Louise Mensch: House Judiciary Committee drawing up Articles of Impeachment

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

66. You don't seem to understand the difference between what's necessary

to start impeachment proceedings and the substantive bases for those proceedings. Once again, the Supreme Court has NO jurisdiction over impeachment, which is entirely within the purview of the House of Representatives. If they were to decide, in an entirely separate proceeding that involved the constitutionality of an executive order (for example), that a president had violated the take care clause (this has never happened, by the way), that decision theoretically COULD form a basis for articles of impeachment as prepared by the House Judiciary Committee and issued by the full House. But it would not have to, since that decision would not be res judicata as to any action by the House. In any event, none of this has ever happened. There is nothing - NOTHING - the Supreme Court can do to COMPEL the initiation of impeachment proceedings. The House has to do that regardless of what the Supreme Court decides about the take care clause.

And the notion that the Supreme Court has "notified" Trump that impeachment proceedings are commencing and he must not pardon anybody who might be involved in the Russia investigation is pure fantasy because (a) notification would come from the House Judiciary Committee, not the Supreme Court (because they have nothing to do with impeachment proceedings and probably wouldn't know it was happening until they read about it in the paper); and (b) the Supreme Court can't prevent a president from pardoning anybody - the Constitution gives that power solely to the president.