sect 3: ...he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed....
It seems to me that he has failed in these in an impeachable fashion. Executive Actions, like Executive Orders--ironically, both are Presidential actions--have the force of law. Biden, by reneging on the unwithdrawn Trump Executive Action in the form of the Doha Agreement with the Taliban, has violated that law.
Further, Biden, having averred in public (via a television interview, among other venues) that the United States would stay in Afghanistan until all Americans were out, created another Executive Action, even if not in the standard EA format. Biden then modified his EA by saying that we--he--would get all Americans out that could be gotten out before we left, and that we would deal with getting remainders out after we left. Biden has violated all of these.
He did not get out all the Americans that could have been gotten out before we left: a busload of Americans (in just one specification), having arrived at a Kabul Airport gate per (Biden's) State Dept instructions then were denied entry, on State Dept orders. They're still there. The last part, "deal with the remainders after we've left" is being violated as of this writing: nothing serious is being done to get them out.
Biden has violated formal treaty agreements--which have the force of law--with his decision to abandon Bagram without consultation with the Afghan government or our NATO allies, and Biden has violated his NATO treaty obligations with his decision to leave Afghanistan altogether with no prior consultation or coordination with our NATO allies present in Afghanistan at our behest.
These all constitute specific counts and a count of violating his oath of office.
SecState Blinken has similarly violated these EAs/laws and his own oath of office wherein he is sworn to support our Constitution. Blinken's decision to violate Biden's and Trump's EAs and his actual violations of them are themselves specific counts and his own separate count of violating his oath of office.
Both men are impeachable and convictable on those grounds--except, as Grim noted at the outset, the votes aren't there to get an impeachment, much less any outcome other than acquittal in the Senate.
Eric Hines
I don't have cites but during the various circuses surrounding Trump, a number of pundits noted that the Framers debated but ultimately rejected including misadministration in the Impeachment clause. I think that's proper because the line between a bad policy choice and something that might rise to criminality is blurry, and to me rests mainly on intent. If it could be shown that Biden didn't just know there was a probability that people would be left behind, something that could have happened even during a properly executed evacuation, but there was a specific plan to abandon some Americans then impeachment would be proper. That's intentionally going to be a high bar to clear. Even though the gap between his statements and the evacuation performance is wide, I dislike calling them lies because that indicates that he knew the outcome of the evacuation, and the future is simply not knowable. There are other things the legislative branch and the opposition party can do short of impeachment. In some ways making the debate about whether Biden should be impeached allows them to sidestep their responsibilities to perform the fact-finding that could be done.
ReplyDeleteIf it could be proven that the last plane out contained every single remaining American who wanted to leave Afghanistan but that plane was shot down by ISIS-K after take-off, would his promise to stay until every American was evacuated still be worthy of impeachment?
I wouldn't say that the decision to promise X or Y was the issue. The issue is a little stronger than 'maladministration,' too, though I can see how the two could overlap at the margins.
ReplyDeleteThis was a general failure of a constitutional officer to do one's duty. He failed as commander in chief, he failed as head of the intelligence services, he failed as the chief diplomat, and so forth. At some level, if you can't remove the only constitutional officer who is charged with these duties for nonperformance, you can't ensure that these basic and central functions are performed.
That said, we can't remove him; he hasn't the honor to admit his failure and resign, his political faction controls all the levers of power, and even the alleged opposition admits that he can't be removed.
These prosecutors won't be removed either, even though I think there's an excellent case for it philosophically. That these offices have been captured and are being held successfully by people who will not perform them is going to have severe consequences.
Put less obliquely, the system we have cannot survive the loss of these functions. We could design another system that could survive this kind of loss of offices, but this one really depends on having prosecutors, governors, and a President who take their assigned duties seriously. Absent that you get the rising crime in our cities we've seen over the last year, and you'll get rising instability in the whole world as well.
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