Quote Originally Posted by Cerveza Fria View Post
Quote Originally Posted by duped_samaritan View Post


I did not say it was unconstitutional. It's not unconstitutional. Come on now. The libtard trolling is weak, this is not about left vs right.

I was responding to your hypothetical with another hypothetical that's no more unrealistic than having George Washington impeached.

Should a president be able to avoid being convicted and disqualified from running for office in the future simply by resigning right before the verdict? Do you think the framers intended to give that as an option?


That's what you're arguing.

And we haven't even gotten to the fact that there's already precedent that shows you don't need to be in office to be Impeached and convicted by the Senate.

That is NOT what I'm arguing. He could still be prosecuted under Civil or Criminal statutes. But, he is not subject to Impeachment. You are having a difficult time understanding the difference. Impeachment and Removal is a Political tool.

And there is NO precedent involving a former President. And Trump didn't resign, his term was over. You are confusing facts..
Good sir, the entire point of the impeachment clause (and its remedies) in the Constitution is to define (1) who can conduct the various parts of that political process and (2) the possible — and strictly limited — conseqences for the defendant from that process. Part of the reason for such limitiations of possible penalties us prevent the Legislative branch from being able to use an impeachment trial guilty verdict to legally hand down a more extreme form of punishment, such as a prison death sentence. Heck! It even prevents the ability to punish using a fine!

Why does that matter? Because the impeachment process is a completely separate realm of possible government action from either criminal or civil prosecutions, and as such its outcome has no direct impact of whether criminal and/or civil prosecutions can be legally conducted against the defendant in an impeachment trial. And it was wise to be set up in such a limited scope so as to prevent the Legislature from being able to go hog wild and take exacting and extreme revenge on a President who had severely angered enough of them, as happened to Charles I in the previous century in England/the UK when the British Parliament sentenced him to death for political crimes.