What Are "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"?

[Barry-xlovecam]

The term "high crimes" is not a criminal law term. In criminal law there are capital crimes, felonies, misdemeanors and civil infractions (traffic tickets, etc.).

High crimes are crimes against the state -- from English common law: Crimes against the King or Queen.

The Gerald Ford Argument:

Ford is famous for saying that impeachable offenses are whatever Congress says they are. In fairness to Ford, his statement may be more than just a cynical observation about the irrelevance of constitutional scholarship to D.C. Realpolitik. There is evidence that the Founding Fathers were intentionally vague. What Are "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"?

Bill Clinton was impeached about lying about a blow-job and that is as petty as you can get. Technically, lying while under oath.

But the committee?s recommendation did not satisfy everyone. George Mason of Virginia proposed adding ?maladministration.? He thought that treason and bribery did not cover all the harm that a president might do. He pointed to the English case of Warren Hastings, whose impeachment trial was then being heard in London. Hastings, the first Governor General of Bengal in India, was accused of corruption and treating the Indian people brutally.

Madison objected to ?maladministration.? He thought this term was so vague that it would threaten the separation of powers. Congress could remove any president it disagreed with on grounds of ?maladministration.? This would give Congress complete power over the executive.

Mason abandoned ?maladministration? and proposed ?high crimes and misdemeanors against the state.? The convention adopted Mason?s proposal, but dropped ?against the state.? The final version, which appears in the Constitution, stated: ?The president, vice-president, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.?

The convention adopted ?high crimes and misdemeanors? with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used ?high crimes and misdemeanors? as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of ?high crimes and misdemeanors? were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping ?suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,? granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve....

After the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution had to be ratified by the states. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote a series of essays, known as the Federalist Papers, urging support of the Constitution. In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton explained impeachment. He defined impeachable offenses as ?those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.?

For the more than 200 years since the Constitution was adopted, Congress has seriously considered impeachment only 18 times. Thirteen of these cases involved federal judges. The ?high crimes and misdemeanors? that the House charged against these judges included being habitually drunk, showing favoritism on the bench, using judicial power unlawfully, using the office for financial gain, unlawfully punishing people for contempt of court, submitting false expense accounts, getting special deals from parties appearing before the court, bullying people in open court, filing false income tax returns, making false statements while under oath, and disclosing confidential information.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors - Constitutional Rights Foundation

In the USA the people are *supposed* to be the King -- at true conservative would believe this. So, this should be interpreted as crimes against the people of the United States of America.

Causing undue hardship and suffering, including an undue burden of financial suffering, of one group of US citizens to the benefit of another group of US citizens is a high crime and impeachable. Impeachment is not a court of equitable law nor a statutory criminal court -- it is a political court and in many cases similar to a kangaroo court.

Trump will most likely not be impeached so long as there is a Republican majority in the Congress -- or things get so bad that the US Congress may try for a political Coup d'état.

[Barry-xlovecam]

Let's ignore the facts and stick with the drama.

[Bladewire]

It's a catch-all for "you're out of the club" if someone in a position of power doesn't play by the rules