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IMPEACHMENT!

UH-OH. IT’S THE “I” WORD.

No doubt it’s a word that presidents

would rather not think about,

which is a fine thing since impeachment

mostly hasn’t been a big part of the

story when it comes to the

history of American presidents.

But we also must point out that

this does seem to be changing,

as over the past few years it’s become

more and more common to hear talk

about impeaching the president—

whomever the current president may be.

18 1/2-MINUTE GAP ENDS 106-YEAR GAP

A Brief History of Impeachment in Five Quick Sentences

1. In 1776, as a reaction to being royally screwed by British royalty for a few hundred years, American colonists added “impeachment clauses” to their colonial constitutions to ensure that they could give government officials the boot if they were doing a rotten job or if they were taking advantage of their positions.

2. In 1787, about five minutes after the framers of the US Constitution decided that they would have a government led by a president, they laid down the law as to how they could remove this president from office if they ever needed to.

3. In 1868, the House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson for what, in retrospect, were reasons that were mostly politically motivated.

4. 106 years later, in 1974, the House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon for misconduct related to the Watergate “cover-up.”

5. Twenty-five years later, in 1999, President Bill Clinton was impeached.

SO WHAT IS IMPEACHMENT, ANYWAY?

It’s such a great-sounding word, isn’t it? After all, it’s just got that “Throw the bum out!” sound to it.

But in fact, that’s not what it means at all. “To impeach” simply means “to make an accusation against someone” or “to bring charges or accusations against a public official.”

Meanwhile, the road from being “impeached” to “throwing the bum out!” is a long one:

Pathway to Impeachment, Step One:

Over at the House of Representatives

In Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution, the House of Representatives is granted the “sole power of impeachment.”

So it begins in the House and, although the constitution doesn’t specify how to get started, the process usually begins in the House Judiciary Committee. The committee starts with an investigation of the charges against the official (for our purposes here, we’re talking about the president, but as you will see, other officials can be impeached as well).

If, after holding hearings, the judiciary committee’s findings suggest that the charges are correct, then the committee drafts a resolution of impeachment, which includes the “articles of impeachment,” and sends it on to the rest of the House. If, on the other hand, the committee finds that impeachment isn’t warranted, it drafts a resolution that says so and sends that on to the full House.

Every member of the House now votes on the resolution. If the House “adopts” (or “passes”) any of the items on the “articles of impeachment” list (and each item only has to pass by a simple majority of the votes), then it’s official—the person is regarded as “impeached” and their fate now lies in the hands of the US Senate.

Pathway to Impeachment, Step Two:

Down at the Senate building

Once again, the US Constitution provides the directions. Article I, Section 3 tells us that “the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” So the Senate goes to work considering what just happened in the House.

If it is the president who is on trial, the Constitution states that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will preside over the trial in the Senate.

Certain members of the House of Representatives head over to the Senate building and function as prosecutors (they are called “managers”) as the Senate trial kicks off. The managers are either chosen by the Speaker of the House or by ballot, and the group includes members from both parties.

Just as in a court of law, the impeached person’s lawyers present the person’s defense, and the lawyers also have the right cross-examine witnesses.

The full Senate attends and observes the proceedings as though they were a jury in a courtroom.

When the trial concludes, the members of the Senate meet privately to talk about a possible verdict.

• The Senate then meets in open session, and they vote on each “article of impeachment.” But this time, a two-thirds margin in the voting is required in order for the person to be convicted. If none of the articles of impeachment is approved by a two-thirds vote, then the person is acquitted.

• If the Senate votes to convict, it may then hold a separate vote to remove the impeached official from office. That isn’t really necessary, since the Constitution stipulates that federal officials shall be removed from office upon being impeached and convicted anyway. But since we’ve never been down this road with a president before, there’s currently been no precedent set for whether this separate vote should happen or not!

• It’s interesting to note that during an impeachment vote, the vice president must be in attendance but does not in this case act as presiding officer. If the president is convicted, he then leaves the chamber and is sworn into office.

As you can see, the process of impeachment is pretty complicated. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the founders wanted it this way, simply because they intended it to be a last resort, and they didn’t want to process to be so easy or so politicized that it could be used by one party against another or be used so frequently as to cause instability within the government as one leader after another was booted out of office.

THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY

Consider the process by which an impeachment begins. Logically, it must start with one loud disgruntled voice, followed by a growing chorus of agreement from others.

Everyone knows Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached yet never convicted. But have you ever wondered how many other presidents have faced a growing chorus calling for their impeachment but somehow managed to kill the impeachment movement before it could make it to the House and Senate for a vote?

To answer that question, we use personal anecdotes, regional newspaper coverage, and of course stories from the New York Times to compile this list of impeachment near-misses.

