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How Impeachment Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and
0:17
Speaker 1: this is business Baby Stuff you Should Know on Impeachment. Yeah, guilty. Uh,
0:30
Speaker 1: how how are you doing? First? Let's get the pleasant
0:32
Speaker 1: treats out of the way. I'm doing well. And I
0:34
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out at the head here
0:38
Speaker 1: because just yesterday, in real time, I went over to
0:42
Speaker 1: my in law's house for my grandmother in law's seven birthday.
0:49
Speaker 1: Happy Birthday, Mary, Happy Birthday Mary. The lead general the
0:52
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Army, I don't know you're not on Facebook.
0:55
Speaker 1: So every year I put a happy Birthday on the
0:57
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know page and have every and chime
1:00
Speaker 1: in from where they are because she literally sits there
1:03
Speaker 1: and reads through like six comments from all over the
1:05
Speaker 1: world and it is like one of the best things
1:10
Speaker 1: that's real. It's really neat. So anyway, we're over there
1:13
Speaker 1: in my my father in law, Steve, who is the
1:17
Speaker 1: best dude, comes up to me and says, uh, how
1:24
Speaker 1: about a show on impeachment? Yeah? And he you know,
1:29
Speaker 1: he didn't recommend he knows better. He doesn't recommend shows topics,
1:34
Speaker 1: and he went about one on impeachment. Went wow, Steve,
1:37
Speaker 1: that's a great idea and said it is. Why haven't
1:39
Speaker 1: we done that yet? Because it's uh relevant, as we
1:44
Speaker 1: will see at the end of our show today, we'll
1:46
Speaker 1: talk about kind of what's going on in today's terms.
1:49
Speaker 1: And it's just a really weird, vaguely written, as it
1:54
Speaker 1: turns out, strange act American st um. I'm'm not exactly
2:02
Speaker 1: sure how they do it in other countries, but the
2:04
Speaker 1: way we do it is weird. I think it's just
2:07
Speaker 1: about as weird in other countries because it was adopted
2:11
Speaker 1: either from the British or from the Americans, and we
2:13
Speaker 1: adopted it from the British. Yeah, it seems to have
2:16
Speaker 1: like been understood in Great Britain, but the framers of
2:20
Speaker 1: the Constitution didn't bother to ask what anybody meant. They
2:24
Speaker 1: just kind of borrowed it. So anyway, big shout out
2:27
Speaker 1: to Steve. Alright, Steve, good idea for this idea. It's
2:32
Speaker 1: the summer of Steve. It's winter, although he's from Ohio,
2:37
Speaker 1: but now he's in Georgia, so it is like for
2:39
Speaker 1: him for I'm sure. Alright, So Chuck, let's get down
2:43
Speaker 1: to this. Let's get down to impeachment. Are we going
2:45
Speaker 1: on the way back machine? Run off the bad here?
2:48
Speaker 1: Do you want to go back to eight eight? You
2:50
Speaker 1: want to start there? Well, you know I do. Okay,
2:53
Speaker 1: let's get in the way back machine then, because you
2:55
Speaker 1: know I loved me the Spring of eighteen sixty eight.
2:58
Speaker 1: It was a good one. That's funny you say that.
3:01
Speaker 1: There's this really great short story from the fifties or sixties.
3:04
Speaker 1: I think it's it's like a horror short story called
3:06
Speaker 1: the Vintage Season. It's about like these future travelers who,
3:10
Speaker 1: like in in the future, you can travel through time
3:13
Speaker 1: and find like the perfect spring or the perfect whatever.
3:16
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty good. Check it out. Okay, all right,
3:19
Speaker 1: well now let's get in the way back machine. Alright, okay,
3:28
Speaker 1: so remember we're invisible. We can do anything. I know.
3:32
Speaker 1: I just I just booped Edmond Ross on the nose. Yeah,
3:37
Speaker 1: I just took off my shoes and everyone's like, what's
3:40
Speaker 1: that on my nose? And what's that in my nose? Right,
3:44
Speaker 1: So there's this dude, that dude you just popped on
3:47
Speaker 1: the nose Edmund Ross he's a senator actually, uh, and
3:50
Speaker 1: he's kind of new his what is this? This is
3:53
Speaker 1: May of eight, just the previous July. He was appointed
3:57
Speaker 1: to his seat, um as the senator or the junior
4:00
Speaker 1: Senator of Kansas. He had like some experience in newspapers
4:04
Speaker 1: and that was his his jam, no real political experience.
4:08
Speaker 1: And now all of the entire Senate is wondering, what
4:13
Speaker 1: is this guy going to do? Um. There, we're right
4:16
Speaker 1: in the middle of an impeachment trial, the actually the
4:19
Speaker 1: impeachment hearing of President Andrew Johnson, who is the successor
4:25
Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln. Right, that's right. And so by December,
4:30
Speaker 1: after the assassination of Lincoln in April of sixty five, UM,
4:38
Speaker 1: his own party was turning against him and saying, hey,
4:42
Speaker 1: we want to get this guy out of here. So
4:45
Speaker 1: let's we we haven't tried this impeachment thing on a
4:48
Speaker 1: president yet, and we're kind of eager to. Yeah. And
4:52
Speaker 1: you can make the case that he was kind of
4:53
Speaker 1: set up the his own party to turning on totally
4:57
Speaker 1: set up. But the but the Republicans hated him out
5:00
Speaker 1: of the gate. The Republicans were the ones who were
5:02
Speaker 1: pushing reconstruction and really wanted the South to pay for
5:06
Speaker 1: succeeding and for the Civil War. UM and Johnson was
5:10
Speaker 1: from Tennessee and wasn't having that. He vetoed a bill
5:13
Speaker 1: that would have given like basic basic civil rights to
5:16
Speaker 1: black Americans. He was against the Fourteenth Amendment. He decided
5:21
Speaker 1: it should be up to the states to figure out
5:23
Speaker 1: how they wanted to handle the post slavery laws, regardless
5:28
Speaker 1: of what that what effect that had on on the
5:30
Speaker 1: former slaves. So it wasn't very well liked by the
5:33
Speaker 1: abolitionist Republicans, and they wanted to get rid of them.
