The Daily Signal - Could Kavanaugh Get Impeached? What You Need to Know

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Some liberals are pushing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh to be impeached. But do they have any valid grounds? And how would an impeachment process of a Supreme Court justice even work? The Heritage Foundation's Tom Jipping, who worked on an impeachment process during his time as a Senate staffer and who is a now senior legal fellow, joins us to break it down. Read the transcript, pasted below, or listen on the podcast: We also cover these stories: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is out with a new plan that promises to lower drug prices. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds after photos of him in blackface and brownface emerged. Iran is vowing “all out war” if they’re attacked by the United States or Saudi Arabia. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today.

We'd love to talk, business. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, September 20th. I'm Kate Trinko. And I'm Daniel Davis. Earlier this week, a botched New York Times report revived the opposition to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And despite a critical correction to that story, some Democrats are plowing ahead with calls to impeach him.

Today we'll be joined by Tom Jipping of the Heritage Foundation to unpack whether those Democrats have a case. Plus, a new pill could be on the way to. to fix loneliness. At least that's what they say. We'll discuss. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and head of the Intelligence Committee, spoke on Thursday about a whistleblower report, one that allegedly is related to what President Trump said to a foreign leader, although details are vague and are not

affirmed by on the record sources. Via CNN, here's what Schiff had to say. First of all, I want to thank the whistleblower for coming forward for having the courage to follow the procedures as they're written in law to make a lawful disclosure to the Congress and to the Inspector General of conduct that was gravely concerning to the whistleblower. Under the law, when a whistleblower does that, the Inspector General, has two weeks to investigate that complaint to determine if it's urgent and credible and to forward that complaint to the director of national intelligence

the inspector general made exactly those determinations found that this was within the jurisdiction of the director of national intelligence that it was an urgent matter and it met the statutory requirements that it dealt with a serious or flagrant abuse violation of law or other misconduct or misuse of resources President Trump tweeted on Thursday, quote, Another fake news story out there, it never ends. Virtually, any time I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself.

No problem. Knowing all of this is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader, while on such a potentially heavily populated call. I would only do what is right anyway and only do good for the USA." End quote. At issue is whether the Trump administration should share more details about the complaint with Schiff and other House members.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is out with a new plan that promises to lower drug prices. The bill titled the Lower Drug Cost Now Act would allow the Department of Health and Human services to negotiate prices for up to 250 drugs that lack competition. Drug companies would be fined if they fail to come to the bargaining table. A key part of the bill is that it would peg U.S. drug prices relatively to the prices paid in other countries like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. The Washington Times reports that Democrats will make the bill a priority this fall. The Republican leaders called the plan socialist and said it would make it harder to bring drugs to market.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to reporters after a photo surfaced of him wearing makeup that made him look like he had brown skin at a 2001 party when he was nearly 30 years old. Via CBS, here's Trudeau. In 2001, when I was a teacher out in Vancouver, I attended an end-of-year gala where the theme was Aradium Nights. and I dressed up in an Aladdin costume and put makeup on. I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better, but I didn't. And I'm really sorry. There are also two other instances so far discovered of Trudeau doing the same.

In high school, he wore blackface and sang a Jamaican song. Another video unearthed by Canadian Outlet Global News, also from the early 90s reportedly, shows Trudeau and Blackface as well. Iran is vowing all-out war if they are attacked by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia. Iran's foreign minister, Mohamed Javad Zarif, made that comment Thursday as he repeated denials that his country was behind last weekend's attack on Saudi oil facilities, which temporarily cut Saudi oil production in half. Well, meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Saudi Arabia and then the United Arab Emirates,

where he said, per the New York Times, we'd like a peaceful resolution indeed. We're still striving to build out a coalition. I was here in an act of diplomacy while the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all-out war to fight to the last American. Did an airline mechanic have connections to ISIS?

