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Impeachment

Thursday 2nd of October 2025

Impeachment The adjective is the key. A “crime” occurred when one citizen or subject harmed another. “High crimes” were conversely those committed against the crown in a monarchy, or the people in a democracy. The term says nothing about the severity of the crime, or its consequent penalty, merely its type as one that surpassed mere criminal law, being a more funda- mental assault against the body politic. “Such public wrongs,” William Blackstone … argued in 1792, “are a breach and violation of the public rights and duties, due to the whole community.” Jeffrey A Engel © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. Donald Trump, 4:52 AM -– 22 Oct 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Already there is enormous demand for impeachment. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll in May found that 68 percent of Republican voters think the House should impeach Biden.  A majority expect that it will  impeach him. Thwarting those expectations would be dangerous for any House Republican. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, October 26, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Impeachment An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history. Gerald Ford © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Andrew Johnson is innocent because Benjamin Wade is guilty of being his successor. Newspaper comment on Johnson's acquittal quoted by Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz in To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The argument that only criminal offenses are impeachable has died a thousand deaths in the writings of all the experts on the subject, but it staggers on like a vengeful zombie. In fact, there is no evidence that the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was understood in the 1780s to mean indictable crimes. Laurence Tribe, on Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz's claim that even if Trump abused his powers, the articles of impeachment don't allege that he committed a specific crime © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment But if – and this is an if – if for the next year, year-and-a-half, going right into the heart of the election, all that the Congress is talking about is impeaching Trump and Trump, Trump, Trump, and Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, and we're not talking about health care, we're not talking about raising the minimum wage to a living wage, we're not taling about combatting climate change, we're not talking about sexism and racism and homo- phobia, and all the issues that concern ordinary Americans, what I worry about is that works to Trump's advantage. Bernie Sanders, CNN Town Hall Manchester, New Hampshire, April 22, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Consider the old tale of the Sword of Damocles, about which it was said, “The value of the sword is not that it falls, but rather that it hangs.” The importance of the sword of impeachment is that it sometimes falls. But for We the People, it is also important that it hangs. Cass R.Sunstein, Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The Constittution places a life-or-death bet on the American people and their representatives. It gambles that presidential misconduct risking grave harm to the nation will arouse unified popular opposition so strong that it prevails over partisanship, personal loyalty and political inertia. This is a noble wager. If the public won't resist tyrants and defend its form of government, the game is already lost. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The day Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day that he was subject to impeachment because he took the power of Congress over the impeachment process away from Congress and became the judge and jury. Lindsey Graham, 1998 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Determination of right and wrong require evaluation of circumstance, motive and result. Given that we live in a tribal political environment unable to agree on basic facts, we are unlikely to generate the widespread moral outrage necessary to prompt senators to risk eviction by voting against their constituents or against their party. Jeffrey A. Engel, in Impeachment: An American History © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment DONALD TRUMP: When she [Nancy Pelosi] first got in and was named Speaker, I met her. And I'm very impressed by her. I think she's a very impressive person. I like her a lot. But I was surprised that she didn't do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush. It was almost – it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing. WOLF BLITZER: Impeaching him? DONALD TRUMP: Absolutely. For the war. For the war! Well, he lied! He got us into a war with lies, and I mean, look at the trou- ble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant and they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense. From a 2008 interview © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Don’t confuse me with the facts. I've got a closed mind. I will not vote for impeachment. I'm going to stick with my president even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot. Earle Landgrebe, Indiana Republican Representative, Nixon supporter, and revered role model for today's Republican Congressmen, the day before Nixon resigned in 1974 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Even if you don't love originalism in general, you might love it for impeachment. That might seem like an opportunistic position, but it has unmistakable logic. … the problems confronted way back in 1787 are not so different from those we confront today. … the abstract concerns that motivated them — treason, bribery, corruption, egregious abuse of public trust or misuse of presidential authority — are no different from those