5:36
Speaker 1: And the way that they did was to set up
5:39
Speaker 1: this new law which was patently unconstitutional, and it was
5:45
Speaker 1: called the what was it called the you can't fire
5:49
Speaker 1: that dude law? Why didn't Yeah, that's that's basically the
5:52
Speaker 1: gist of it. Um. The Tenure Act, I believe, is
5:56
Speaker 1: the Tenure of Office Act. So you know, when when
6:00
Speaker 1: president comes in and they appoint like cabinet members or
6:03
Speaker 1: you know, a Supreme Court judge or something. They can
6:06
Speaker 1: pick the person, but the Senate has to either confirm
6:09
Speaker 1: them or say no, not this one. Right, So the
6:13
Speaker 1: Senate has confirmation powers and the President's ability to hire.
6:17
Speaker 1: The Constitution even says it in there. The Constitution doesn't
6:20
Speaker 1: say anything about firing those appointees. And so it had
6:23
Speaker 1: long been that the president could fire whoever of their
6:28
Speaker 1: appointees he wanted to write. So what the what the
6:32
Speaker 1: radical Republicans did was pass a bill that said, you,
6:36
Speaker 1: if you hire somebody, if you appoint somebody, we get
6:39
Speaker 1: to confirm them. If you try to remove somebody, we
6:41
Speaker 1: you we have to approve that as well. And again
6:44
Speaker 1: it was just it just flew in the face of
6:47
Speaker 1: the Constitution as we know it. And um, the right away,
6:52
Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson fired his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, and um,
6:57
Speaker 1: he was impeached right out, right out of the gate.
7:00
Speaker 1: That reminds me. That reminds me of when earlier this
7:04
Speaker 1: year when Jared Kushner was taking his first big tour
7:08
Speaker 1: of the White House after the election. Remember when he
7:11
Speaker 1: like met all the Obama employees and was like, oh, so, like,
7:15
Speaker 1: how many of these people are gonna be staying on?
7:17
Speaker 1: And they're like, nobody, this wasn't a corporate takeover. You
7:23
Speaker 1: realize it's not how government works. He's like, oh yeah, sure,
7:27
Speaker 1: well yeah, no, I didn't hear about that. It was
7:30
Speaker 1: pretty funny, like like he just bought a company. He's like,
7:34
Speaker 1: how many people are gonna be staying around? Oh yeah?
7:39
Speaker 1: So um so now so, now Andrew Johnson is impeached.
7:43
Speaker 1: He's he's broken a law that Congress had just passed,
7:47
Speaker 1: and they've they've impeached him. So what's going on. Well,
7:51
Speaker 1: here's the deal. At the time, they and you know,
7:55
Speaker 1: it's kind of like this now to a certain degree,
7:57
Speaker 1: but everybody knew how everyone was going to vote ahead
7:59
Speaker 1: of time, um, except for him. So basically Ross right, Yeah,
8:05
Speaker 1: basically everybody knew the outcome what the outcome was going
8:10
Speaker 1: to be, except for Ross, meaning that he was the
8:13
Speaker 1: deciding vote. Like it was that slim of a margin,
8:16
Speaker 1: and so that's why he was so nervous. He was
8:17
Speaker 1: he was just sitting there, apparently, just shredding this paper
8:20
Speaker 1: up as they were going around the room, and everyone's
8:22
Speaker 1: saying guilty or not guilty, because you need two thirds
8:26
Speaker 1: of the Senate vote or a supermajority to to enact
8:29
Speaker 1: this impeachment. So he was just sitting there and no
8:31
Speaker 1: one knew what was gonna happen. He stood up, he
8:34
Speaker 1: said he thought later on that he were facing death
8:37
Speaker 1: and he said not guilty, and everyone side and this
8:45
Speaker 1: article points out they don't know if it was a
8:47
Speaker 1: side of relief or upset, probably both, depending on which
8:52
Speaker 1: side of the aisle you're on. Yeah, the the whole
8:54
Speaker 1: things recounted really well in this book called Impeached by
8:57
Speaker 1: the historian David oh Stewart, um, which I think where
9:01
Speaker 1: this guy got this, but he, um, he does a
9:05
Speaker 1: good job like getting to the heart of the matter,
9:07
Speaker 1: which was this guy Emmon Ross was from that moment
9:11
Speaker 1: on celebrated as this hero, this constitutional hero, like he
9:17
Speaker 1: stood up and said, you know what, I'm not going
9:19
Speaker 1: to let the Constitution be railroaded because you guys don't
9:22
Speaker 1: like Andrew Johnson. And he's been kind of honored as
9:26
Speaker 1: that since then. I've read it a couple of articles
9:29
Speaker 1: that are like, mm, actually he was just looking out
9:32
Speaker 1: for himself. Johnson was his benefactor and um, he had
9:36
Speaker 1: basically appointed him, and uh, he had a lot of
9:40
Speaker 1: favoritism with him, and this new guy who would have
9:42
Speaker 1: come in, I think Benjamin Ward would not have carried
9:45
Speaker 1: on the same thing. But regardless, if you are a constitutionalist,
9:49
Speaker 1: this guy is your hero. Because he did save the
9:51
Speaker 1: constitution with that one vote. So what that what what
9:57
Speaker 1: took place was an impeachment proceeding, and that one was
10:00
Speaker 1: awfully close. That was the first impeachment proceeding of the
10:04
Speaker 1: US president, but that would not be the last. There's
10:07
Speaker 1: been three more or two more presidents, three total, yes,
10:11
Speaker 1: that have have faced down the impeachment gun. Uh. And
10:15
Speaker 1: there have been varying results. But as yet there's never
10:19
Speaker 1: been a president that was successfully convicted once they've been impeached,
10:24
Speaker 1: because impeachment is not convictions. A couple of different things.
