{"id":32851,"date":"2018-10-16T23:30:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T23:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32851"},"modified":"2018-10-16T23:30:30","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T23:30:30","slug":"what-if-potus-is-impeached-and-convicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32851","title":{"rendered":"What if POTUS is impeached and convicted?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

It\u2019s true. I deal with hypotheticals on occasion. I churn ideas around in my noggin, wondering what might happen if certain events were to transpire.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk briefly about a potential presidential impeachment.<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, I don\u2019t really want to see Donald Trump impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Believe me or disbelieve me if you wish. That\u2019s just how I feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if it were to happen sometime in 2019 with a new Democratic majority running the House, it\u2019s good to wonder what happens at the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Presidential impeachment is stressful to the max \u2026 for the government and for partisans on both or all sides of a political dispute. It\u2019s a huge deal, man! It\u2019s happened just twice: Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 and Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998. They both were acquitted, although President Johnson escaped conviction by a single Senate vote. President Nixon quit in 1974 when the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment, assuring the full House would follow suit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Donald Trump is facing the prospect \u2014 I won\u2019t judge its probability \u2014 of impeachment but only if Democrats win control of the House after next month\u2019s midterm election. Democrats need a simple majority in the House to impeach a president.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then we have the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, who appears to be winding it down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose, then, Mueller presents evidence of, say, collusion with Russians who attacked our 2016 election. Suppose, too, he finds evidence of obstruction of justice based on Trump\u2019s firing of FBI director James Comey. Finally, let\u2019s suppose Mueller produces evidence that the president violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which says presidents cannot take gifts from foreign governments.<\/span><\/p>\n

OK, so the House impeaches the president. Then it goes to the Senate, where there will be a trial presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts. Congressional Republicans so far have been standing by their guy, Trump. If Democrats take control of the Senate, it likely will be by a tiny margin \u2026 maybe a seat or two. That\u2019s not enough to convict a president; conviction requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n

But wait! What if the evidence is so compelling, so overwhelming that enough Republicans cross over to side with Democrats? And what if the president is convicted and tossed out of office? Vice President Pence takes over.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is where I am going with this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Should the House and Senate then ensure that Trump\u2019s presidency is not recognized? There might be a move to obliterate any evidence that Donald Trump served as 45th president. It cannot happen? Sure it can. Such a thing has happened in at least one statehouse: in my home state of Oregon.<\/span><\/p>\n

The image of a former governor, Democrat Neil Goldschmidt, has been removed from the state capitol building in Salem. He was a successful governor and then a transportation secretary in the Carter administration. Then he admitted just a few years ago \u2014 after a newspaper investigation \u2014 that when he was mayor of Portland, he had sexual affair with an underage girl.<\/i> Goldschmidt then vanished from public view, never to be seen again.<\/span><\/p>\n

They took his portrait down in the state capitol rotunda, as if Goldschmidt never existed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does the same fate befall Donald Trump in the event he is convicted? I think it should, just as I am glad they removed Neil Goldschmidt from any recognition in my home state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do I want any of this to happen? No. I do not. I merely want the truth to be revealed about what the president knew, when he knew it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would actually settle for an apology. It would provide enough pain to the president to satisfy me. He\u2019s never apologized for anything\u00a0 in his life \u2026 ever! Right?<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s true. I deal with hypotheticals on occasion. I churn ideas around in my noggin, wondering what might happen if certain events were to transpire. Let\u2019s talk briefly about a potential presidential impeachment. First of all, I don\u2019t really want to see Donald Trump impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Believe me or disbelieve … Continue reading What if POTUS is impeached and convicted?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2253],"class_list":["post-32851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-impeachment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32852,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32851\/revisions\/32852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}