PRESIDENT:	Abraham Lincoln
YEAR:	Around 1862
THEY SAID:	According to the memoirs of Pennsylvania Senator and Secretary of War, Simon Cameron: “… while I was resting at my home in Pennsylvania, that I received from a number of most prominent gentlemen an invitation to visit Washington and attend a consultation which was to be held in regard to national affairs … I went to the capital and found assembled there a number of most influential gentlemen, who had come together ostensibly for the purpose of advising together regarding the condition of the country. This, I say, was their ostensible purpose for calling the meeting, but I soon found that their real object was to find means by which the President could be impeached and turned out of office.”
THE ISSUE:	Slavery? Nope. According to Cameron, “The complaint against Mr. Lincoln was that he lacked ability and energy, and that he was not pushing the war with sufficient vigor.”
PRESIDENT:	Rutherford B. Hayes
YEAR:	1878
THEY SAID:	According to the Raleigh (North Carolina) Observer: “If the truth implicates Mr. Hayes, let him be impeached”
THE ISSUE:	It was called “The Compromise of 1877.” Hayes received fewer popular votes than his opponent, Samuel Tilden, but neither candidate had the 185 required Electoral College votes to declare victory. In fact, the election was a real cliffhanger, because Hayes had 165 electoral votes and Tilden had 184, which meant that Tilden only needed one more electoral vote to win. Meanwhile, there were exactly 20 votes unaccounted for, and Hayes would need all 20 to win. So how did Hayes emerge the winner? Largely through a back-room bargain called the “Compromise of 1877” in which Rutherford representatives quietly promised Southern Democrats that Rutherford would pull federal troops from the South in exchange for their support. Because of the highly disputed way Rutherford won the election, he was often called “Rutherfraud” and “His Fraudulency.” And, of course, the results of the hotly contested election also led to talk of impeachment.
PRESIDENT:	William Howard Taft
YEAR:	1912
THEY SAID:	According to Washington Senator Miles Poindexter: “It is flagrant enough in my judgment to justify impeachment.”
THE ISSUE:	Poindexter objected to President Taft removing from office various supporters of Theodore Roosevelt.
PRESIDENT:	Woodrow Wilson
YEAR:	1919
THEY SAID:	Headline from the September 11, 1919, New York Times: CHICAGO CHEERS SENATE RADICALS, ATTACKS MADE ON WILSON Cries of “Impeach Him!” Punctuate Borah’s Plea Not to Give President More Power

THE ISSUE:	The problem was Woodrow Wilson’s “League of Nations,” which would require the United States to make its troops available to defend other nations.
PRESIDENT:	Herbert Hoover
YEAR:	1932
THEY SAID:	From the December 14, 1932, New York Times: DEBT BETRAYAL CHARGED: Chamber Is Amazed by Pennsylvania Republican’s Sudden Attack on the President
THE ISSUE:	The charge was that Hoover was harming United States interests by forgiving foreign debt.
PRESIDENT:	Franklin Delano Roosevelt
YEAR:	1935
THEY SAID:	To quote Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish of New York: “The President has usurped the powers of Congress and it is time we called a halt.”
THE ISSUE:	Republicans condemned Roosevelt for not balancing the budget and believed his aggressive New Deal economic reforms should be left up to the states to implement and run.
PRESIDENT:	Franklin Delano Roosevelt
YEAR:	1941
THEY SAID:	Headlines from the March 3, 1941, New York Times: NYE ‘NO WAR’ PLEA CHEERED: DETROIT CROWD SHOUTS ‘IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT’
THE ISSUE:	In March 1941, Roosevelt signed the “Lend-Lease Act” which gave him the power to lend arms and other war materials to other nations if it was in the country’s best interest to do so. The official story was that the president signed the act as a way to support ally Great Britain in World War II without formally declaring war on Italy or Germany, but many saw the “Lend-Lease Act” as a first step toward actually going to war.
PRESIDENT:	Harry Truman
YEAR:	1950
THEY SAID:	To quote Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin: “[T]he time is long overdue for the congress, in the name of America, to stand up and be counted and immediately impeach you, Mr. President.”
THE ISSUE:	McCarthy objected to Truman’s refusal to accept aid from Chiang Kaishek’s Chinese Nationalist troops in Korea.
PRESIDENT:	Harry Truman
YEAR:	1951
THEY SAID:	To quote Senator William E. Jenner: “I charge that this country today is in the hands of a secret coterie which is directed by agents of the Soviet Union. We must cut this whole cancerous conspiracy out of our Government at once … Our only choice is to impeach President Truman and find out who is the secret invisible government which has so cleverly led our country down the road to destruction.”
THE ISSUE:	Truman relieves General Douglas Macarthur from his command of US and UN forces in Korea.
PRESIDENT:	Harry Truman
YEAR:	1951
THEY SAID:	Truman, to Republican Senator Charles W. Tobey of New Hampshire: “Now let me tell you this, Senator. If you want to have me impeached, you just go right ahead and I’ll help you.”
THE ISSUE:	Truman told Tobey that he had “good information” that “a great many” members of Congress were getting kickbacks for helping members of the public acquire government loans. Tobey believed that that the president’s accusation about members of Congress was an impeachable offense.
PRESIDENT:	Harry Truman
YEAR:	1952
THEY SAID:	Headline from the June 5, 1952, New York Times: MOVES TO IMPEACH TRUMAN POSTPONED
THE ISSUE:	To prevent a shutdown of American steel mills, Truman had them seized by the federal government.
PRESIDENT:	Lyndon Johnson
YEAR:	1968
THEY SAID:	Headline from the January 18, 1968, New York Times: NEW GROUP SEEKING TO IMPEACH JOHNSON
THE ISSUE:	A group called Citizens for Governmental Restraint claimed that LBJ violated the Constitution by sending American troops to Vietnam.
PRESIDENT:	Ronald Reagan
YEAR:	1983
THEY SAID:	Headline from the November 11, 1983, New York Times: MOVE FOR IMPEACHMENT IS BEGUN BY SEVEN IN HOUSE
THE ISSUE:	Seven members of Congress moved for impeachment following President Reagan’s invasion of Grenada.