10:27
Speaker 1: You want to take a break and then get into it, Yeah,
10:29
Speaker 1: because Uh, I don't want to confuse people right off
10:32
Speaker 1: the bat here any more than we need to. I
10:35
Speaker 1: think it's a little late for that. So we'll go
10:37
Speaker 1: gather our thoughts. Take a little podcaster potty break. Be
10:41
Speaker 1: back right after this. If you want to know, luck
10:45
Speaker 1: just to chuck all right. Should we talk about French
11:09
Speaker 1: and Latin real quick? Yes, because the roots of words
11:12
Speaker 1: are always fun to talk about. The French word impatia
11:18
Speaker 1: means to prevent, related to the English word impede, and
11:22
Speaker 1: both originally derived from the Latin tern impedical man, your
11:28
Speaker 1: friends is just so romantic, and that means to fedter.
11:31
Speaker 1: So basically what impeachment root wise means is to put
11:35
Speaker 1: a stop to movement of something. In this case, the
11:39
Speaker 1: uh not always a president, as we'll see. Um any
11:44
Speaker 1: um is it any elected official, any federal civil civil
11:49
Speaker 1: officers what they finally landed on. But yeah, like a
11:53
Speaker 1: federal official, somebody who is appointed by the president, the president,
11:56
Speaker 1: the vice president, um, judges typically, but not senators or
12:04
Speaker 1: congress people. They can just be run out of town
12:07
Speaker 1: on a on a bail of Hey, there's the yeah.
12:10
Speaker 1: They basically yeah, man, w you see that bail of
12:13
Speaker 1: hay coming and you know that it tolls for the
12:17
Speaker 1: you know the tars right behind it. That's a bad
12:19
Speaker 1: day for you. Um alright, So the origins of impeachment
12:22
Speaker 1: though pre United States. UM, so we're talking British legal
12:27
Speaker 1: history here. There's a dude named T. F. T. Plunkett Plucknet. Interesting,
12:34
Speaker 1: m hmm Plucknett. Uh he's in his Storian I guess so, uh,
12:40
Speaker 1: I could have sworn it was Plunkett. So T. F. T.
12:42
Speaker 1: Plucknett says that um fourteenth century Parliament was the first
12:47
Speaker 1: time impeachment came about. And during that time there were
12:52
Speaker 1: a couple of different cases over like an eleven year
12:56
Speaker 1: period that had a pretty big shift from one to
12:58
Speaker 1: the next that we kind of frame how impeachment works. Right.
13:02
Speaker 1: So at the time, back then in the fourteenth century,
13:05
Speaker 1: right the the king could appoint. They were all manner
13:10
Speaker 1: of like positions that the king could appoint, and once
13:13
Speaker 1: you were appointed by the king, that was it. You
13:15
Speaker 1: only answered to the king. You could do anything you wanted,
13:19
Speaker 1: and as long as you had the king's favor, there
13:22
Speaker 1: was nothing anyone could do. So UM at one point,
13:25
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure how they took it upon themselves,
13:27
Speaker 1: but this article says that it grew out of a
13:30
Speaker 1: trial of Roger Mortimer, who was convicted in um executed
13:35
Speaker 1: for arranging the murder of King Edward the second, and
13:40
Speaker 1: then a Chief Justice Willoughby, who was accused of corruption
13:45
Speaker 1: and tried UM. These two guys were like high appointed
13:50
Speaker 1: officials and they were removed from office, and the way
13:54
Speaker 1: that they were removed was basically the parliament got involved.
13:57
Speaker 1: So this idea of impeaching people grew out of the
14:01
Speaker 1: notion that wait a minute, Parliament and specifically the House
14:04
Speaker 1: of Commons, which is, if you take Parliament and Congress
14:08
Speaker 1: in the United States, the House of Lords is like
14:12
Speaker 1: the Senate, and the House of Commons is like the
14:14
Speaker 1: House of Representatives, right. Um, the House of Commons were
14:18
Speaker 1: the ones who would take it upon themselves to say
14:21
Speaker 1: this person is bad and we're going to get rid
14:23
Speaker 1: of them. We're going to act as their jury and
14:25
Speaker 1: try them and remove them from their appointed position. And king,
14:29
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do about it, because we're the
14:31
Speaker 1: ones who hold the purse strings, really, so you better
14:35
Speaker 1: go along with this. And this idea of impeaching was huge.
