On 21 July 2007, George W Bush underwent surgery to have five polyps removed after what was described as a routine colonoscopy. The date may have been lost to history, but for the rare invocation at the time of a constitutional amendment laying out how the transfer of power to the vice-president works in cases of presidential disability.
For 125 minutes – as long as it took for Bush to enter and emerge from partial anesthesia, eat breakfast and display possession of his native wit – Dick Cheney held all the powers attached to the office of the presidency. (Some wags have suggested that Cheney wielded that authority, unofficially, over a much longer time span.)
Even before the FBI director announced on Monday that the bureau is investigating possible collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 presidential election, the precise rules for how the powers of the presidency might be transferred – or simply rescinded – in case of criminality or emergency had become the subject of newfound and intense focus in the United States.
Whispers about impeachment, the most familiar constitutional procedure for removing a president, began to circulate even before Trump had taken the oath of office. But two months into Trump’s presidency, those whispers – and the search for any other possible emergency exit – have grown into an open conversation that has moved well beyond the realm of a Democratic party daydream. “Get ready for impeachment,” an influential, 13-term Democratic congresswoman tweeted after the bombshell FBI announcement.
The Trump-Russia intrigue has produced a flood of speculation as to whether a new Watergate scandal was afoot. That crisis, which began with a break-in at Democratic party offices inside the Watergate hotel in 1972, brought down President Richard Nixon after two years, in the only resignation of an American president yet.
In a remarkable 77-minute press conference/performance artwork in February, Trump denied inappropriate ties to Moscow, which US intelligence agencies have concluded tampered with the presidential election in Trump’s favor. “I have nothing to do with Russia,” Trump said. “I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything.”
But the significance of the allegations, and of the FBI investigation, is plain.
“On a 10 scale of Armageddon for our form of government, I would put Watergate at a 9,” wrote Dan Rather, the longtime network news anchor, in a Facebook post. “This Russia scandal is currently somewhere around a 5 or 6, in my opinion, but it is cascading in intensity seemingly by the hour. We may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate. It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged. It has all the necessary ingredients, and that is chilling.”
There are other grounds on which Trump might be removed from the presidency. A movement to impeach Trump for allegedly violating constitutional bans on receiving certain gifts – a problem rooted in the president’s failure to divest from his real estate, hotel and branding businesses – gained 875,000 online signatures in one month, said organizer John Bonifaz.
“I think there are many members of Congress who are deeply troubled,” said Bonifaz, a constitutional law expert and MacArthur fellowship recipient. “I think it’s only a matter of time before a resolution gets introduced in the United States Congress that starts this process of an impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives.”
In yet another scenario, as laid out in the 25th amendment to the constitution, which Bush invoked when he handed off power to Cheney, the vice-president, acting in concert with a majority of the cabinet, might declare the president unfit to serve. This is the most delicious scenario, for connoisseurs of political intrigue, though the amendment has never been invoked to remove power from a president against his will.
So what does the history of impeachment of US presidents tell us about where we might go from here?
For 125 minutes – as long as it took for Bush to enter and emerge from partial anesthesia, eat breakfast and display possession of his native wit – Dick Cheney held all the powers attached to the office of the presidency. (Some wags have suggested that Cheney wielded that authority, unofficially, over a much longer time span.)
Even before the FBI director announced on Monday that the bureau is investigating possible collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 presidential election, the precise rules for how the powers of the presidency might be transferred – or simply rescinded – in case of criminality or emergency had become the subject of newfound and intense focus in the United States.Whispers about impeachment, the most familiar constitutional procedure for removing a president, began to circulate even before Trump had taken the oath of office. But two months into Trump’s presidency, those whispers – and the search for any other possible emergency exit – have grown into an open conversation that has moved well beyond the realm of a Democratic party daydream. “Get ready for impeachment,” an influential, 13-term Democratic congresswoman tweeted after the bombshell FBI announcement.
The Trump-Russia intrigue has produced a flood of speculation as to whether a new Watergate scandal was afoot. That crisis, which began with a break-in at Democratic party offices inside the Watergate hotel in 1972, brought down President Richard Nixon after two years, in the only resignation of an American president yet.
In a remarkable 77-minute press conference/performance artwork in February, Trump denied inappropriate ties to Moscow, which US intelligence agencies have concluded tampered with the presidential election in Trump’s favor. “I have nothing to do with Russia,” Trump said. “I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything.”
But the significance of the allegations, and of the FBI investigation, is plain.
“On a 10 scale of Armageddon for our form of government, I would put Watergate at a 9,” wrote Dan Rather, the longtime network news anchor, in a Facebook post. “This Russia scandal is currently somewhere around a 5 or 6, in my opinion, but it is cascading in intensity seemingly by the hour. We may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate. It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged. It has all the necessary ingredients, and that is chilling.”
There are other grounds on which Trump might be removed from the presidency. A movement to impeach Trump for allegedly violating constitutional bans on receiving certain gifts – a problem rooted in the president’s failure to divest from his real estate, hotel and branding businesses – gained 875,000 online signatures in one month, said organizer John Bonifaz.
“I think there are many members of Congress who are deeply troubled,” said Bonifaz, a constitutional law expert and MacArthur fellowship recipient. “I think it’s only a matter of time before a resolution gets introduced in the United States Congress that starts this process of an impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives.”
In yet another scenario, as laid out in the 25th amendment to the constitution, which Bush invoked when he handed off power to Cheney, the vice-president, acting in concert with a majority of the cabinet, might declare the president unfit to serve. This is the most delicious scenario, for connoisseurs of political intrigue, though the amendment has never been invoked to remove power from a president against his will.
So what does the history of impeachment of US presidents tell us about where we might go from here?
by Tom McCarthy, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: UPI / Barcroft Images