WE INTERRUPT THIS CHAPTER FOR AN ARGUMENT AGAINST FREQUENT IMPEACHMENTS:

“Impeachment, like the atom bomb, is a weapon to be used only on very rare and very special occasions.”

—from an official US government Web site

Here’s the deal:

As we have all heard, politics makes strange bedfellows. But it also makes strange enemies. In other words, sometimes impeachment can be highly (or, let’s face it, completely) politically motivated.

Before you get all excited about throwing the current bum out (and we’re speaking hypothetically here, not about any particular bum), make sure you ask yourself and all your political cronies the following questions … and answer them honestly:

1. Have you considered the consequences of having the instability of frequent impeachments as part of the country’s regular political process?

2. Do you want to throw this guy out because he’s not the guy you voted for, or do you want to throw him out because he’s done something seriously wrong?

“An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House considers it to be at any given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body (the Senate) considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.”

—Congressman (and future president) Gerald Ford, arguing for his attempted impeachment of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas in 1970. This was the same Gerald Ford, by the way, who later pardoned Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than go through an impeachment.

Naughty President or

Naughty Congress???

One of the trickiest parts of

impeachment is trying to understand

what kind of “bad behavior” can

actually push a president over the line.

The authors of the Constitution wrote

that grounds for impeachment included:

“treason, bribery, or other high

crimes and misdemeanors.”

Treason, we understand. Bribery,

we understand.

But what are “high crimes

and misdemeanors”?

And how do you differentiate between

“high crimes and misdemeanors”

and “we just found your political

weak spot, and now we’re going to

pounce on it and exploit it”?

IMPEACHMENT STRATEGIES THAT REALLY WORK

Option One: Get the “Impeachment Thing” Out of the Way Before You Become President!

If a president absolutely must face a threat of impeachment at some point in his life, wouldn’t it be great if he could face the problem before he actually becomes president?

That way, he isn’t distracted by it while he’s actually trying to be president! And as strange as this idea may seem, it almost happened for one president.

Long before he was elected president, Thomas Jefferson served as the governor of Virginia. And one day in 1781, during Jefferson’s last year as governor, the British invaded.

Jefferson chose to flee the scene on horseback and leave the invasion problem to the Virginia militia. His decision to run away probably saved his life, but there was one problem: as the governor, he was supposed to be in command of the militia!

Packing up and leaving was regarded as neglect of duty, and although the Founding Father was eventually exonerated, the Virginia House of Delegates demanded a full investigation of the matter, and for a brief time even contemplated impeaching the governor.

Option Two: Missed Out on the “Impeachment Thing” during Your Presidency? Don’t Worry, You Still Might Have a Shot at It Later!

Even though his unpopularity as president led to him being voted out of office after one term, John Quincy Adams is the only president ever to be elected to the US House of Representatives after his service in the White House.

This was an accomplishment in and of itself, but it seems that maybe Adams wanted something more to add to his political biography.

So during this “post-presidency” period of his life, he became intensely focused on highlighting how the South’s desire for slavery and secession from the Union were threats to American liberty. He even baited Southern congressmen to get them to argue with him and attack him over the issue.

In fact, Adams became so nasty, and the debates he instigated became so intense, that at one point several Southern congressmen contemplated the unthinkable—the possibility of IMPEACHING their own fellow congressman!

In the end, these Southern representatives were unable to pull together the effort required to push an impeachment through, but for a brief period, Congressman Adams almost got to experience the kind of political fireworks he never managed to conjure up during his own presidency.

Option Three: When in Doubt, Go for “Impeachment Lite”

Considering how serious and complicated it is for the Congress to even begin a “formal inquiry” into the possibility of impeaching a president, you’d think there would be some other way a president can officially and formally be told: hey, stop acting like a jerk!

And sure enough, there is:

Enter the “C” Word: Censure

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word censure means “a judgment involving condemnation”; it is also defined as “the act of blaming or condemning sternly” and “an official reprimand.”

BAD BOY ANDREW JACKSON: A PRESIDENTIAL FIRST!

Every president hopes to do something really noteworthy, something really historic, during his time in office. But no president wants to be the first to have something really bad happen.

And despite his popularity and his successes in office, President Andrew Jackson has the dubious distinction of being the only president ever to be censured.

But by now the question you should’ve learned to ask is: was this legit, or was it politically motivated?

We’ll let you decide for yourself.

Doesn’t Play Well with Others, Part I:

“Old Hickory” has problems with a guy named Henry

Andrew Jackson—nicknamed “Old Hickory” because he was such a tough guy—first ran for president in 1824 as one of five candidates. When the voting was finished, Jackson received a plurality (the most votes out of all the candidates) of the electoral votes, but not a clear majority (not more than 50 percent) of the electoral votes. With no clear majority, the next step in determining the winner was to do what the United States Constitution says to do in such cases: the names of the top three vote-getters were given to the House of Representatives, and the reps were left to pick a winner.