that concern us today. They are exactly the same. Cass R. Sunstein, Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Get over it. Mick Mulvaney, telling reporters what to do after admitting Trump had indeed had a quid pro quo exchange with Ukraine's president © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment A good magisate will not fear them. A bad one ought to be kept in fear of them. Elbridge Gerry © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment I am deeply concerned that the actions described below constitute “a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law or Executive Order” that “does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters,” consistent with the definition of an “urgent concern” in 50 U.S.C. §3033(k)(5)(G). I am therefore fulfilling my duty to report this information, through proper legal channels to the relevant authorities. From the complaint a whistleblower filed with the IG of the intelligence community about Trump's behavior © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment I can't imagine the courts allowing it. Donald Trump © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment I'm not for impeachment. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it. Nancy Pelosi © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. From Trump's July 25, 2019, telephone conversation soliciting President Zelensky of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Bien and his son  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment If he abuses that authority for personal advantage, financial or political, he injures the country as a whole. That is precisely why the framers rejected the idea of relying solely on an election to remove an abusive president from office. Indeed, waiting for the next election is an option that is obviously insufficient when the abuse of power is directed at cheating in that very election. Laurence Tribe, Washington Post, January 10, 2020 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment If he were anyone other than the president of the United States, he would be in handcuffs and indicted. Elizabeth Warren, May, 2019, after reading the Mueller report © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment [I]f US President Donald Trump is not brought down for his alleged wrongdoing, it will not be because his inquisitor, Robert Mueller, lacked thoroughness or because his political enemy, the Democratic party, lacked nerve. It is because not quite enough voters minded quite enough. If they did, the pressure would tell on Democrats to seek his impeachment and on Republicans to at least consider voting for it, on pain of electoral rout. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, April 24, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Impeachments are confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishments. James WIlson, 1801 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment [If you] actually think that President Trump committed a criminal offense … you go and arrest him. … The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people, and, so far, I haven't seen any activity in that direction. Bill Castor, Jr., Trump's legal counsel, concluding his Day 1 remarks during Trump's second impeachment trial © 2021 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Impeachment shouldn't be considered as merely a cleaner and more orderly form of assassination. Rather it's a democratic process by which the American people, speaking through Congress, decide that for the constitutional system to live, a presidency must die. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to “lock down” all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced – as is customary – by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call. From the complaint a whistleblower filed with the IG of the intelligence community about Trump's behavior © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment It means whatever we say it means … because there is no judicial review. Daniel Patrick Moynihan on “high Crimes and Misdeemeanors” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment It's like pornography. You know it when you see it, but you have trouble defining it. Henry Hyde, during Clinton's impeachment © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Later can't mean never because the case for inaction here is starting to get pretty weak. John Oliver, June 16, 2019, after Trump said he would accept foreign meddling again in American elections in order to get rerelected in 2020 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The law case will be decided by the PR case. Richard Nixon © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment “Let the jury consider the verdict,” says the King in the trial scene in Alice in Wonderland. “‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’” With Trump's trial, there is a refinement on this order: verdict first, trial afterwards, sentence never. Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Lying to the American people might be impeachable, but it might not be a crime on the statute books. Akhil Amar © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Moreover, even if a decisive majority of the American electorate does  awaken to the onset of tyranny, all it takes to block impeachment is enough support to sway thirty-four senators. Particularly in light of the Senate's unrepresentative composition, which gives small states an outsized voice in government, a president backed by less than 20 percent of registered votes can become practically immune to removal. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that, after an initial exchange of pleasantries, the President used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests. Namely, he sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President's 2020 reelection bid. From the complaint a whistleblower filed with the IG of the intelligence community about Trump's behavior © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Of course I did. Rudy Giuliani, responding to CNN host Chris Cuomo, who asked Giuliani if he had requested Ukraine's government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment On the one hand, you're shocked, and at the same time, you’re not surprised. And maybe that's the most awful thing about this. Adan Schiff, on testimony presented to the House Intelligence committee about Trump's attempted extortion of Ukraine © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Only if a future impeachment case plays out like Johnson's, in which senators are called to consider their consciences as well as their constituents, and at the same time like Nixon's with conclusive evidence strong enough to justify lawmakers' breaking party discipline, should a president truly fear impeachment. Jeffrey A. Engel, in Impeachment: An American History © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The president's transactional worldview always implied the possibility of his own abandonment. Once he stops being useful to people, by his own logic, they have no reason to stay loyal. He does not offer a relationship much deeper than – what an airing this Latinism is getting – quid pro quo. … Whether to support Mr Trump is becoming a finer and finer calculation for Republicans. And calculation, not fraternity, is all it ever was. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, October 2, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Queens man impeached — — — — — Former Jamaica Estates resident Donald Trump was impeached Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the third president to be impeached in United States history — and the first from Queens. headline and lead, Queens Daily Eagle, December 19, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Queens man impeached — again — — — — — A Queens-born real estate developer made history Wednesday when he became the first U.S. president ever impeached twice by the House of Representatives. headline and lead, Queens Daily Eagle, January 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The question presented by the set of facts enumerated in this report may be as simple as that posed by the President and his chief of staff's brazenness: is the remedy of impeachment warranted for a president who would use the power of his office to coerce foreign interference in a U.S. election, or is that now a mere perk of the office that Americans must simply “get over”? Adam Schiff, preface to Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The reason why evidence is irrelevant to Trumps' trial is not just that the evidence is inconveniently damning. It is that this doctrine of the president's will as the source of all authority must not be undermined by the manner of the trial. At the heart of Trump's defense is the jus- tification that underlies all authoritarian rule. The leader is special. He is not like us because he has unique instincts. His gut (or divine inpiration or mystical ability to discern the true will of the people) leads him to make the right call. And the gut cannot be questioned: the job of everyone else in government is to accept what the leader does first and find the reasons for it later. Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Refusing to impeach a known tyrant out of partisan self-interest would constitute a failure of governance at least as profound as urging impeachment solely for partisan reasons. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Richard Nixon impeached himself. He gave us Gerald Ford as his revenge. Bella Abzug © 2024 Kwiple.com
Impeachment The Senate is on trial as well as the president. Does the Senate conduct a trial according to the Constitution to vindicate the Republic, or does the Senate participate in the president's crimes by covering them up? Jerrold Nadler © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice? … Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt? George Mason, Constitutional Convention, July 20, 1787 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the man chosen. George Mason © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Sometime next year, after an interval of perfor- mative investigations, Republicans in the House  are going to impeach Joe Biden. This may not be  their present plan, but they will work themselves up to it by degrees. The pressure from the MAGA base will build. A triggering event will burst all restraints. Eventually, Republicans will leave themselves little choice. This prediction rests, of course, on the assumption that Republicans will win control of the House next month, which seems likely: … Impeachment is the corollary of election denial — the invincible certainty that Biden cheated in  2020 and Donald Trump won. If you truly believe that and haven't joined a militia, impeachment is the least of the remidies you will accept. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, Oct. 26, 2002 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Impeachment There is no political inconvenience exception to the United States Constitution. … If there's going to be accountability, that accountability has to come from Congress. … If there are people in the House or the Senate who want to say that's what a president can do when the president is being investigated for his own wrongdoings or when a foreign government attacks our country, then they should have to take that vote and live with it for the rest of their lives. Elizabeth Warren, CNN Democratic Presidential Town Hall, Manchester, New Hampshire, April 22, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment There may indeed be proof enough for prosecutors of a future president's treason, bribery, or commission of a high crime or misdemeanor, but so long as a third of voters — or rather voters from a third of the states — tell their senators they remain