Post by mayberry on Feb 13, 2020 22:40:29 GMT -5
One thing that has been very aggravating to me, is the time that was wasted by the House of Representatives in trying to impeach President Trump. You would think that Speaker Pelosi would have realized from the start that this was an exercise in futility, because of how the process works. First of all, you are not supposed to use the impeachment process unless high crimes or misdemeanors have occurred, and even if the President had been guilty of what he was accused of, they didn't rise to that level.
In addition to that, there is the matter of what it takes to remove a sitting President using Impeachment. It is not hard to impeach the President. All you have to do is have a simple majority from your party willing to vote in a block in the House of Representatives and you can impeach anyone for basically anything. It is an abuse of the system when no real crimes are committed, but it can be done, as we have seen. The problem is that you need a 2/3 majority of the Senate to remove the President. That would mean they would have needed 67 Senators to convict, and the Democrats are in the minority in the Senate. We all knew it was going nowhere from the start. We also knew it was all politically motivated. When Bill Clinton was President, the House impeached him for perjury, which was a crime, but the Senate still refused to convict. Senator Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia admitted that Clinton was guilty, but said that this is a political process, and he didn't want to remove him, so he wouldn't vote to convict.
When it comes down to something as serious as impeachment, it needs to be used only when a serious crime is committed. That clearly did not happen in this instance. I am glad it is over with, and I hope that going forward, unless a President from either party has committed a real high crime or misdemeanor, we let the people decide through the election process who remains in office and who does not. We have less than a year till the next election, so for that reason alone, impeachment made no sense. Lets leave things in the hands of the American voters, and let them decide if President Trump deserves a second term.
In addition to that, there is the matter of what it takes to remove a sitting President using Impeachment. It is not hard to impeach the President. All you have to do is have a simple majority from your party willing to vote in a block in the House of Representatives and you can impeach anyone for basically anything. It is an abuse of the system when no real crimes are committed, but it can be done, as we have seen. The problem is that you need a 2/3 majority of the Senate to remove the President. That would mean they would have needed 67 Senators to convict, and the Democrats are in the minority in the Senate. We all knew it was going nowhere from the start. We also knew it was all politically motivated. When Bill Clinton was President, the House impeached him for perjury, which was a crime, but the Senate still refused to convict. Senator Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia admitted that Clinton was guilty, but said that this is a political process, and he didn't want to remove him, so he wouldn't vote to convict.
When it comes down to something as serious as impeachment, it needs to be used only when a serious crime is committed. That clearly did not happen in this instance. I am glad it is over with, and I hope that going forward, unless a President from either party has committed a real high crime or misdemeanor, we let the people decide through the election process who remains in office and who does not. We have less than a year till the next election, so for that reason alone, impeachment made no sense. Lets leave things in the hands of the American voters, and let them decide if President Trump deserves a second term.