To the surprise of many, the House picked John Quincy Adams to be the next president, and quickly after being declared the winner, Adams chose Henry Clay, a congressman from Kentucky, to be his secretary of state. This outraged Jackson and his supporters so much that Jackson accused Adams and Clay of conspiring to do special favors for each other: if Clay would use his influence in the House of Representatives to sway votes to Adams (which he did), Adams would give Clay a position in his administration (which he did).

So Adams won the election of 1824, and Jackson was, understandably, ticked off about it. And for the entire four years of the Adams presidency, Andrew Jackson and his fellow Democrats continually harassed the Adams administration with accusations of the so-called “corrupt bargain” between President Adams and Clay.

This not only made matters difficult for President Adams, but also created trouble for Henry Clay at the State Department. And the smear campaign was so effective that it helped lead Jackson to a huge victory over Adams in the presidential election of 1828.

Doesn’t Play Well with Others, Part II:

“Old Hickory” Gets Back At ’Ole Henry

After winning the 1828 election, Jackson quickly became an effective and incredibly popular president. When he began to make changes in Washington—like replacing longtime federal officeholders with appointees from his own party—Jackson claimed that he was getting rid of aristocrats and replacing them with “commoners.” And he continued to make choices that reinforced his image of being a president who cared about everyday Americans.

But while “Old Hickory” seemed to be keeping American voters happy during his first term in office, he also seemed to be keeping an eye on Ol’ Henry Clay. And Jackson would hold nothing back when he had an opportunity to do something that might really tick Clay off! For one thing, Jackson vetoed a bill that would have allowed federal assistance in the laying of a road in Clay’s home state of Kentucky.

Meanwhile, something else began to brew in the Jackson administration that was even more disturbing to Clay. During his first term, President Jackson began working on a plan to put federal money in banks that were operated mostly by Democrat friends of his rather than putting the money where it had always gone in the past—in the more reliable Bank of the United States. This was viewed as reckless financial policy by Jackson’s political foes.

Doesn’t Play Well with Others, Part III:

Henry’s Revenge on “King Andrew”

Clay was so eager to get at Jackson that he accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency and tried to unseat Jackson in the election of 1832. Jackson won reelection quite handily, but Henry Clay still had a seat in the Senate and could still work to oppose Jackson’s policies.

While Clay and others continued to sound the alarm about Jackson’s reckless handling of federal money, members of Jackson’s own administration began to question his policies as well. And Jackson had become so strong-headed that folks had begun to call him “King Andrew.”

In the midst of a growing chorus of opposition, President Jackson had to contend with two Treasury secretaries who refused to go along with his plan to remove federal funds from the Bank of the United States. But Jackson wouldn’t give up. In fact, to get his way he flat-out fired both Treasury secretaries—one right after the other!

When it appeared that nothing was going to change President Jackson’s mind about his monetary policy, Senator Henry Clay got the ultimate revenge and gave his nemesis another historical title. Led by Clay in 1834, the Senate for the first time in history voted to censure the President of the United States, charging Andrew Jackson with “dictatorial and unconstitutional behavior.”

For the next three years, Jackson and his friends worked night and day to wipe out any physical evidence of the censure from the Senate record, and they finally did by the time Jackson left office in early 1837. But despite these efforts, Andrew Jackson still holds the title of the only president to ever be censured.

“I have only two regrets: that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged J. C. Calhoun.”

—ANDREW JACKSON (CALHOUN WAS JACKSON’S VP [UNTIL HE RESIGNED] AND ALSO A BUDDY OF HENRY CLAY)

Speaking of being “politically motivated,” it’s worth asking whether Jackson was working so hard to get all federal funds out of the Bank of the United States because he thought it was the right thing to do or because he knew his enemy Henry Clay had helped start the bank back in 1816!

WHAT IF COLONIAL-ERA AMERICANS HAD THEIR OWN TWITTER ACCOUNTS AND BLOGS?

In the past, getting the latest news from all corners of the nation took days or even weeks. Today, it takes less than a minute.

But What if Blogs and Twitter Had Existed Back in the Days When Our Nation Was Founded?

Chances are good that at any given time during our country’s history, there has always been someone wanting to impeach the president. Let’s face it—no matter how popular or successful a president is, he can’t keep everyone happy all the time. And for some people, the president is always a guy you love to hate—no matter who he is.

So imagine going back and revisiting some of the issues that were brewing in the country in times past. Consider how people may have felt about the president in light of those issues. Certain presidents would seem to have been more likely targets of “impeachment talk” than others, simply because of their behavior in office or because of the problems that the country was facing at the time or both.

Now imagine past presidents having to deal with the kind of scrutiny faced by our two most recent presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That is, imagine yesterday’s presidents dealing with the instantaneous and continuous flow of ideas, facts, opinions, and, yes, rumors, that are available instantaneously today via our smartphones and social media and the entire World Wide Web.

Granted, in times past there were far more newspapers in our country than there are today, and that provided lots of opportunity for all kinds of reporting and editorializing. But not everyone could own their own newspaper or immediately publish their own editorials.

But today, on the other hand, nearly anyone can operate their own website or blog. And this means that if you’re angry at the president, you can instantly express your frustration with him to people all over the country, even around the world.