Abdul Majid Maruf Ahmed Alani was arrested initially for tampering with a plane in Miami, reportedly so he could get overtime by fixing the plane. CBS reports, quote, Alani is an Iraqi-born naturalized U.S. citizen, who prosecutors now claim shared videos stored on his cell phone of ISIS murders, made statements wishing Allah would use divine powers to harm non-Muslims,

had recently sent money to someone in Iraq and has a brother there who may have ties to the Islamic State. End quote. Alani's lawyer, Christian Dunham, said, per the Miami Herald. We don't believe he intentionally endangered the same. safety of people, and I think the government is blowing this out of proportion. His case will continue in the courts. A new leader of the Women's March has been ousted almost as soon as she started.

The board of the left-wing group voted out Zara Bilu as a member of the board after anti-Semitic comments in the past surfaced. In a 2017 Facebook post, she had said that she was boycotting the movie Wonder Woman because the lead actress had served in the Israeli defense forces. She said, quote, I similarly would not watch a movie where the lead actor or actress were proud of their participation in the U.S. military, ISIS or Al-Qaeda, end quote. And in another Facebook post, she directly compared ISIS to the Israeli defense forces. In response to her ouster, she blamed the backlash on an Islamophobic smear campaign. Next up, we'll discuss with Tom Jipping whether Kavanaugh can be impeached and how that process would work.

Are you interested in learning more about the policies our lawmakers fight about? Heritage Explains is a terrific podcast that dives each week into a new topic. I actually just listened on my commute today to one of their newest episodes about why New Zealand is such a great place to live. In short, because it's so economically free. Post, Tim Desher, actually went to New Zealand. I am a little bit jealous. And it's a really fun and informative episode. For instance, I had no idea that New Zealand was such a chill country when it came to economic policy.

Heritage Explains is available on iTunes, Google Play, and wherever you listen to your podcast. Again, it's deeply disturbing that someone that serves on the highest court of the land could have this many allegations. And this is why I filed the resolution to initiate an impeachment inquiry. That's Representative Ayanna Presley, Democrat of Massachusetts talking on CNN earlier this week. Presley, who is a member of the House squad, along with representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilan Omar, is calling for beginning the impeachment process of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Here's what else, Presley told CNN. The president says Kavanaugh is the one who's being assaulted.

Your response to Trump? This was a fundamentally flawed and rushed process. This GOP-led Senate and the FBI did not follow up. up on numerous allegations. And I believe that Dr. Ford and Deborah Ramirez deserve to have their due process, which is while I filed this resolution to initiate an impeachment inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of the matter. Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated she doesn't intend to focus on this issue, so it's probably not going to go anywhere. But it's still a telling sign of where today's liberals are. Joining us today to discuss is Tom Jipping, Deputy Director of the

Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Tom, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me back. Okay, so let's take a step back first. The Constitution does allow for impeachment. Why is that? Sure. The idea of impeachment, which is a way to remove a public official for serious misconduct while in office. That idea had long roots when America's founders put it in the Constitution. They focused primarily on the president. In other words, it was a way between elections if the president was really guilty of serious misconduct to remove him from office because the idea is that he's actually committing an offense against the political system. against the people.

And so it was kind of a safety valve, but of course it's supposed to be the very, very rare exception. Elections are what's supposed to address most of those sorts of matters when it comes to elected officials. So to get back to the particulars, do you think there's any valid case

that the left can make regarding whether Kavanaugh should be impeached? Well, I hope people listen to what Representative Presley said. She talked about how she wanted victims of sexual assault to have their voice heard. That's a public policy issue. That's not an impeachment issue.

She talked about how it was really serious that a sitting Supreme Court justice could have so many allegations against him. Well, think of how easy it is to create allegations. If all it takes to remove a public official from office, especially one that is not elected, like in the judiciary, is allegations, well, You're going to have a cabal of political activists, people in the media, they make allegations, they report them, and suddenly, oh, the allegations themselves are a basis for removing someone from office.

That's sheer chaos. And it's nothing but a weapon for sort of political retaliation. The standard in the Constitution for impeachment is treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. that's a phrase that had a specific meaning when the founders put it in the Constitution. It doesn't include political differences. It doesn't include some sort of political agenda where you want to use allegations against a Supreme Court justice for other purposes. I think that's what's going on today.

