The Daily Signal - What's Next in the Impeachment Process

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

Heritage legal scholar Tom Jipping joins the podcast to discuss the House's impeachment process, and what's next in the Senate. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, Pippa, 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

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, December 19th. I'm Jared Stedman. And I'm Kate Trinco. Today, we'll feature Jared's interview with Heritage Foundation legal scholar Tom Jipak. They'll discuss the House impeachment vote and what's next for impeachment in the Senate. Don't forget. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe.

Now on to our top news. In an over six-hour debate over articles of impeachment, various Democrats made their case. that President Donald Trump should ultimately be removed from office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the debate. If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president's reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice. What we are discussing today is the established fact that the president violated the Constitution.

It is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections, the basis of our democracy. Ted Liu, a Democrat from California, said in his remarks that, regardless of outcome, impeachment would leave a mark on Trump and his presidency. Whether Donald Trump leaves in one month, one year or five years, disimpeachment is permanent. It will follow him around for the rest of his life and history books will record it. And that people will know why we impeached. It's all very simple.

No one's above the law, not our commander-in-chief, not our president. Representative Liz Cheney, a member of House GOP leadership, appeared on Fox and Friends Wednesday to discuss the House impeachment vote. I think, Brian, what is absolutely heartbreaking and disgraceful is what the Democrats are doing. They have absolutely stacked the deck in this entire process. They've abused their power. They've abused the rules. They've abused the law. They've denied due process to the president.

They've told witnesses not to answer Republican questions. They've conducted this whole thing in secret. Despite all of that, they have absolutely failed to prove their case. And they're now in a situation where they're bringing articles of impeachment to the floor and saying that we should impeach the president based on the assumption of some impeachable behavior. The Constitution absolutely does not say that if you don't like the president, if you disagree with his policies, that you can impeach him because you are assuming that he's done something wrong. It is really, it's a sad day.

It's a tragic day. And I think the Democrats have got to understand the danger that they're creating here and the damage they're doing to the Constitution and end of the Republic. Several Republicans spoke on the House floor, including Representative Tom the Clintock, Republican of California. Mr. Speaker, nullifying a national election requires an overwhelming case of high crimes, supported by indisputable evidence that the vast majority of the nation, finds compelling. Now, Article 1 is a made-up crime called abuse of office. It does not charge that the president broke any law, but that Congress doesn't like the way he lawfully discharged his

constitutional duties. This would reduce the presidency to that of a minister serving at the pleasure of Congress, destroying the separation of powers at the heart of our Constitution. Article 2 is another made-up crime called obstruction of Congress. It means the president saw to defend his constitutional rights and those of his office. It removes the judiciary from our Constitution and places Congress alone in the position of defining the limits of its own powers relative to the president. Our Bill of Rights guarantees every American the right to confront their accuser, to call witnesses in their defense, to be protected from hearsay, and to defend these rights in court. The Democrats have trampled them all in their stampede to impeach. President of Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, also spoke on the House floor.

I discovered something recently. It's shocking, I know. But it turns out that some people don't like President Trump. They think he's loud. They think he can be arrogant. They think sometimes he says bad words, and sometimes he's rude to people. And to their sensitive natures, they've been offended. I get that.

I really do. But let's be clear, this vote, this day has nothing to do with Ukraine. It has nothing to do with abuse of power. It has nothing to do with obstruction of Congress. This vote, this day, is about one thing and one thing only. They hate this president. They hate those of us who voted for him. They think we're stupid.

They think we made a mistake. They think Hillary Clinton should be the president, and they want to fix that. That's what this vote is about. They want to take away my vote and throw it in the trash. They want to take away my president and delegitimize him so that he cannot be reelected. That's what this vote is about. And for those who think this started with this investigation, what nonsense? You've been trying to impeach this president since before he was sworn into office.

