ONCE in the last 150 years a President was impeached but then not removed from office
That's not a whole lot of precedent to go drawing sweeping conclusions from. Yet I see that one instance cited as evidence that a political party that fails to remove an impeached President from office then goes on to suffer at the polls in the following election.
Once is merely a data point. No one can even attempt to connect the dots because there is only that one dot. Period. One event does not a pattern make. One event can be explained by any number of theories. Mine? Republicans were caught blatantly playing politics with the most solemn of constitutional obligations. They deployed a nuclear weapon to punish a jay walking violation. They moved to nullify a national election based on "smoking gun" evidence such as Bill Clinton's famous assertion that "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is."
Republicans turned a sordid private sexual liaison between two consenting adults into a full blown constitutional crisis. A case could certainly be made that a President dallying with an intern showed poor judgement, or even an abuse of power on a personal level, fully separate from the discharge of his presidential duties. Essentially that's it. Bill Clinton was impeached in large part for lying under oath about a personally embarrassing matter. Worthy of a Congressional censure? Perhaps. Worthy of removing him from office? I think the American people gave a clear response to that question at the ballot box.
Nothing Bill Clinton did in office even remotely rose to a level that justified the forced removal from office of an American President for the first time in American history. Bill Clinton did not obstruct justice. He agreed to testify under oath to a grand jury, quite unlike the current President. Hell Donald Trump didn't just lie about an embarrassing sexual dalliance, he engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover it up using hush money and shell companies, and he did so in direct violation of Federal laws regarding campaign finances and disclosure. Individual One is already an unindicted coconspirator to a Federal Felony that already led to the conviction of the man he directed to commit the crime. And that is the least of the High Crimes and Misdemeanors strong evidence points toward him committing.
Republicans suffered a stinging electoral rebuke after failing to remove Clinton because they played brutal politics with the most grave of constitutional responsibilities. The trial of Bill Clinton in the Senate was a joke, because the entire effort to remove him from office was a bad joke on America to begin with, and that was obvious to the American public from day one. Republicans allowed political calculations dictate their judgement when it came time to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and the voters called them on that.
The impeachment of a President and the subsequent removal from office of a President should never be determined by a preset political agenda, whether that agenda is to remove a rival from office, or to best position one's party for an upcoming political contest. The evidence must speak for itself, and do so boldly. And the evidence must dictate the course of action undertaken, be that to impeach or to not impeach. Republicans played politics with impeachment before. Democrats should not now. Republicans were punished for doing so last time. And if the legitimate case against Donald Trump is strong enough, but Republicans circle their partisan wagons around him anyway, they will be punished by voters for doing so again come the 2020 elections.
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