A lawyer for a former national security adviser John Bolton
John Bolton: Former rep Will Hurd announces book contract UPDATED: McEnany, Fox News talks about pausing is arguing that the impeachment trial in the former Senate President Trump
Donald TrumpDominion spokesman: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell ‘is begging to be prosecuted’ DC officials who defended Capitol, Sicknick’s family honored in the U.S. Super Bowl will return to the UN Human Rights Council it is solidly based on the Constitution and must continue.
“The strongest argument against the Senate’s authority to try a former officer is based on Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution,” wrote attorney Chuck Cooper in The Wall Street Journal.
The section of the constitution cited by Cooper dictates the president, vice president and all civilian officials of the United States, “will be removed from office for impeachment and conviction for treason, bribery or other serious crimes and misdemeanors.”
“Opponents of the trial argue that because this provision requires removal, and because only incumbent officers can be removed, it follows that only incumbent officers can be impeached and tried,” noted Cooper. “But the provision cuts against its interpretation. It simply establishes what is known in criminal law as a ‘mandatory minimum’ punishment: if a post holder is convicted by a two-thirds vote in the Senate, he will be removed from office as a matter of law. “
After Trump was accused by the House for the second time last month, the senator Rand Paul
Randal (Rand) Howard PaulLawmakers blames Trump for the riots as the second impeachment trial Murphy approaches: ‘I don’t think any of our jobs end just because the president stepped down’ (R-Ky.) He filed a motion to reject a Senate judgment, arguing that the procedures are not constitutional because Trump has already stepped down.
Five Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting against Paulo’s failed measure.
“Given that the Constitution allows the Senate to impose the penalty of permanent disqualification only on former office holders, it is logical to suggest that the Senate is prohibited from prosecuting and convicting former office holders,” Cooper wrote in the Journal. “The senators who supported Mr. Paul’s motion should reconsider his opinion and judge the former president’s misconduct on the basis of merit.”
Trump was accused of an article inciting insurrection against the government after a crowd of his supporters invaded the Capitol on January 6, after he spoke at a rally telling them to march against Congress and contest the election result. The former president, for weeks after the election, released unproven allegations of electoral fraud and criticized an election that he claims was “stolen” from him.
Several people, including members of the police, were injured or killed as a result of the January 6 riots. Trump’s second impeachment trial is scheduled to begin this week.
Bolton, a frequent critic of Trump, wrote in the National Review late last month that Trump’s second impeachment was unlikely to end in sentencing.
“Like the first, it is very narrow (Ukraine first, now the desecration of the Capitol) and was rushed by the House on party lines,” Bolton wrote. “Neither scenario is the right way to do impeachments, 50 percent of which in the history of the United States has occurred in the past twelve months.”