There's nothing that has any basis in fact that relates to Justice Kavanaugh that would serve as a basis for impeachment, in my opinion. So if, you know, a bunch of hypotheticals happen, Pelosi changes her mind, something like that, and liberals in Congress decide to try to move forward with impeachment, how would that process even work? The impeachment process, the Constitution gives the House the sole power of impeachment. So the House would begin that process either by the Judiciary Committee doing some investigation, but it can't go forward unless there's an actual resolution introduced that has articles of impeachment. It's kind of like a grand jury indictment. So that's what the House has to work with. And if the House passes that,

passes that resolution, then it goes over to the Senate. The Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try impeachments. There has to be an impeachment trial. The Senate does that through an impeachment trial committee of the last time we did this was in 2010. I worked for Senator Orrin Hatch at the time. He was vice chairman of the impeachment trial committee. I was the deputy chief counsel. The committee had 12 senators, six Republicans, six Democrats. The committee conducts the trial and then prepares a detailed report of the evidence to give to the full Senate. So then the Senate votes on conviction. And two thirds of the Senate has to vote in order to convict someone who has been impeached and then they are removed from office.

So we're talking about a very high bar here. It's a very high bar. In all of American history, only 19 public officials have been impeached. 13 of those were federal judges, even though the founder's focus was primarily on the president. Two presidents who have been impeached, neither one of them was removed from office because they weren't convicted by the Senate. So have there been any instances where a Supreme Court justice has been impeached and I guess it would just be high crimes and misdemeanors as well as treason and bribery would be the grounds that you would care about. Yeah, two Supreme Court justices have, although they were not convicted by the Senate. I mean, I think people probably think that impeachment alone removes someone from office.

Bill Clinton shows that, you know, showed us that that's not the case. The House can impeach you, but the Senate has to convict you in order to be removed from office. So the judges that several of the judges who were impeached by the House were not convicted by the Senate. And so they remained in office. And that would be the case if the Senate did not convict, whether it would be the president, a Supreme Court justice. And again, it takes two thirds of the Senate to convict. So you said there were two Supreme Court justices who have been impeached over history? I believe so, yeah, at least one.

Okay. And do you know anything about that circumstance or how it played out? Well, there have been, you know, dozens of different articles introduced against the various public officials that have been impeached by the House. Some of them involved, you know, allegations of drunkenness and incompetence. Others involved charges that they decided cases, you know, incorrectly. Some of the articles were a little bit more political in nature. Others, I mean, the last judge to be impeached was a U.S. district. judge from Louisiana and the articles against him involved various instances of corruption,

lying under oath. Now, this kind of thing. One important distinction, though, and this would certainly apply to the Kavanaugh situation, and that is it's clear that impeachment is in the Constitution in order to remove a public official for misconduct in office. It's been debated throughout the years whether you can remove a public official for behavior that happened long before he even took office, which would be the case here. And the consensus certainly is that that is not an appropriate use of impeachment. We had the hearings last year.

A lot of this stuff was aired. The Senate chose to confirm Justice Kavanaugh. You can't get a second bite at the apple just because you didn't have enough votes to defeat him for appointment in the first place. And for conduct that allegedly took place decades ago, that is not consistent with the intended use of impeachment. So since it's not consistent, it sounds like this would have a hard time, even if the political ill will was there for this to get out of the House? Well, the... Or would it sort of be the Senate and the committee?

The threshold in the House is a simple majority. So if the majority party was that unified and was that sort of political about it, They could vote to impeach someone for, I suppose, theoretically, anything they wanted. But the reason why there has to be a separate trial and a higher threshold in the Senate is because that's got to have a check somehow. There's got to be a way of weeding out, you know, situations where maybe there was kind of a political wave or an undercurrent that got the thing started. But it's going to take more than that to finish the process. And it just depends on how much our House and Senate members understand the true meaning of impeachment and the role it's supposed to play in our political system. I mean, everything is so political today that even these sort of basic processes of government are getting kind of twisted and redirected in a political way.

