The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Note: I wrote this essay a year ago or so (2018), but I did not put a date on it at the end. (I hope I remember never to neglect to do that again!) Anyway, perhaps you find it worth reading again, especially after currents events in Washington.
The dictionary defines a grand jury as “a jury that examines accusations against persons charged with crimes, and if the evidence warrants, makes formal charges on which the accused persons are later tried.”
Grand juries are called grand juries because they consist of more than twelve jurors, and they determine whether many cases should receive a trial. Their sole responsibility is to decide which judicial cases warrant adjudication. However, the jury members in a grand jury do not sit in judgment of the accused. Their one task is to conclude which individuals should be tried on criminal charges. Then a jury of twelve “peers” of the accused decide the innocence or guilt of the accused.
The United States Constitution stipulates that “the House of Representatives …shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” (Article 1, Section 2). It further states that “the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments” (Article I, Section 3).
The Constitution declares that federal officials who are impeached get close judicial scrutiny only for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” In effect, the House of Representatives is the grand jury that sends such officials to the Senate for trial, and the Senate either convicts or exonerates these officials.
Since 1787, a number of federal officers have been impeached and/or convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. Three Presidents, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton were brought up on criminal charges in the House of Representatives for impeachment, but only Andrew Johnson was sent to the Senate for senatorial adjudication. There he was exonerated when he fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction.
The Current Situation
By its very nature, every impeachment is political. The process of convicting a federal officer of criminal activity is inherently political as well as judicial. The conviction of any federal office holders, federal judges, cabinet officials, or Members of Congress is politically divisive. The impeachments of presidents is by far the most polarizing of all political issues.
Not long after Donald Trump was elected president, there has been a slowly growing call for his impeachment by various media, pundits, Members of Congress, and ordinary citizens. Even more than Presidents Nixon and Clinton, President Trump has become the single most polarizing figure in American political life during the past century.
Furthermore, the potential impeachment of Donald Trump is the most politicized decision facing the entire American people since the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson in 1868. The nation came apart because of the Civil War, and it nearly disintegrated again during the catastrophic presidency of Andrew Johnson.
Now, because the liberal mass media are so frantically fanning the flames of division, the entire American populace once again is being swept into an enormous political frenzy. Should the current President be subjected to the process of impeachment, or not? Is he guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, or not?
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, is doing everything she can to avert or stall impeachment hearings in the House. She does that not at all for legal reasons but for totally political reasons. She fears that even if the Democratically-controlled House votes to send articles of impeachment regarding the President to the Republican-controlled Senate, the Senate will summarily acquit Mr. Trump.
A Radical Proposal for American Electoral Civics
The longer this political hot potato is tossed around by Congress, the press, and the American public, inevitably the more antagonized the electorate shall become. Enough, already, they shall say. Therefore:
Ms. Pelosi and the House should quickly begin impeachment proceedings against the alleged criminal actions of the President. They should take as long as necessary to proceed to a thoroughly informed conclusion, using cautious due diligence. By all indications of the media, it appears to be a foregone conclusion that nearly all the Democrats in the House would vote to send the Senate an impeachment indictment against the president. Thus the congressional “grand jury” (the House of Representatives) will have exercised their constitutional duty.
The Senate then will be forced to try to president for stipulated alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. They would become the jury in his impeachment trial. They are constitutionally required to act on the articles of impeachment; they cannot try to shirk their duty.
The political question haunting Nancy Pelosi and many House Democrats is that the House and Senate may take too long to decide this issue sufficiently ahead of the national election in November of 2020. Furthermore, they reason, it will take the spotlight off their own personal election campaigns, and that every Member of Congress, Democrat and Republican, is loathe to contemplate.
Given the nature of the current Congress, it is a likely that the impeachment of Donald Trump would, in fact, draw attention away from congressional elections next year. Under normal circumstances, that would be very unwise.
However, it is even more unwise to allow this noxious impasse to continue. A national decision must be made as soon as possible whether Donald Trump should continue in office in 2019, 2020, or beyond. Ultimately, only the American populace, and not Congress, should be the jury to decide that, since Congress heretofore has shown itself too cowardly to decide. Therefore,
Let us assume the Senate will not convict the president. This is the assumption Ms. Pelosi, an apparent majority of House Democrats, the media, and the American public have concluded. Therefore,
Whether or not the House and Senate will have found the president guilty by November 3 of 2020, by then the open and public House and Senate hearings will have provided the American electorate more than enough evidence to determine for themselves whether the president should be convicted.
At every step along the way, the president has resisted all attempts to reveal the details of any crimes he may have committed. By starting the full impeachment process now, he cannot legally prevent anyone with pertinent information from testifying. “Executive privilege” cannot legally hold up in the case of impeachments.
In other words, the impeachment process of the president will have turned the entire electorate into the very GRAND jury the Trump presidency has required the American people to become. Congress will probably not do its job in time. Therefore “we the people” must put pressure on Speaker Pelosi and the House of Representatives to initiate an impeachment of the president at the earliest reasonable date possible.
Then, when or if the impeachment has been completed by November, 2020, “we the people” will be in a much better position to decide with our ballots the future of President Trump and the Members of Congress who do or do not support his continuation in office, and who will not have voted to remove him from office.
Up to the present, Congress has shown itself unwilling to consider impeachment. Their recalcitrance can no longer be tolerated. Either the president is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors or he is not. He has successfully thwarted most efforts to discern the facts, and America is left in the dark, wondering.
Mr. Trump may be innocent of all charges against him. Until there is a public impeachment hearing in Congress, we cannot adequately assess his innocence or guilt.
Could a presidential impeachment be completed before the campaign of 2020 becomes fully engaged? That depends on how quickly and how fairly Congress would want to get impeachment proceedings finished.
If Congress refuses to follow through on one of their most important constitutionally mandated responsibilities, then the only alternative left to the electorate is to vote their conscience on every Member of Congress whom they deem to have attempted to prevent a presidential impeachment.
To repeat, the president may be as innocent as he insists he is. But until far more evidence is made public, we are resigned to making more of the ill-informed conclusions we have already made. Therefore, let the impeachment begin!
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.