So just for fun, let’s pretend it wasn’t Vice President Al Gore who invented the Internet, but our very first vice president, John Adams, instead.

And then let’s pretend that all presidents had to work under the scrutiny of a blogging and tweeting media which could instantly report on their (perceived or politically spun) missteps or errors in judgment. Herewith we present offenses of presidents past that are worthy of some serious mean tweets:

“ … there’s word of mouth, there’s blogs, there’s Internet, there’s all kinds of ways to communicate which is literally changing the way people are getting their information.”

—PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, MARCH 22, 2006

George Washington:	First in War, First in Peace, and First to Get Flamed “ … the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.” (Thomas Paine, 1796)
James Madison:	President Declares War! He asked Congress to declare war on Britain—which led to the British invasion and the burning of Washington two years later.
James Monroe:	“It’s the Economy, Stupid!” An economic depression set in two years after he took office, and of course many blamed him for it.
John Quincy Adams:	First Faux President??? He was the first president to win election with a majority of the electoral college vote but a minority of the popular vote, which for some people was reason enough to be ticked off at him. His ideas about spending tax dollars on roads, canals, and scientific exploration were also very unpopular.
“You are perfectly insane and should apply for admission to the Lunatic Asylum … You are a curse to the Whig Party and to the nation.” —A WOULD-BE BLOGGER SENDS A LOVE-NOTE TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Andrew Jackson:	Early-American Bloggers: “Impeach This Bum!” He was popular with most Americans. However, his plan to put federal money in banks managed by his buddies rather than in the Bank of the United States had lots of people muttering about impeachment and led to his being the first president to be “censured.”
Martin Van Buren:	“It’s STILL the Economy, Stupid!” Marty, Marty, Marty … weren’t you paying attention while James Monroe was in office? If you had been, you would have known that being president during an economic depression is no way to win a popularity contest, and you would have done anything to avoid yet another one.
John Tyler:	Second Faux President??? He was the first person to become president without technically being elected to the office (he assumed the presidency from the vice presidency when President William Henry Harrison died a month after being inaugurated), which left a lot of people angry and saying, “He’s not the real president!” Even without a bunch of bloggers competing to coin the cleverest phrase, he still got tagged with the nickname “His Accidency.”
Zachary Taylor:	Duh! He Kept Forgetting to Get Out the Vote He was a war veteran who had never even voted in a presidential election before he was elected, and he got caught in the middle of the debate over slavery between the North and the South and had people on both sides of the issue very angry; then he died suddenly during his second year as president.
Abraham Lincoln:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83.
Andrew Johnson:	He REALLY WAS IMPEACHED! He tried to move forward with Lincoln’s plans for reconstructing the South and ended up becoming the first president to be impeached (see “Impeachment: The Real Deal #1” on page 105).
Ulysses S. Grant:	“Grant-Gate?” He was a war hero–turned–president, but because of his lack of political experience, he seemed to have no clue about how to be president, and dishonest associates took advantage of him constantly. Fraud and scandal pervaded his administration, and by the end of his second term Americans were glad to see him go—and he was glad to be gone.
Rutherford B. Hayes:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83.
Chester Arthur:	P. O.’d His Own Party Another Veep who became president without being elected president, he actually wanted people seeking jobs in the civil service to pass a competency exam that was pertinent to the job they were pursuing—which really ticked off his Republican buddies, who had helped him climb the political ladder. The Republican Party bigwigs were so angry, in fact, they refused to nominate him for a second term.
Theodore Roosevelt:	“Try and Impeach Me … I Dare Ya!” Despite being a popular president who won reelection, he ticked off members of Congress because he seized the Isthmus of Panama without Congressional approval and moved forward to build the Panama Canal, all on his own. He actually spoke of his own impeachment, saying: “I regard the Senate as a collection of angleworms. If they don’t like my leadership they can impeach me.”
William Howard Taft:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83.
Woodrow Wilson:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83.
Herbert Hoover:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83.
FDR:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83. Then look again.
Harry Truman:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83. Then look again. And again. And again. And again.
JFK:	Begged to Be Blogged As you read in an earlier chapter, this was a guy with a social life that was just BEGGING to be blogged. And of course, bloggers continue to blog about him, his affairs, and his assassination to this day.
LBJ:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83.
Richard Nixon:	Can you say “Watergate”?
Gerald Ford:	Can you say “Presidential pardon”?
Jimmy Carter:	Economy in the tank! Iranian hostage crisis! The Iranian Embassy hostage crisis started on his watch and, amazingly enough, ended just a few hours after Carter left office and Ronald Reagan replaced him. Meanwhile, the economy slid into the tank and interest rates soared to over 20 percent.
Ronald Reagan:	See “ THIRTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS THAT GOT AWAY” on page 83. Oh, and let’s not forget about Iran-Contra.
George H. W. Bush:	You didn’t think we were going to forget about Iran-Contra, did you?
Bill Clinton:	Can you say, “Monica Lewinsky”?
George W. Bush:	War in Iraq and nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Barack Obama:	Obamacare, Benghazi, Beer Summit.

IMPEACHMENT: THE REAL DEAL #1!