I hope that doesn't happen here. Right. And speaking of that, you know, the Supreme Court has ostensibly tried to. very hard to stay outside of politics to, at least in theory, govern according to the Constitution and rule that way. This is obviously speculation. But do you think that this impeachment threat is potentially getting under the Supreme Court justice's skin? Do you think it has implications for future nominees and nominations? I don't think the impeachment threat does. The Constitution leaves the entire impeachment process completely to Congress. It has nothing to do with the courts.

There's no more independent public officials in the world than federal judges in the United States, right? What I think is dangerous, the message is being sent, not so much that you might be impeached, but that we're going to attack you if you don't do what we want. In other words, the attacks on Justice Kavanaugh, the kinds of attacks on nominees, religious beliefs, and so on through this process, it's more of a general, you know, we are going to treat you badly. We are going to hold you and your family up to public scorn. We're going to accuse you of terrible things. And that may dissuade some good people from, you know, being willing to step up and to take judicial service. So it's not so much, I think, that the threat of actual removal through impeachment is real. It's just the we are going to abuse you like you've never been abused before.

And that's either going to keep people out of public service or they hope will sort of intimidate them into making rulings that are more politically correct rather than legally correct. I don't know very many people nowadays who want to go into public service partly because of this. Well, obviously the Supreme Court, there's more at stake at that, although I'll have to say if the judiciary generally was operated more as it was designed to, they'd be involved in a lot less. They would be addressing far less controversial issues. There'd be a lot less at stake when it comes to appointing judges. You wouldn't have these kinds of conflicts. So in a way, the courts have done a little bit of this damage to themselves by becoming very political and intrusive and going further than they really should as judges.

And frankly, if we can bring more balance to our system and have a judiciary that's operating more as it's designed, it won't be so tempting by certain political forces to try to manipulate them like this. Okay. And then lastly, I believe you have a report out on Heritage. Yes. Hans von Spakovsky and I did a legal memorandum in May called the impeachment process, the Constitution and Historical Practice. We put things in a broader historical context.

We look at who may be impeached, what they may be impeached for, how it's been used in American history kind of as a way since this is obviously an issue that people are talking about. It does have a context and it does have a history. We hope we're making a good contribution to people understanding it better. Okay. So be sure to check that out and we'll link to it if you're interested in learning more about this. Thanks so much for joining us today. You're very welcome. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices and bigger government become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising top. of homegrown socialism

while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. Remember that song That is Lonely by Acon. Takes me back to middle school. That was the year 2003.

Well, loneliness has gotten a lot worse since 2003. In fact, they say it's now an epidemic in the modern world, but don't worry. There might soon be a pill for that. The National Post reports that researchers at the University of Chicago recently conducted an experiment

in which young people experiencing loneliness were given tablets containing pregenitalone. That's a natural hormone. Prior studies had shown that injections of that hormone had helped normalize an exaggerated threat response in isolated mice, and they're hoping that might translate into helping

lonely humans cope with isolation. A loneliness pill could be on the way. The story points out some sobering numbers, quote, in a poll of 20,000 Americans last year, nearly half said they lack companionship or meaningful relationships. One in four Americans rarely or never

feel as though there are people who really understand them. Six and ten Britons recently told pollsters their pet is their closest companion, end quote. So Kate, it's a dark, companionless void out there. Is this pill the solution that we've all been waiting for?

Well, one, I just think it's funny that you brought up that the song was big when you're in middle school because I was like thinking back and I was Like, was there any period more lonely than sort of middle school high school, which is not because you don't have people, but because you think everyone misunderstands you. Right. You're super, at least I was super emotional. Look, I mean, I think there's some drugs that are great, like antidepressants.