unconvinced, conviction is hard to imagine. Jeffrey A. Engel, in Impeachment: An American History © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment There was no crime. You know, it's high crimes AND – not with or or. It's high crimes and misdemeanors. There was no high crime and there was no misdemeanor. So how do you impeach based on that? Donald Trump © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment There will be presidents who are neither criminals nor mental incompetents but who are wrong for the role, who pose a danger to the country and the world. It is a principle that sounds radical until you say it, at which point it seems obvious: Being extremely bad at the job of president of the United States should be enough to get you fired. Ezra Klein, “The case for normalizing impeachment” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Impeachment  These are not grounds for impeachment. They are grounds for divorce. Maureen Dowd, on the Lewinsky affair © 2021 Kwiple.com
Impeachment These are the stakes of President Trump's impeachment. Like President Nixon, he abused the public trust by wielding the powers of the presi- dency to serve himself instead of the public. But unlike President Nixon, he didn't do it solely with the assistance of Americans; he did it by seeking help from a foreign power. That makes President Trump's high crimes even worse. And if we fail to hold him accountable, as our founders feared, I believe that could very well mark the end of the American experiment. Neal Katyal, Impeach © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment This business of high crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as President of the United States put their own interests, their personal interests, ahead of public service. Mike Pence © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment This isn't like receiving a parking ticket based on hearsay, as Senator Graham alleged. It's like receiving a speeding ticket based on a speedometer, a camera, and an admission from the driver that he was speeding. Neal Katyal responding to Graham's tweet that, if you can't get a parking ticket based on hearsay testimony, you shouldn't be able to impeach a president on it either © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Trump Urged Probe Amid Aid Talk — — — — — — — — — — — President's Team Bets House Inquiry Will Backfire on Democratic Party headlines, Wall Street Journal print edition, September 26, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Try to impeach him [Trump], just try it. You will have a spasm of violence in this country, an insurrection, like you've never seen. The people will not stand for impeachment. A politician that votes for it would be endangering their own life. Rober Stone © 2017 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Was there a quid pro quo? The answer is yes. … Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret. Gordon Sondland [“Everyone” includes Trump, Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton, who wanted no part of what he called a “drug deal”] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Washington is staging the opposite of a Moscow show trial. In the Soviet version, Joseph Stalin would coerce innocent comrades into false professions of guilt. In Donald Trump's Senate trial, the US president's party is proclaiming the innocence of an allegedly guilty man The overlap is that each trial was pre-cooked before it began. Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 23, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment We have grown too afraid of the consequences of impeachment and  too complacent about the consequences of leaving an unfit president in office. If the worst happens, and Trump's presidency results in calamity, we will have no excuse to make, no answer to give. This is an emergency. We should break the glass. Ezra Klein, “The case for normalizing impeachment” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Impeachment What has changed is not the calculus of impeachment, then. What has changed is the Democrats' propensity to calculate. Essentially, the party has stopped overthinking. Rather than second-guess the political consequences of impeachment, their concern is for – do not laugh – the principle. Janan Ganash, Financial Times, September 25, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment What was the practice before this in cases where the chief Magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why recourse was had to assassination. Benjamin Franklin, Constitutional Convention, July 20, 1787, preferring impeachment to its alternative © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment When considering what the Constitution's authors thought about which acts or defects might warrant a president's impeachment, therefore, one shorthand explanation can be found in asking what would George Washington not  have done? Jeffrey A. Engel, in Impeachment: An American History © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment When we think about “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” we must ask: Will we survive this presidency, and if we do, what kind of nation will we have become? Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Impeachment When you look at past impeachments, whether it was president Clinton or, I guess president Nixon never got there, he left. I don't leave. There's a big difference. I don't leave. Donald Trump © 2019 Kwiple.com
 
Impeachment Whether in London or Washington, what liberals are ultimately defending is not any policy but the rule of law: the frame within which a nation paints its politics, not the choice of colours. Protecting the one might entail some sacrifice of the other. Ms Pelosi seems ready to brave the cost. The test is whether she holds to her course if voters revolt. Janan Ganash, Financial Times, September 25, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com