14:38
Speaker 1: It was revolutionary in Great Britain, and it was equally
14:43
Speaker 1: revolutionary in in the founding of the United States too,
14:46
Speaker 1: because if you'll remember, the United States was founded at
14:49
Speaker 1: a time where Americans were very very wary of kings
14:54
Speaker 1: pushing them around. And in the Constitution as this role,
14:59
Speaker 1: this office of the Press that did see which is
15:00
Speaker 1: a very strong executive ruler a king almost um. And
15:05
Speaker 1: there's a legal scholar, Cass Sunstein, who wrote this great
15:10
Speaker 1: article about all this about impeachment, and he says a
15:13
Speaker 1: lot of historians agree that the Constitution probably wouldn't have
15:16
Speaker 1: been ratified if these few words about impeachment hadn't been
15:20
Speaker 1: added into the Constitution to give Americans the power to
15:25
Speaker 1: remove a corrupt president from office. Yeah, I mean they
15:29
Speaker 1: it was almost I mean, it ended up being very important,
15:32
Speaker 1: but it was almost an afterthought and how they went
15:34
Speaker 1: about it because up front they weren't saying, hey, we
15:37
Speaker 1: need to really like make sure we include this impeachment
15:39
Speaker 1: thing in here. They're worried about framing the US Constitution.
15:42
Speaker 1: And then at the end Ben Franklin very famously said, hey,
15:47
Speaker 1: you know, without impeachment, you know what, you know what,
15:50
Speaker 1: the only other thing we can do is is, uh,
15:53
Speaker 1: if we get a bad president is shoot him in
15:55
Speaker 1: the head. And they went, oh, well that won't do
15:58
Speaker 1: bully bully to that, So maybe we should we should
16:01
Speaker 1: write something down. I know, we're all tired. We've been
16:04
Speaker 1: working on this document for minutes. They had fatigue, and
16:11
Speaker 1: they so they ended up saying over what hundred and
16:16
Speaker 1: eighty words? I think it was actually less than I
16:18
Speaker 1: don't know, really I came up with that. Yeah, alright,
16:20
Speaker 1: well seven sentences. Now it's even less than that, really, Yeah,
16:24
Speaker 1: good lord, I kind of four run on sentences two
16:30
Speaker 1: of which included Colon's but that I mean, it's a sentence,
16:33
Speaker 1: four sentences in a hundred and three words, says microsoft word.
16:38
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, well they didn't have microsoft word back then,
16:41
Speaker 1: so alright, So regardless of how long it was, it
16:44
Speaker 1: was short, and it was here's the thing it was.
16:48
Speaker 1: It was written in a very vague language, which ended
16:52
Speaker 1: up being very troublesome because they weren't quite sure. I
16:57
Speaker 1: think they didn't want to hem themselves in too much,
17:00
Speaker 1: is my feeling on exactly what it would take to
17:05
Speaker 1: to start this process. Like, uh so, initially they called it, uh,
17:13
Speaker 1: it was it. George Mason called it um mal mal
17:16
Speaker 1: administration in other words, just being a bad president. Yeah,
17:20
Speaker 1: and they took that out. There was a couple of
17:22
Speaker 1: reasons why they said, no, this is a little it's
17:24
Speaker 1: a little vague. But later constitutional scholars have interpreted the
17:29
Speaker 1: fact that it was suggested and removed that the framers
17:34
Speaker 1: of the Constitution didn't consider not being a very good
17:37
Speaker 1: president as a reason to be removed from office. James
17:40
Speaker 1: Imagine at the very least, said, this is just really
17:43
Speaker 1: unclear as to what this couldn't even mean. Sure, so
17:46
Speaker 1: maladministration comes out they hit upon and I'm not sure
17:50
Speaker 1: if they hit upon it right out of the gate
17:52
Speaker 1: or if it came later, but they hit upon bribery
17:55
Speaker 1: and treason, which there's no issues with that. Everyone knows
17:58
Speaker 1: what bribery is, everyone knows what treason is. It's pretty clear.
18:02
Speaker 1: But they they're still like her saying no, this isn't
18:05
Speaker 1: it's still not quite there. James Mason spoke up again.
18:07
Speaker 1: He said, you can really screw with the democracy of
18:12
Speaker 1: America even without taking bribes, even without committing a statutory
18:17
Speaker 1: treason his act. So maybe we need to add something.
18:20
Speaker 1: So that's when he came up with mal administration and said, no, no,
18:23
Speaker 1: it's stupid. But then they came up with something else. Yeah,
18:26
Speaker 1: he finally said, because again they didn't want to be
18:28
Speaker 1: hinderen too much, but they also didn't want to be
18:31
Speaker 1: so specific with just bribery and treason that that was
18:34
Speaker 1: the only thing that you could use uh impeachment for.
18:38
Speaker 1: So he finally said, alright, good god, it's late. What
18:43
Speaker 1: about high crimes and misdemeanors and everyone, yeah, that's great. Well,
18:48
Speaker 1: no one even knows what it means. It will be perfect.
18:51
Speaker 1: What's funny is no one. No one now knows what
18:53
Speaker 1: it means, but apparently it was quite clear what it
18:56
Speaker 1: meant at the time. Yeah, it's supposedly high crime. Is.
19:01
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean like, oh my god, that's that's such
19:04
Speaker 1: a huge crime crime right, Yeah, they did grow hemp
19:10
Speaker 1: by the way. Um, but the high crime or a
19:14
Speaker 1: high misdemeanor is it's a type of crime that can
19:18
Speaker 1: only be committed by a high person a k a.
