Impeachment vs Conviction

People often seem to be confused as to what impeachment means. They use it as if it means conviction. It doesn't.

Impeach this person, impeach that person, impeach them all. I listen and I am sympathetic about the general feelings that someone, or some group of people, have done something wrong. But, I still cringe because they don’t mean what they are saying and are apparently unaware of the fact.

What does it mean to impeach (or indict)?

To impeach a government employee is to ACCUSE them. For a non-government person, the process is to indict them. In each case, impeaching/indicting the person means that the body (House or District Attorney) feels that they have accumulated sufficient evidence of misdeeds that it should go to the next step — trial.

Impeachment is also a bit different from indictment as to what the misdeed may be. For a government official, they are supposed to have done something illegal/immoral that will impair their ability to do a good job in their governmental office. It is “more stringent” in that it doesn’t have to break a specific law but “less stringent” because it has to matter. If they were supposed to wipe their feet before entering the building but didn’t — even if shown to be true it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect their ability to do their job (it may drive the janitor nuts).

During an indictment, the District Attorney amasses evidence that they believe is adequate to prove the person did something illegal. If you drove through a red light but there was no other traffic around then you can STILL be prosecuted because you broke the law. (Admittedly, a jury MAY find you not guilty because they feel the penalty is excessive for the situation.)

In either case, all that has happened is that an accusation has been made and the person, or group, doing the accusing believes they have enough evidence to prove the accusation. We could go through and impeach every member of Congress and, if they did not go to trial, all could continue their daily routine without any hindrance. Just a check mark on their resumé.

The next steps.

Once this formal accusation is made, it is supposed to go to the next step — trial. For an impeachment, the trial is conducted by the Senate. For an indictment, the trial is held before a “jury of their peers”.

For an impeachment, 2/3 of the Senate must vote for conviction for the governmental official to be removed from office. This was set deliberately high to try to avoid purely personal removals. It has seemed to work for that.

George Washington hated, and warned against, the establishment of political parties — feeling that it might become a matter of “party before country”. And it seems to have gone that direction. So, now the 2/3 of the Senate needed to convict is more of a political party protection. The political party can be of greater importance than whether or not the official is guilty.

The trial of the Impeachment of BIll Clinton lasted five weeks. The voting was largely on party lines but ten of the 55 “not guilty” votes came from Republicans. This probably occurred because the articles of Impeachment did not meet the “must impair the ability to do their job” — perjury and adultery did not meet that criteria. The international community had a good laughing spell about the impeachment as they couldn’t see any reason a governmental group would impeach their leader for such offences.

The First Impeachment of Donald Trump was considered by the Senate for only two weeks. Voting was on a strict party line — with Republicans voting “not guilty” — though Mitt Romney did vote “guilty” on the abuse of power charge. Almost none of the evidence was publicly presented.

The trial for the Second impeachment of Donald Trump was only examined for five days, and most evidence was not even reviewed because it was recognized that a decision had been made prior to hearing the evidence. Still, of the 53 votes for “guilty”, seven came from the Republican party. It should be noted that, of the seven votes, six of those Senators were NOT going to be facing an election and, thus, did not have to be concerned about Party repercussions.

In a jury trial, all must agree on a guilty verdict. This reflects the idea of “innocent until proven guilty”. If one person feels they are not guilty then they are declared not guilty. There are situations where the trial hits a point where it is a mistrial and is done over but once a jury has reached a verdict, the same accusations cannot be brought to a jury again.

Summary

Impeachment == accusation. Conviction is needed before there are any consequences.