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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29974 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Let me respond to your edit.

  1. I don’t think the structure of the sentence suggest a separate unrelated offense. The first part of the clause tells us that impeachment and conviction goes no further than removal from offense (ie there is no jail sentence). We then told however that if the law brings the president up on charges he now could be subject to a jail sentence. The natural read to me is they are talking about the same offense (ie what would be the relevance of a future crime). No I think this is to head of discussions that the first crime was already adjudicated.

  2. The constitution requires if memory serves 2/3 of the senate (ie super majority). It would be pretty much impossible to have a conviction absent bipartisan support whereas with the right venue the ex president could be subject to criminal liability purely by his partisan opponents.

The constitution clearly delineates between "Law" and "Impeachment", and the two are unrelated. I see the word "nevertheless" here meaning "this clause is about impeachment, not about the method of criminally prosecuting the president in spite of their absolute immunity", rather than "but if you remove them from office, you can now also do this other stuff".

I could be wrong, and if so I think you make a compelling argument for what right looks like.

Edit: See The_Nybbler's point here.

I agree there is a delineation. But given that no where does the constitution mention absolute immunity, it seems like a reasonable way to square the circle here given that ultimately this is a question of separation of powers.

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