After the Civil War—and after President Lincoln’s assassination—the big task facing the country and the new president, Andrew Johnson, was Reconstruction, the process of putting the country back together after it had been divided so severely. And there were two different theories in Washington about how to accomplish this:

1. One theory suggested that the states cannot be destroyed by the acts of their own people, and state sovereignty cannot be handed over to the national government. Basically, this meant that the individual states were pretty much responsible for themselves, and the only job that the federal government had to do was to try and calm things down—to “quiet the riots,” so to speak—and to try and create a situation where things could get “back to normal.”

2. The other theory of reconstruction viewed the Civil War as a struggle between two separate governments. This meant that since the South lost the war, the Southern states were now “conquered territories,” and therefore the federal government of the United States could pretty much do whatever it wanted with them. In other words, the Southern states could be admitted back into the Union—or not!—depending on how folks in Washington felt about it.

With the American people so horribly divided on how they viewed their own country, it was difficult to imagine how any one president could lead them all.

Johnson Takes a Stand … and It’s Almost His Last

President Johnson was definitely a believer in the first theory, which meant that he presumed that the South was still a part of the United States.

But there was more at stake in the division between the two theories than just land. The folks from the North, advocates of the “conquered territories” idea, also believed in the full political equality of the recently freed slaves. The Southerners, on the other hand, wanted more limited rights for the freed slaves—and this created even more contention between the North and South, and between President Johnson and the Congress.

So, while the Republican majority in Washington wanted the Southern states admitted back into the Union if they agreed to change their ways regarding the freed slaves, President Johnson and the Southern Democrats wanted to make sure that the Union was actually “unified,” even if that meant that the Southern states held on to some of their old, segregationist ways.

The Republican Congress tried to legislate their plans for the Southern states, President Johnson vetoed them, and the Congress managed to override him on one occasion. But through it all there was very little “unity” in the Union—which meant trouble for the country, for Reconstruction, and for President Johnson.

Impeachment, Doubt, and Disillusionment … in That Order

By February of 1868, Andrew Johnson was almost finished with his term as president, and he had little or no hope of being nominated for a second one. And while members of the House had begun talking about impeaching him, many outside the halls of government doubted that there was any value in impeaching a president who would be leaving office so soon anyway. Horace Greeley, Editor of the New York Tribune, asked bluntly:

“Why hang a man who is bent on hanging himself?”

Still, there were those in Washington who believed that impeachment was the right thing. These were primarily the Republican members of the Congress, who led the House to pass articles of impeachment on February 24, 1868. And while many members of the Northern states’ press initially favored impeaching Johnson, some began to change their minds once they arrived in Washington and observed firsthand what was actually going on.

Famed Civil War–era newspaper correspondent George Alfred Townsend described the Senate trial of President Johnson as “a more terrible scene than the trial of Judas Iscariot might be before the College of Cardinals.”

He also observed that about the only folks who were truly upset with Johnson were Congressmen Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner—two members of Congress who were driving forces in the impeachment effort.

The Party Lines Are Crossed, and a Presidency Is Saved …

But just barely.

While impeachment-bent Republicans in the Congress continued to publicly express confidence in what they were doing, privately they began to doubt that they would be successful. And despite the fact that the Republicans held more than a two-thirds majority in the Senate, when it came time to vote to impeach the president—which it did on May 16th of 1868—seven Republicans broke ranks with their party and voted to acquit the president on impeachment charges, fearing that to impeach Johnson would permanently damage the office itself.

Johnson then served out his term and left the White House in March of 1869, only to return to Washington six years later to serve in the Senate.

IMPEACHMENT: THE REAL DEAL #2!

We’re not going to bore you with endless details about the Clinton (and we should be specific and say we’re talking about Bill Clinton, since his wife Hillary has had and may again have a job from which she can be impeached as well) impeachment. After all, you were there. You lived through it.

But for many Americans, the debate continues as to whether or not President Clinton should have been convicted of impeachment charges and, frankly, whether or not he should have been impeached in the first place.

Many who believe the Clinton impeachment was wrong still say that to cheat on one’s spouse is not an “impeachable offense,” while others who think impeaching President Clinton was the right thing will say, “The problem was not adultery, but perjury (intentionally lying under sworn oath).”

No doubt you’ve got your own opinion. And you’re entitled to it. (And if you’re wondering why we’re being uncharacteristically quiet about this, then it’s time to go back and reread our second disclaimer at the beginning of this book.)

IMPEACHMENT AND THE “PRESIDENTIAL-BOOGER FACTOR”

Presidents are sometimes like boogers … get one on your finger (or in the White House) and it can be hard to shake it (or him) loose.

In the case of a booger, not even a few good swipes on your pant leg are guaranteed to remove the thing from the tip of your finger. And in the case of a president, not even a full-blown impeachment trial is guaranteed to remove the bum from his current perch at the White House.

Here’s why:

Why Andrew Johnson got to stay in office after his impeachment:

• Originally, the House filed eleven articles of impeachment against Johnson, but the Senate only voted on three of those charges. (The eleventh charge was a catchall that included the first ten charges.)

• The Senate voted to acquit him rather than to convict him.

• The final vote was thirty-five to convict, nineteen to acquit on all charges.

• Since conviction required a two-thirds vote, Johnson missed being convicted by the Senate by a single vote.

Why Bill Clinton got to stay in office after his impeachment:

• President Clinton was tried in the Senate on a charge of perjury and on a charge of obstruction of justice.