I know there's still controversy. I think sometimes there is a component in the brain that needs help. But I would say in general, my suspicion is modern life is not about a biological shortage or issue in your brain. But it's about people are spending all this time. social media, which is a way of communicating, but not really. Like, you don't have that face-to-face contact. You miss a lot of the essential elements. There's a lot of, there's a lot of push to brag about your life, not share authentically and honestly. In some ways, I wonder, like, is this about

how people don't go to church? They don't have community groups. They don't, families tend to be smaller. I mean, I guess there's just a lot of sources of communication, friendship, and family that people just don't have any more. I don't think a pill is the answer to that. But it's also not an easy to solve problem. So I guess I get why there's a temptation to be like, oh, let's just make this a medical thing. But I mean, the hard thing is people should try to get out there more and probably all of us should be looking for people who seem a little bit on the fringes and see if we can include them more. Yeah, I mean, kind of the semi-disturbing aspect of this, it's basically, the way people approach drugs,

you know, people approach drugs because like to kind of block out other problems in life. And, you know, even if the drug does the, you know, does alter your mental state

and make you feel better, we don't say that that's a good thing. We say that that creates a problem. I mean, I guess we would have to wait and see during, you know, future testing if this actually created, you know,

addiction or other problems, like unforeseen problems. But I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's definitely odd. It seems like dystopian almost to think that we would try to address basic social problems by just pop and pill. Right. And I guess I am not. I am so not a neuroscientist.

I don't know if eventually there would be studies showing that people who actually have a community but feel lonely if their brain imagery was different than people with the same community who didn't feel. I mean, I guess I'm not completely opposed without more research to the idea that there might possibly be something that this is a biological thing, not just a social thing. But I think in general, like if people don't feel they are close to people, and I think there's a lot of evidence, you know, the stats you brought up, but just in general in modern life that people are disconnected. And I think what we should really be working on here is, okay, if you're not going to go to church, can you? I mean, there was the famous book from, gosh, it must be 20 years ago now, Robert Putman's bowling alone. Can you join a bowling league? Can you join a sports team?

Can you join a knitters club? There's all kinds of ways to meet new people. I mean, many of them are not great or fun, but they exist. And it seems to me that the priorities should be on helping people, you know, learn how to do that and take some responsibility for that. And I mean, frankly, you know, one of the things that there's a lot of articles. is about for millennials and now Generation Z is how to make friends as an adult, which I guess in some ways it is different than how maybe prior generations did where they were settling down

and marrying and having kids. Well, now if you're spending your 20s, 30s, and maybe beyond without kids, without a spouse, you're not going to meet people through playgroup or through your kids' school. It is different. But it's doable. I mean, I moved to New York and I didn't know anyone. People go on group Tinder friend date. There's a friend version of Bumble a dating site.

I actually think that's, I don't know if I'd say it's great. Tell us about your. Let's not talk about it. I'm definitely not going to discuss online dating. I think on the friend thing, I actually, like I go back to when I moved to New York and I didn't know anyone. There was one other person for my college who thankfully I hit it off with. But I would have been tempted to try out an app. Like, I don't know, other girls who like Jane Austen or something.

I don't know if that could have actually worked. But I think if you meet like romantic partners online, why not trying to meet friends online? Isn't that ironic though? Because you're in New York and you're walking on the street every day passing people. Yes. I did think that at one point when I was in a really bad mood. It would almost seem more natural just to like stop someone and be like, hey, can we just like, I'll walk with you for two minutes. Can we chat?

No, that would not be natural. And that would go very badly in New York City. If you did that, people would be really mad. You could give them like a 10, a 20. No, it's not. That is like... That'd be really sad. Yeah, that's super sad.

But I think it's something, you know, I look, I looked for church groups. I got to know other people in the same industry as I was. You know, I tried to be open to people that I couldn't see myself being friends with. And some of them I did end up friends with. Some of them I did not. But I think there's really a skill set that we're not valuing enough here. But I also think some of it does go too. if you are the sort of person who has a million friends and you see someone who looks kind of lonely,

maybe look for ways to include them. Can you invite them to lunch? I mean, there's things that we can do. Totally. Yeah. Well, still, I think the stopping people on the street could work. In fact, they might look you in the eye, have a little, you know, moisture and be like, you know what, I've been waiting for this.

I have been praying for this to happen. I needed a friend. I will pay you $20 to go up to five. and people in New York City and try this. New York, okay. That's a different beast. We will leave it there for today. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud.

And please leave us a review or a rating, but not a friend request, on iTunes to give us any feedback. Rob and Virginia, we'll be with you on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound designed by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.