Articles of Impeachment: If Nixon and Clinton, Why Not Bush and JFK?
After Chuck Hagel let loose the "I" word on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, people are buzzing about the possible impeachment of that other George, George Bush. After Andrew Johnson actually got himself impeached back in 1868, it took another century before Richard Nixon resigned to avoid the same fate in 1974. Now we look at it as just another political weapon to use against a vulnerable incumbent -- going after Clinton in 1998 and Bush in 2007.
There's no question impeachment would have been a very steep hill to climb in the case of John Kennedy. He was still quite popular and he had a large Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. But coming up with possible articles of impeachment wouldn't have been that difficult. We know, because we've actually done it.
In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the "Articles of Impeachment" were drawn up and, in reading them, we certainly noticed there is a lot of overlap and similarity in form. Like filling in a contract template, we've used those examples to write the Articles of Impeachment for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We plan to modify and finalize them as the novel is completed, but our working draft reads like this.
Because many people still think of impeachment as the end result and not part of the process, a basic fact set helps to set this novel's world in a solid alternative-reality.
Impeachment is the expressed power of the legislature which allows for formal charges to be brought against a high official of government for conduct committed in office. The actual trial on those charges, and subsequent removal of an official on conviction on those charges is separate from the act of impeachment itself.
When it comes to removing a president, the House of Representatives acts as a grand jury bringing an indictment and the Senate acts as the court conducting the trial itself and its members vote as a jury would on guilt or innocence. Therefore, Richard Nixon who resigned before a final vote in the House of Representatives was not actually impeached, although he was the first president to resign. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was most definitely impeached, but he was not convicted and thus not removed from office.
The people who want to impeach Bush now, or the people who seek the impeachment of JFK in our novel, all had to start with the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section 4 states:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Interestingly enough, a minority view on this comes from the man who most directly benefited from the near-impeachment of Nixon. Four years before he became president, back In 1970, then-Representative Gerald R. Ford defined the criteria for impeachment as he saw it then:
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."
Could Bush be impeached now? No doubt. Could JFK have been? Of course.
Winter of Our Discontent: The Impeachment and Trial of John F. Kennedy
Written by Harry Turtledove & Bryce Zabel
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