Some of you introduced articles of impeachment before he was sworn into office. This isn't something you're approaching prayer. and mournfully and sadly, oh, the chaos, oh the sadness. This is something you're gleeful about. And you've been trying to do it for three years. Representative Barry Loudermilk, Republican of Georgia, had some topical comments in his remarks. Before you take this historic vote today, one week before Christmas,

I want you to keep this in mind. When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers. During that sham trial, Pontius pilot afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded this president and this process. I yield back. Ahead of Wednesday's scheduled impeachment vote, President Donald Trump sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling for her to end the impeachment process. Trump called impeachment a fantasy and accused Pelosi and her fellow Democrats of subverting democracy. He also said, quote, this is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup,

that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth. Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning, Can you believe that I will be impeached today by the radical left do-nothing Democrats? And I did nothing wrong. A terrible thing. Read the transcripts. This should never happen to another president again.

Say a prayer. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke on Hugh Hewitt's radio show Wednesday and indicated that he wanted the Senate impeachment trial to move. quickly. Now, I was originally in favor of a long trial. I have been persuaded that that's a bad mistake. Do you think you've persuaded the president of that? Yeah, I think so. Look, if you get to a point here where enough is enough, if we go down the witness path, yeah, we'd probably call people that we'd like to hear from, but they'll be trying to get the vice president, the secretary, state, John Bolton, the former national security advisor, and you get the drift.

This could go on endlessly, and what we know is how it's going to end right now. We know the president's not going to be removed from office. So the question is, just how long do we want this to be forced on the American people? What I think we ought to do is listen to the arguments, have a period of written questions, and then vote on the two articles of impeachment. And in an impeachment proceeding in the Senate, 51 senators decide everything. It's a simple majority situation. And as soon as 51 senators decide they've heard enough and want to boo on, that's what will happen.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, spoke at the Heritage Foundation Tuesday about the impeachment. And Donald Trump, when the House votes tomorrow, assuming they vote to impeach, will be the first president in history who is impeached without an article claiming a criminal violation. Next up, we'll feature Jared's interview with Tom Jipping about impeachment and what's next. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. The big news of the day is, of course, impeachment. If all reports are correct, then by the time

you're hearing the show, the House will vote to impeach President Donald Trump along partisan lines. This will make Trump the third president a list that includes Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton to be impeached by the House of Representatives. Of course, no president has been convicted by the Senate and removed from office. To break this all down for us is Tom Jipping, Deputy Directorial of the Edwin Meath Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So the first order of business here.

Let's talk about the two charges that have been brought up as part of impeachment. Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Can you break down what exactly those things mean? Sure. Those phrases are just labels. And I'm not sure why Democrats drafted the articles that way, because it kind of distracted. people's attention, thinking that those phrases were somehow really significant. But the two articles detail the actions that President Trump took that the House feels is an impeachable

offense. The first one, abuse of power, is what we've been talking about for the last few months. The president pushing Ukraine to conduct a couple of investigations. Democrats claim his purpose in doing so, and this is actually the first sentence of Article 1, was to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. That's the key fact in Article 1 is the president's purpose. The article refers to it as a corrupt purpose, because, you know, pressuring a foreign government to do various things or conducting foreign policy, even in the way President Trump does in a kind of unconventional way. That's not impeachable. That's simply a discretion that the president has. But what turns that into an impeachable offense, according to

Democrats, is this purpose, this corrupt purpose in trying to get Ukraine to, as one, Democrats, that help him cheat, you know, in next year's election. The second article, which they call obstruction of Congress, had to do with events during the investment. into the first abuse of power situation. And that is committees of Congress, particularly the Intelligence Committee, issued subpoenas, which would require the presence of certain executive branch officials, people like the president's chief of staff, as well as the production of documents. And President Trump refused to comply.

They call that obstruction of Congress. The problem with how they're doing that article is that normally when the Congress would issue a subpoena, and then they do that a lot. It's an important investigative tool that committees have. And someone refuses to comply. The next step is for the committee to go to court and to get a court to rule whether that subpoena should be enforced. Congress didn't do that. I mean, the Intelligence Committee simply went from demanding that certain people show up and demanding certain documents to impeachable offense. Yeah, it's interesting.

