Go ahead, make my..

Let us spend a few minutes in the foggy bottom of impeach, law, order and ‘lawyers’.

Last night, the House voted to impeach Donald J. Trump. Not maybe, sorta, kinda, but partisanly, mindfully and with not a little dose of venom. At the end of the charade, guys and gals from ‘the dark side’ were high-fiving, cheering, back-slapping and taking selfies of the moment. So the first step is complete.

The Senate now must take it up in a ‘timely’ manner and decide whether or not the impeach charges are sufficient to convict Donald J. Trump. Again not maybe, sorta, kinda, but having just watched Mitch McConnell’s 32-minute purview of the Senate’s responsibility, yours truly is of a mind that all is well. McConnell outdid himself.

SanFranGran Nancy and friends from her open sewer by the bay (anybody know what she’s planning to do about all that crap and stench on the sidewalks?) assumed they had Constitutional control over what all of us saw the House of Representatives do last night. Her ‘solemn’ attempt at the pledge of allegiance was yet another soliloquy of pandering to dark forces unseen. Whatever.

If Mitch McConnell wished to convene the Senate tomorrow in order to vote on the impeach articles passed by the House, he could. He needs nothing in his hands from SanFranGran Nancy from the sewer by the bay. He can just play the tape from any news source of the vote we all saw last night.

But first, there’s an excellent piece in today’s American Spectator, courtesy of Shmuel Klatzkin: ‘Impeachment or Attainder’…

Mindfulness is the key to freedom. Little is entirely new; becoming aware of patterns enables one to discern between the repetitive and the true opportunity of the present moment.

Impeachment is one such instance of this general truth. The great responsibility that is required to exercise this great power is the key. Every presidential impeachment has failed; only in the case of Nixon, which didn’t quite make it to impeachment, was there success in forcing a president out of office.

In England, too, from whence we took the legal concept of impeachment, the great majority of impeachments failed. In this column, it has been pointed out that the reason was almost always the same — the impeachment was political and/or personal antagonism dressed up as a matter of law. Only in the time of revolution, in the 1640s, did that succeed, in a time in which all institutions were put on the chopping block and a dictatorship took over. In times of peace, the country wants law to settle burning political antagonisms, not sheer power.

The present articles of impeachment are not over matters known to law. Settled precedent in American law is that conflicts between the executive and legislative branches are settled in court. No more does the law empower Congress to hold the president in contempt than it empowers the president to arrest senators or representatives for their refusal to reveal their consultations to DOJ subpoenas. In fact, SCOTUS had taken up the very question the House is claiming to be impeachable. Clearly, by the Supremes granting certiorari, it is officially a question at law. Clearly, there are legitimate differences over the law. It might well be impeachable to ignore a SCOTUS ruling in the case, but how could it be impeachable to hold a position on something that is not yet settled? That is an absurd standard, and history will judge it so.

The impeachment over abuse of power is even more specious. No law is referenced. Abuse of power is thus just a political judgment call at best; more likely, it is an invented crime, a thinly disguised bill of attainder, in which a frustrated legislature simply declares their enemy a criminal when there was no violation of any law on the books. The disguise is necessary since the Constitution does not allow the legislature to enact a bill of attainder.

To restate for clarity: in this article of impeachment, the House is not holding the president to account for violation of any known law. It is in this very real sense a lawless act. It would be appropriate for the Senate to reject this impeachment attempt as an unconstitutional bill of attainder.[end]

Trump and McConnell not without their differences

The House, Pelosi and the rest of the miscreants can scream and wail about needing this or that, but so what. The impeach die is cast and they’re the ones who cast it.

All this mumbo-jumbo about extra-legal tricks and ploys is antithetical to the true simplicity of the Impeachment and conviction two-step dance created in the Constitution. Chief Justice Roberts has nothing to hear from SanFranGran Nancy and friends. He has the Articles of Impeachment in hand as we all do. There is no magic vellum copy to be scribed by the Impeachment calligrapher and delivered by SanFranGran Nancy riding a demoMarxocrat Ass. There are no conveniences to which the House is entitled in order to slay their dragon. They shot the impeach arrow into the heart of Donald J. Trump and now it’s 100% out of their hands.

Simply put, John Roberts, now the judge in the Senate Trial has but one document to consult: the Constitution. What does it say? It says the House part of this farce is concluded. Now the Senate part begins. If the House managers of the Senate trial are not prepared, well, it sucks to be them. They managed to get the impeachment and they will just have to do their best with what they’ve got. The lying shifty Schiff and the rest of ’em.

Thank God for president Donald J. Trump and his MAGA Pill – and his enduring energy to MAGA! and KAG!

*************************

Shmuel Klatzkin, American Spectator: Impeach or Attainder?

Sundance, Conservative Treehouse: Impeachment as a Means to an End not the End itself

See also, Michael Goodwin, NYPost: Pelosi’s flip-flop on Trump impeachment damaged America