19:21
Speaker 1: An elected or federal official. That's it's still just a
19:26
Speaker 1: crime or a misdemeanor. Like I think it's still vague,
19:29
Speaker 1: so okay, So later later scholars have interpret high crimes
19:33
Speaker 1: and misdemeanors. I mean, it's a it's a crime or
19:36
Speaker 1: a misdemeanor that is carried out and can only be
19:38
Speaker 1: carried out by somebody in an elected position. So it's
19:41
Speaker 1: a betrayal of the public trust that an elected or
19:45
Speaker 1: federal official is given. Okay, and that the crimes part
19:49
Speaker 1: that throws people off. A high crime can be Um,
19:55
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be an actual crime, Okay, So
19:58
Speaker 1: you can be impeached for a high crime that, if
20:00
Speaker 1: you go and read the US Code, is not actually
20:03
Speaker 1: a federal crime. You're not breaking the law, but you
20:06
Speaker 1: could still be impeached for it even though it's not
20:08
Speaker 1: an actual crime. And then conversely, an actual crime isn't
20:13
Speaker 1: necessarily an impeachable offense. That what the framers were trying
20:16
Speaker 1: to get at here was that the the president or
20:19
Speaker 1: the vice president, whoever was being impeached, had betrayed the
20:23
Speaker 1: public trust, had used their elected position, their high position,
20:28
Speaker 1: in a way that was that rendered them unfit to
20:31
Speaker 1: serve any longer. They could not be trusted any longer.
20:33
Speaker 1: They had proven themselves a alleged a terrible person, and
20:38
Speaker 1: had had discharged their duties as president in a in
20:43
Speaker 1: a mallow malodorous way, said the guy who shoes her
20:48
Speaker 1: off in Congress. That cleared the room man pretty quick.
20:54
Speaker 1: It's like Elizabeth Warren taking the taking to the podium.
21:00
Speaker 1: When she takes her shoes off, people clear out of there.
21:02
Speaker 1: She's had like onions for lunch, that lady. You'll just
21:05
Speaker 1: the whole onion raw? Have you ever seen it? It's amazing.
21:10
Speaker 1: Where did I see that recently? A whole onion raw?
21:15
Speaker 1: It's like a movie or something. Oh, I know what
21:18
Speaker 1: it was. The movie that was the kid was hungover
21:22
Speaker 1: and the parent comes in the next morning and they're
21:24
Speaker 1: like here, like, eat this onion, trust me, And the
21:27
Speaker 1: kid starts to eat the onion and they're like, just kidding.
21:32
Speaker 1: I can't remember what movie it was. Back to the
21:35
Speaker 1: Future too, Yeah, that was it, when Marty Marty's Hangover.
21:40
Speaker 1: That was the full name Back the Future to Marty's
21:42
Speaker 1: Hangover colon the onion. Um. So here's the deal though
21:48
Speaker 1: with it's one of two things though, when it comes
21:54
Speaker 1: to impeachment. It's either literally a crime, but it doesn't
21:57
Speaker 1: have to be. And if it's not a crime literally,
22:00
Speaker 1: then it's probably something political going on in that it is.
22:05
Speaker 1: They feel that it is subverting the office of the president. Right,
22:09
Speaker 1: that's the general interpretation. But again I mean like they
22:13
Speaker 1: didn't say high crimes and demeanor or high crimes and
22:17
Speaker 1: misdemeanors asterisks, right and then define that. So it's open
22:21
Speaker 1: to interpretation and it still is today, which is why
22:25
Speaker 1: unless you are a president or a vice president have
22:28
Speaker 1: been actually caught, um, accepting bribes or committing treason, there's
22:33
Speaker 1: a lot of wiggle room for you to get out
22:35
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, an impeachment doesn't send you to jail,
22:38
Speaker 1: like you can then be tried for treason and that
22:41
Speaker 1: would continue to jail. Yeah, it's specifically says in the
22:45
Speaker 1: Constitution that this is strictly to remove the person from office,
22:49
Speaker 1: possibly to prevent them from ever holding federal office again.
22:53
Speaker 1: But that do you have to leave it to the
22:55
Speaker 1: regular courts to um to try and punish them. If
22:59
Speaker 1: it's an rual crime separately, that's different. But it's weird
23:04
Speaker 1: because the impeachment processes will see is very much like
23:07
Speaker 1: a uh trial, a kangaroo court trial. Basically, well, let's
23:13
Speaker 1: go and talk about it, okay, So if you're impeached,
23:17
Speaker 1: if you're a president and you do something that enough
23:20
Speaker 1: people in the House of Representatives find unsavory, you may
23:24
Speaker 1: find yourself facing impeachment. Usually that means the people in
23:27
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives are representatives are in a different
23:32
Speaker 1: political party than your own. Usually, yes, you would have
23:35
Speaker 1: to be pretty bad for your own party to be
23:38
Speaker 1: the ones who drew up the articles of impeachment to start, right,
23:42
Speaker 1: So with the articles of impeachment, it can be introduced.
23:46
Speaker 1: Typically these days, from what I understand, there's a judiciary
23:49
Speaker 1: Judiciary committee in the House, and they will be responsible
23:53
Speaker 1: for drumming up the articles of impeachment and then introducing
23:57
Speaker 1: them to the House as a whole. But in individual
24:01
Speaker 1: representative can come up with articles of impeachment himself for
24:05
Speaker 1: herself and introduce it on the House flora to be
24:07
Speaker 1: voted one way or another, which just happened actually at
24:11
Speaker 1: the beginning of December. Um as a loan representative, Al
24:16
Speaker 1: King I think from Texas introduced articles of impeachment and
24:19
Speaker 1: it got voted down. So you can do it yourself.
24:22
Speaker 1: Is just a just a loan dude or DoD s um.