• The Senate voted to acquit President Clinton on both charges.

• The final vote on the perjury charge was forty-five to convict, fifty-five to acquit.

• The final vote on the obstruction of justice charge was fifty to convict, fifty to acquit.

• A two-thirds vote (or sixty-seven total votes) was required to convict President Clinton on either or both charges.

RICHARD NIXON AND THE “ALMOST IMPEACHMENT”

Richard Nixon was the first president ever to resign … but to be fair, he was a president of many “firsts,” both good and bad.

For example, he is the first and only person to have been elected twice to the vice presidency and twice to the presidency.

His presidency was also marked by several diplomatic accomplishments, including “détente”—an official “relaxing of tensions” between the United States and the former Soviet Union—and the official US recognition of the Chinese government.

But unfortunately, Nixon was also involved in a bunch of illegal activity—which included bribery, blackmail, and obstruction of justice. And most all of this illegal stuff—the stuff that brought down his presidency—was centered around the scandal known as “Watergate.”

Although Nixon won a landslide reelection victory in 1972 and didn’t resign from office until 1974, the investigation that led to impeachment charges and his resignation surrounded events that dated back to his earliest years in office.

Nixon’s First Presidential Term: the Groundwork for Impeachment

In the early years of the Nixon administration, the public was blissfully unaware of all kinds of questionable behavior in the White House. When it finally came to light years later, it was very damning to the president.

June 13, 1971—The Defense Department’s secret history of the Vietnam War, aka the “Pentagon Papers,” is published by the New York Times.

September 3, 1971—The so-called “White House plumbers unit,” a group of guys that got its name because it was given orders to “plug leaks” in the administration, executes a break-in at a psychiatrist’s office to search for information on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

“Get a good night’s sleep and don’t bug anybody without asking me.”

—PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON

June 17, 1972—Five guys, one of whom claims that he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 in the morning while trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the now-famous Watergate Hotel.

June 19, 1972—The Washington Post reports that a Republican Party aide is one of the Watergate burglars. Former attorney general John Mitchell, now heading up the Nixon reelection campaign, denies a link between the party and the break-in.

August 1, 1972—Reports emerge claiming that a $25,000 cashier’s check, intended for the Nixon reelection campaign, somehow ended up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar.

September 29, 1972—Rumors begin to swirl suggesting that former Attorney General John Mitchell once controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations on Democrats.

October 10, 1972—Reports begin to surface claiming that FBI agents have established that the break-in at the Watergate Hotel was associated with the Nixon reelection campaign and part of a large-scale political spying and sabotage effort.

November 7, 1972—Nixon wins big-time! He is reelected to his second term in one of the largest landslides in American presidential history, winning more than 60 percent of the vote and winning forty-nine states in the Electoral College against Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, his Democratic opponent.

Nixon’s Second Term: Things Begin to Look Grim

Despite the fact that some “questionable stuff” had already come to light during Nixon’s first term in office, Americans overwhelmingly entrusted the White House to him for another four years. But not long after his second inauguration, things really started to get ugly—and the “questionable stuff” that emerged during his first four years in office began to look more and more like the “stuff” that impeachment is made of.

April 30, 1973—H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, two “major players” in the White House, resign from their respective jobs because of the Watergate scandal, along with US Attorney General Richard Kleindienst. White House counsel John Dean also gets the boot.

May 18, 1973—The Watergate channel! The Senate Watergate Committee begins investigative hearings, which are covered on national television. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson retains former solicitor general Archibald Cox to serve as the Justice Department’s “special prosecutor.”

“I am not a crook.”

—PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON

June 3, 1973—Reports surface indicating that former White House counsel John Dean has admitted that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least thirty-five times.

June 13, 1973—News breaks of a memo that was discovered by Watergate prosecutors. The memo, addressed to John Ehrlichman, describes in detail the plans to break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.

July 13, 1973—Uh-oh, there are tape recordings of all this stuff! Former presidential appointments secretary Alexander Butterfield reveals in congressional testimony that Nixon recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices since 1971.

I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin, you never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.”

—PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON

July 18, 1973—It is reported that Nixon demanded that his White House taping system be disconnected.

July 23, 1973—Nixon refuses to turn over his presidential tape recordings to the Senate Watergate Committee or the special prosecutor.

October 20, 1973—Saturday Night Massacre! Archibald Cox is canned, and the office of the special prosecutor is shut down—all at the hands of President Richard Nixon. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus resign. And talk in the Congress about impeachment is heating up.

December 7, 1973—The White House can’t explain why there is an eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap on one of Nixon’s subpoenaed tapes. Nixon’s chief of staff, Alexander Haig, suggests that “some sinister force” has erased it. (Nice try, Al.)

April 30, 1974—The White House hands over more than twelve hundred pages of edited transcripts of President Nixon’s tapes to the House Judiciary Committee. The Committee, however, demands that the tapes themselves must be released.

July 24, 1974—In a unanimous ruling, the United States Supreme Court rejects Nixon’s claims of “Executive Privilege,” and determines that he must hand over the tape recordings of sixty-four specific White House conversations.

July 27, 1974—The House Judiciary Committee passes the first of three articles of impeachment, charging the president with “obstruction of justice.” It appears that the full House would be inclined to pass it as well.

