Here we go again. The absolutely stupid and irrational republicans in the Senate seem to always come up with the most ridiculous claims in order to win their argument.
This time, they claim that you can’t convict a President after he has left office.
It would seem to me, that as long as the President was impeached by the proper Congressional body before he left office, the indictment has started, so the clock is ticking. It is absolutely absurd to believe that the trial and conviction could happen within a set time frame.
I don’t believe the Framers of the Constitution ever considered this. We currently enjoy the technological age where many of the fundamental parts of an impeachment trial such as debate in committee, putting together the source precedents, determining the proper charges for the indictment, typing them up for crimination in the House, making multiple copies for distribution and reference can happen much quicker than in the 18th and 19th centuries. Even today, with all of these advances, these procedures could take as much as 3 to 4 weeks after the crime has been determined. Then, there is the Senate trial and voting. This could take anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months. The total time of the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson was from August, 1867 to May, 1868. That is nine (9) months.
With this in mind, if a former president cannot be convicted after his term expires, this would mean that a sitting President cannot be impeached in the last six(6) months to a year of his presidency. During this time, he is free to commit just about any crime of office that he may want as it is perfectly possible to delay the trial (as Leader McConnell has done) and take it to a period after a new President has been inugurated.
This gives him carte blanche to do anything he wants the last 3 to 6 months he is in office. This concept should be stricken off hand as it is absolutely preposterous.
Otherwise, I think I’ll run for President. Not because I want to do good things for the country, or help people, but like Trump, I want to foul up every agency I could. Search out and install the most incompetent, but loyal sycophants I could find to help me totally destroy our system of laws and checks and balances and find ways to find wedge issues that divide our ideologies to enable (my) own personal transgressions and obtain ultimate authority to do anything I want because the impotent Senate is powerless to do anything about it.
Please tell me what you think.