24:26
Speaker 1: But normally it's the Judiciary Committee, I think, because the
24:30
Speaker 1: parties tend to try to keep a strangle hold on
24:32
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And like even with this case, the
24:35
Speaker 1: Democrats were like easy, easy, ol, like just settle down
24:39
Speaker 1: where we're going to get there, but Al was like
24:41
Speaker 1: I hate him so much too early, Al stand down,
24:45
Speaker 1: so as Al stalks off. But the process continues apparently
24:49
Speaker 1: under more normal circumstances. But he was a great example
24:52
Speaker 1: that any any representative can introduce articles of impeachment, and
24:56
Speaker 1: an article of impeachment Chuck is like presidents who have
25:00
Speaker 1: been impeached have had I believe Johnson too, but definitely
25:04
Speaker 1: Nixon and Clinton, UM and now Trump. He wasn't impeached,
25:10
Speaker 1: but he's had articles of impeachment brought up against him,
25:12
Speaker 1: which is a significant in and of itself, because what
25:16
Speaker 1: it's saying is we are accusing this president of this crime,
25:20
Speaker 1: and each crime or each betrayal of office, whatever you
25:23
Speaker 1: want to call it, each high crime and misdemeanor or
25:26
Speaker 1: each actual crime, it gets its own article of impeachment.
25:29
Speaker 1: So very frequently and president will be impeached with multiple
25:33
Speaker 1: articles of impeachment and the House is forced to vote
25:36
Speaker 1: on each one. So so if you if you have
25:39
Speaker 1: like five, that means there's five chances that that president
25:43
Speaker 1: can be impeached depending on the evidence. And so each impeachment,
25:46
Speaker 1: each article of impeachment is going to say, this is
25:49
Speaker 1: what the president did. Here's all the evidence that backs
25:51
Speaker 1: up us saying this, Um and House, what do you think?
25:56
Speaker 1: Then the House will vote on it. That was Al Green,
25:59
Speaker 1: by the way, not now King, his legendary soul singer,
26:02
Speaker 1: Al Green. It was Al Green. It wasn't Al King.
26:06
Speaker 1: His name is Al Green, Yeah, but it wasn't legendary
26:08
Speaker 1: soul singer. Right. Um, So if the vote gets the majority,
26:13
Speaker 1: then the president is officially impeached to that point, um,
26:17
Speaker 1: which and it's just a simple majority, yeah, in the House,
26:21
Speaker 1: and that means that basically, that means it's a it's
26:23
Speaker 1: like a criminal indictment, um if we're gonna be comparing
26:26
Speaker 1: it to like, you know, the civilian legal standard. So
26:30
Speaker 1: you're officially accused of this wrongdoing, which could mean you
26:34
Speaker 1: could be removed from office officially if the House is
26:37
Speaker 1: voted with a simple majority. But it's not over because
26:41
Speaker 1: then what happens is it moves over to the Senate.
26:43
Speaker 1: And at that point that's where you need the two
26:46
Speaker 1: thirds majority another to finish the prosecution. And here's the
26:51
Speaker 1: thing is, they didn't, like I said, it was a
26:54
Speaker 1: very kind of short um insert as far as how
26:58
Speaker 1: to go about this. So there there aren't any like
27:01
Speaker 1: hard and fast rules. So whenever this has happened, they're
27:04
Speaker 1: kind of just like, all right, how do you want
27:05
Speaker 1: to do this? Um, We're not gonna have prosecutors. We're
27:09
Speaker 1: gonna have what we call managers, which is a weird
27:12
Speaker 1: word for sure, but they're gonna act as prosecutors and
27:15
Speaker 1: they're gonna be called to argue the case before the Senate.
27:19
Speaker 1: And these are members of the House who are managing
27:22
Speaker 1: the impeachment proceedings in the Senate on behalf of the House,
27:26
Speaker 1: because the House has said, we the House, I think
27:28
Speaker 1: this president should be removed, and now we're gonna send
27:31
Speaker 1: some of our members to argue this case. Yes, and
27:33
Speaker 1: the Senate is essentially the jury at this point in
27:35
Speaker 1: the proceedings, right, But they're the jury, and they're also
27:38
Speaker 1: the ones who are making up the rules. They're in
27:40
Speaker 1: charge of that as well, which is very strange. It
27:43
Speaker 1: is you want to hear something kind of fun. But
27:46
Speaker 1: my uncle was a manager for Clinton's impeachment trial. No
27:52
Speaker 1: Bob Bars your uncle. No, not Bob Barr. There there
27:55
Speaker 1: are several managers. My uncle ed Bryan really yeah, talk
28:00
Speaker 1: of before he was Republican congressman from Tennessee and he
28:03
Speaker 1: was one of the managers because he was an attorney
28:07
Speaker 1: and a former Army judge advocate general and judge Japoka general.
28:12
Speaker 1: Is that what he was jack? Was he a jack?
28:16
Speaker 1: But that's what it stands for. I can't remember now,
28:19
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just thinking to the TV show. But he
28:22
Speaker 1: held the legal position in the Army, uh and then
28:25
Speaker 1: was well the Navy. I think are the Jags right? Oh,
28:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. He was in the army though, okay,
28:32
Speaker 1: but he was one of the managers in the in
28:34
Speaker 1: the Clinton impeachment that is fascinating trial. And he and
28:37
Speaker 1: I gotta say, like Uncle Ed and I are are
28:40
Speaker 1: politically divergent. But he's a good dude and an honest,
28:45
Speaker 1: like kind man. I can say that for sure. Uh
28:49
Speaker 1: So I was always proud of him as a person,
28:51
Speaker 1: even though he didn't like see I politically, but he was, Um,
28:54
Speaker 1: he's such a good guy that Monica Lewinsky requested him
28:57
Speaker 1: personally to depose her because he was just regarded as
29:02
Speaker 1: like one of the good guys and one of the
29:04
Speaker 1: like fair like decent humans. So he was the guy
29:07
Speaker 1: who deposed Monica Lewinsky for the Clinton impeachment trial. My
29:11
Speaker 1: father's brother. He needs a T shirt that says that man, right,
29:16
Speaker 1: that's crazy and that wouldn't it wow? So how does
29:19
Speaker 1: he feel about it? Because most, um, I shouldn't say most,
29:24
Speaker 1: A significant number of legal scholars and historians look back
29:29
Speaker 1: at that and the Andrew Johnson won and say those
29:32
Speaker 1: impeachment proceedings never should have happened, never should have passed.