August 8, 1974—Richard M. Nixon makes history (again) by becoming the first US president to resign from office.

“People in the media say they must look at the president with a microscope. Now, I don’t mind a microscope, but boy, when they use a proctoscope, that’s going too far.”

—PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON

FIFTEEN OTHER IMPEACHMENTS (AND ONE RECALL) YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT:

Year:	1797
Accused:	Senator William Blount of Tennessee
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House for trying to chase the Spanish out of Florida and Louisiana using a combination of Indians, frontiersmen, and the British navy. In the end, the bulk of the land was to go to Britain with the remainder going to Tennessee. The case was later dismissed by the Senate in 1799 when it was ruled that a US Senator could NOT be impeached.
What happened:	Dismissed

Year:	1803
Accused:	US District Court Judge John Pickering of New Hampshire
Backstory:	He was impeached for drunkenness, loose morals, and practicing unlawful judicial procedures. In the end, he was convicted by the Senate and removed from office.
What happened:	Convicted, removed from office

Year:	1804
Accused:	Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
Backstory:	Some say it was all a plot by Thomas Jefferson to remove Federalist judges from the bench, but in the end Chase was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.
What happened:	Acquitted

Year:	1830
Accused:	Judge James H. Peck of the US District Court of Missouri
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House for abusing his judicial powers, but was acquitted by the Senate.
What happened:	Acquitted

Year:	1862
Accused:	Judge West Hughes Humphreys of the US District Court of Tennessee
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and removed from office for supporting the South’s secession from the Union and then accepting a judicial position as a judge with the Confederacy.
What happened:	Convicted, removed from office, became Confederate judge

Year:	1873
Accused:	Judge Mark Delahay, US District Court Judge of Kansas
Backstory:	He resigned before the House could impeach him on charges of drunkenness, among other things.
What happened:	Resigned

Year:	1876
Accused:	William Belknap, secretary of war
Backstory:	He was charged with taking money in exchange for making a military appointment. He resigned from office and was acquitted by the Senate.
What happened:	Resigned, then acquitted

Year:	1904
Accused:	Judge Charles Swayne, US District Court of Florida
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House for submitting false expense accounts, among other things. In the end he was acquitted by the Senate.
What happened:	Acquitted

Year:	1912
Accused:	Judge Robert W. Archbald, US District Court of Pennsylvania
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for using his position to strong-arm railroads into giving him sweetheart deals on coal-rich land.
What happened:	Convicted

Year:	1926
Accused:	Judge George W. English, US District Court of Illinois
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House for doing things like threatening jurors with jail time if they didn’t vote to convict a defendant and also for summoning local and state officials to his courtroom and for berating them in public using obscene language; he resigned before the Senate could vote on his case,
What happened:	Resigned before Senate could vote

Year:	1933
Accused:	Judge Harold Louderback, US District Court of California
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House for using his office for financial gain but was acquitted by the Senate.
What happened:	Acquitted

Year:	1936
Accused:	Judge Halsted Ritter, US District Court of Florida
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate for income-tax evasion.
What happened:	Convicted, removed from office

Year:	1986
Accused:	Judge Harry Claiborne, US District Court of Nevada
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate for income-tax evasion.
What happened:	Convicted, removed from office

Year:	1989
Accused:	Judge Walter L. Nixon, US District Court of Mississippi
Backstory:	He was impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate on charges of perjury.
What happened:	Convicted, removed from office

Impeached by the house, convicted by the senate, elected to the house

In 1988, US District Court of Florida Judge Alcee L. Hastings was impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate for accepting a bribe, for making false statements during a trial, and for disclosing confidential info from an FBI wiretap.

During the impeachment and afterward, ex-Judge Hastings never wavered from his “Not guilty!” plea.

As you might expect, Hastings, the son of domestic workers, was devastated by his conviction and removal from office.

In addition to the disgrace of the impeachment, he was also unemployed and deep in debt. In fact, he had even borrowed $13,000 from his mother’s retirement account to defend himself.

Yet just a few years later in 1992, as Hastings continued to insist that he was innocent, he ran for and won a seat in the US House of Representatives, and to this day he continues to serve in the House with many of the same House members who voted to impeach him in the late 1980s.

“I am not guilty of having committed any crime … And that is my defense … and will remain until I die, my defense.”

—ALCEE L. HASTINGS, DEFENDING HIMSELF BEFORE A FULL SENATE CHAMBER IN 1989

And One Recall:

It was a glitzy, glamorous, Kennedy spouse versus a very gray politician named Gray.

In any case, the party line was that Gray needed to be recalled because he’d mishandled the state budget and mishandled the state’s electricity crisis.

On the other side, there were charges of things being mishandled, too, but we’ll save those specific accusations for the “Sex!” chapter in the next edition of this book, after Arnold gets himself elected president.

But please allow us to say that anyone who really expected Gray Davis to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger in an election clearly was not paying attention to the premise of this book …

… which is that that when you get down to it, politics is all about entertainment.

And with that in mind, is it any wonder that since the recall Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis have become good friends? After all, Arnold got Gray’s old job as governor. But even more importantly, Gray has been dying to get Arnold’s old job as an actor. Since the recall, in fact, he’s been constantly pestering his new buddy Arnold for acting tips.