Impeachable Offense Quotes
Ford was then a Congressman and there was a conservative inspired impeachment probe of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.
The debate was about the unlimited pardon power of the President. Madison argued that the check was the impeachment power. However, Presidents had tended to make large numbers of pardons just before they leave office so the impeachment power works only as a check for the beginning and middle part of their term.
The issue had first arisen during the Watergate Scandal, where there was concern that if the House held impeachment hearings of President Nixon, he might refuse to provide documents or order others in the Executive Branch not to testify. In this hearing, they were discussing the possible impeachment of President George W. Bush.
There have been many examples of Presidents in time of war who have asked Congress & received additional powers whose constitutionality was sometimes tested. The Alien & Sedition acts of the John Adams administration, Lincoln in the Civil War controlling the Southern governments, Wilson jailing people verbally opposing the draft, FDR incarcerating Japanese Americans in WWII. However, in those cases, the President asked for and got the powers from Congress. Nichols claimed that by Bush, just assuming powers, he was acting like a king & not a president, and that per se was an impeachable offence. As unpopular as Bush was, his Vice President was much moreso, & Bush was in his last term; neither party wanted to go through another impeachment after the Republican attempt to oust William Clinton ended in acquittal. Other constitutional scholars do not believe the “acting like a king” rises to the level of an impeachable offense; only specific “high crimes & misdemeanors” would qualify.