29:35
Speaker 1: The House and that they were partisan proceedings. Yeah, I
29:38
Speaker 1: don't know. You know, we're not super in touch anymore.
29:41
Speaker 1: But now that I'm older, I would love to pick
29:43
Speaker 1: his brain a little bit about this. Uh, and I'm
29:46
Speaker 1: sure he would spill it, you know, conference me in Okay,
29:50
Speaker 1: I like the next Christmas, I'll be like, yeah, uncle, Lettie,
29:53
Speaker 1: just um, hold on a minute, I'm just gonna put
29:55
Speaker 1: this phone down next to you, and don't pay attention
29:57
Speaker 1: to that picture of Josh his avatar. I'll be like,
30:01
Speaker 1: did you give my T shirt I sent you? Ah? Yeah,
30:05
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, so I know. Right. So, at any rate,
30:09
Speaker 1: the managers are they're arguing the case before the Senate,
30:12
Speaker 1: who acts as jury that are also making up the
30:14
Speaker 1: rules as they go. And uh, two thirds, like we
30:18
Speaker 1: said a couple of times, you need that two thirds
30:20
Speaker 1: Senate vote. And then at that point, if two thirds
30:24
Speaker 1: vote guilty, then that's it man, the president you're done. Yeah,
30:30
Speaker 1: and then the vice president takes over and um, that's that.
30:34
Speaker 1: You probably can't hold a federal office again after that either,
30:37
Speaker 1: although I don't think it's automatic. Right, So let's should
30:41
Speaker 1: we take a break. Yeah, all right, let's take a
30:44
Speaker 1: break and we'll talk about We've already talked about Johnson.
30:47
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit more about Mr. Bill Clinton
30:50
Speaker 1: and President Richard Milhouse Nixon. Right it for this If
30:54
Speaker 1: you want to know Luck, just to Chuck, Okay, Chuck. Yes. So,
31:22
Speaker 1: like you said, we talked about Johnson, he got off
31:25
Speaker 1: by one vote. Man, that must have been so tense. Um.
31:29
Speaker 1: And then up next was so president wise. We'll find
31:33
Speaker 1: that there are plenty of other people who've been impeached,
31:35
Speaker 1: but in the United States, president wise, the next president
31:38
Speaker 1: was Richard Millhouse Nixon. Was a long break in between. Yeah,
31:42
Speaker 1: over a hundred years, like a hundred and four years,
31:45
Speaker 1: I think something like that. So Nixon is getting his
31:48
Speaker 1: own episode. Were you're doing a Watergate episode hopefully in
31:53
Speaker 1: the not too distant future. Such a fascinating case. So um. Well,
32:00
Speaker 1: but the whole, the whole premise of what Nixon was
32:05
Speaker 1: eventually moved out of office for what. He didn't actually
32:09
Speaker 1: get impeached. He resigned, but he probably would have been
32:12
Speaker 1: removed from office. He probably would have been impeached, He
32:15
Speaker 1: probably would have been convicted, and he would have been removed.
32:17
Speaker 1: But he didn't give him the satisfaction he resigned. But
32:21
Speaker 1: he he went and this was just in a few weeks.
32:24
Speaker 1: He won the election by an enormous margin. Um. The
32:29
Speaker 1: electoral college vote was five twenty Nixon seventeen, McGovern seventeen,
32:36
Speaker 1: five to seventeen. That's what that's the landslide that he
32:39
Speaker 1: won re election with. And within a few weeks he
32:43
Speaker 1: was he was out of office. And it was all
32:45
Speaker 1: because of that Watergate break in. And it wasn't even
32:48
Speaker 1: necessarily the break in, which was bad enough that like
32:50
Speaker 1: some operatives from the White House broke into Democratic headquarters
32:56
Speaker 1: in the Watergate hotel and we're caught trying to replace
33:00
Speaker 1: the phone tap that they had on the phone um
33:03
Speaker 1: and it turned out that it was traced back to
33:05
Speaker 1: the to the White House. The president probably had involvement.
33:09
Speaker 1: That's bad enough, but the cover up is what ultimately
33:12
Speaker 1: led to Nixon being railroaded out of out of the
33:15
Speaker 1: White House. Yeah, for sure, But like you said, the
33:19
Speaker 1: writing was on the wall, and he said, well, you
33:21
Speaker 1: know what, I quit, I resign, And everyone went, oh, man,
33:25
Speaker 1: I know, we really wanted to impeach you. We brought
33:28
Speaker 1: the bail of Hay and everything. I mean, I saw
33:31
Speaker 1: all the presidents men again the other day for the
33:33
Speaker 1: first Simon so great, so um so Nixon was He's
33:39
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty instructive example as well. Like he had
33:42
Speaker 1: multiple articles of impeachment against him. One was tax evasion
33:46
Speaker 1: when he was president he failed to pay like four
33:49
Speaker 1: grand and taxes, which is like two point six million today,
33:53
Speaker 1: which that's a substantial amount of money. Plus he was
33:57
Speaker 1: president when he failed to pay those taxes, so crazy.