Doesn't that kind of imply that there is, I mean, we're talking about the concept of separation of powers. Isn't that somewhat problematic? That's incredibly important. This isn't just a matter of, you know, when Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says jump, Donald Trump is supposed to ask how high or something. I mean, Congress doesn't automatically get what it wants, especially when what it wants is from another branch of government. That's why you really do need to have a court evaluate the subpoena, evaluate whether there's a justified refusal to comply so that we know, based on those legal principles, whether it's legitimate. And instead, House Democrats basically said, because we didn't get what we want, we're going to impeach the president. So talk about what now after this impeachment vote, what the next step is going to be.

What happens now that the House is going through with the impeachment? What can Americans expect now in the upcoming months? Well, I think it's important to look at this the way the Constitution does, which is that the House has the sole power of impeachment and the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments. These are two steps, but they're two steps of a single process. The impeachment process is part of our Constitution to make it possible when absolutely necessary to remove a president for serious misconduct. It's not simply House impeachment so that they can express their dissatisfaction with the president. It's supposed to be connected to the Senate trial, and if the president is convicted by two-thirds of the Senate, then he's removed from office. So that's where it goes from here.

Once the House has impeached, they select a few members to be what are called impeachment managers. They play the role of the prosecutor. And then those managers physically go over to the Senate. They present the articles of impeachment. And very shortly thereafter, the Senate starts its trial. The Senate does have a separate set of impeachment trial rules that govern how that process takes place. So that's going to happen very quickly after the House chooses its managers and the managers present the articles to the Senate. So is there a specific way how that trial works or is this something that the Senate will decide ultimately once it gets into that body?

Well, the Senate impeachment trial rules answer some of those questions. Those rules assign different authority to different parties. people who have watched law and order and have seen a criminal trial. You know, you have the judge, the jury, and the prosecutor, and the defense lawyer, right?

So the Senate is the judge and the jury. The house managers are the prosecutor. And then the president has his own lawyers to defend him. Beyond that, it's really up to the Senate to decide the specifics of how it's going to handle kind of process things,

things like evidence questions and whether witnesses will be called, things like this. As I said, the Constitution gives the power to try impeachments to the Senate, so the Senate has authority to decide how to conduct it. Absolutely. So I think one question that a lot of Americans, especially as we've watched this whole thing unfold over a fairly long period of time, is there a time limit for how long this can carry on, or is this something that could carry on indefinitely for the next year? who knows how long? Well, there's no time limit. In fact, the reason that the Senate established a set of impeachment trial rules, there was actually an impeachment trial. This was of a federal judge back in the 1930s that took more than three months of the Senate's time. And it was conducted before the Senate. So literally they can't do anything else during that time. So it can take a very long time, which is very disruptive to the Senate. If it needs to, that's one thing.

I certainly don't think that this trial needs to take an inordinate amount of time. But the Senate will decide that. So you're saying that the Senate can't work on anything else while this is happening. So if legislation is coming down the pipeline, everything goes on hold to conduct this trial? That is what the Senate's impeachment trial rules say. And, you know, that's an incentive to, I suppose, move it along. Or the Senate could decide to waive those rules, I suppose. But that is the idea that once an impeachment trial takes place before the Senate, that's what it's, you know, that's the thing that the Senate must be focused on until it's finished.

So one last question here. And I think it's interesting, of course, a lot of House Democrats saying, especially Ted Liu saying that this will put a black mark on the Trump presidency, that that's important to make this statement. What's the difference here between what we see with this impeachment and say, for instance, censure, which Congress has done in the past. Is there a difference or are they becoming kind of muddled? That's a very good question. You might remember Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reluctant in the beginning of this to jump onto the impeachment wagon, you know, to go down that lane. I think what she had in mind was she would have preferred something like censure. In other words, censure is nothing more than a resolution that just expresses the view of that what the president did was terrible in some way, shape, or form.

And either House can do that any time that it chooses. It can do it in any way it chooses. Impeachment, which is provided specifically by the Constitution, is a much narrower lane to be in and limits the options that Congress has. So, you know, there are, there's probably members who are regretting, you know, having gone down this road, but they jumped on this bandwagon early. And I think it was a grave mistake because I do think it's misusing what the impeachment process was intended for. But here we are.

So censure, they could still do a censure resolution at any time they chose. They have the votes to do that. And I think we really should get this finished so that we the Congress can get back to the people's business. Well, very interesting. Thank you so much, Tom, for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

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