34:00
Speaker 1: He didn't get he again, he was never here. They
34:03
Speaker 1: didn't get to the point where they voted on the
34:05
Speaker 1: articles of impeachment. But that was one against the obstructing
34:08
Speaker 1: justice was one. Using the office to um obstruct justice
34:12
Speaker 1: was a big one. He had like a hand pick
34:15
Speaker 1: c I a task force um that was trying to
34:18
Speaker 1: keep the FBI from investigating Watergate. So he had a
34:21
Speaker 1: lot of different articles of impeachment against him, and surely
34:24
Speaker 1: one of them would have stuck and he would have
34:26
Speaker 1: been removed. But then after Nixon that was two up
34:30
Speaker 1: comes Clinton about twenty I think twenty six years later,
34:34
Speaker 1: wasn't it. M M. I think yeah, okay, well depends
34:40
Speaker 1: on you know, the whole the whole kitten caboodle was
34:43
Speaker 1: over a couple of years for sure, right. So Clinton
34:46
Speaker 1: was up next, Yes, and very famously he um. He
34:51
Speaker 1: did not get impeached because he uh did bad things
34:55
Speaker 1: in the White House with Monica Lewinsky. He was impeached
34:57
Speaker 1: because he perjured himself, very famously said I did not
35:02
Speaker 1: have sexual relations with that woman. Yeah, that was good,
35:06
Speaker 1: did uncle. I'll bet uncle and Clinton to doubt it. Uh. Yeah,
35:11
Speaker 1: I mean I remember in college, in uh actually just
35:14
Speaker 1: post college, I remember Bill Clinton looking America in the
35:18
Speaker 1: eye on television and lying to all of us. Very disappointing.
35:23
Speaker 1: And he was a man in power who used that
35:26
Speaker 1: power to Some people say, take advantage of a younger coworker.
35:33
Speaker 1: Other people say, you know, it was consensual relationship. But
35:38
Speaker 1: he was the president and she was a political junkie,
35:40
Speaker 1: so sure. And he also was accused of trying to
35:45
Speaker 1: get her too. She was a witness. Monica Lewinsky was
35:48
Speaker 1: a witness in a sexual harassment case against him by
35:51
Speaker 1: Paula Jones, and he was he was accused of trying
35:55
Speaker 1: to get her to lie for him as a witness,
35:58
Speaker 1: which is big time obstructing justice, especially if you're president. Um,
36:04
Speaker 1: and so if you if you look at it in
36:06
Speaker 1: that light. Was he having that relationship with Lewinsky to
36:10
Speaker 1: influence her to lie to the jury, which makes it
36:15
Speaker 1: doubly worse somehow tripoli or quadruple e worse. Even so,
36:20
Speaker 1: there was, um, there were a lot of there was
36:23
Speaker 1: a lot of beef against him. I mean, the stink
36:25
Speaker 1: from that mess affected this most recent election, you know,
36:30
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure, definitely. I mean, like the
36:33
Speaker 1: Clinton's have a pretty bad rep still from that among
36:37
Speaker 1: certain parties, pretty pretty extensive parties, I would say, and earned,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I remember being very upset that
36:46
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton lied to my face. Well that's not why
36:49
Speaker 1: he was. Um, he didn't perjured to the American people.
36:53
Speaker 1: He he lied to a grand jury as well under oath.
36:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but he said the same thing to the
36:58
Speaker 1: grand juries. He said our faces. But I remember feeling
37:02
Speaker 1: especially let down because he looked me in the eye,
37:06
Speaker 1: you know, like when the president is facing camera and
37:09
Speaker 1: says something very seriously like that, Uh, they're talking to you,
37:13
Speaker 1: They're talking to their constituents like it's a personal relationship.
37:17
Speaker 1: I remember being just really upset about the whole thing. Well, okay,
37:23
Speaker 1: I didn't I don't think I felt quite like that.
37:26
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I just assumed he I just assumed he
37:30
Speaker 1: was lying. Really yeah, he's president, man, I believed him.
37:34
Speaker 1: I was. I was much more naive in my younger days. Well,
37:36
Speaker 1: I think it's sweet Chuck. Yeah, that's slick Willy always
37:41
Speaker 1: with the smooth talk. That's right, Tricky Dick and slick Willy.
37:44
Speaker 1: You need to stop electing people with those nicknames. Right now,
37:47
Speaker 1: we're just asking what about what about honorable Frank Why
37:51
Speaker 1: did he ever get elected? He doesn't have any campaign money. So, okay,
37:57
Speaker 1: so Clinton escaped fit at the vote was fifty fifty. Um. Yeah, yeah,
38:04
Speaker 1: so he was actually impeached like Andrew Johnson was, and
38:07
Speaker 1: they did it did come up to vote, the articles
38:09
Speaker 1: of impeachment came up to vote, and they were It
38:12
Speaker 1: was fifty fifty, which was pretty close to party lines. Um.
38:15
Speaker 1: I think five Republicans five Democrats voted for impeachment and
38:22
Speaker 1: ten Republicans voted against. Like I can't remember, but it
38:25
Speaker 1: was very close to party law. Was ten Republicans voted
38:28
Speaker 1: for acquittal. Um. Two of which are still there. Susan
38:33
Speaker 1: Collins of Maine. She was a brand new either freshman
38:37
Speaker 1: or sophomore. And Richard Shelby of Alabama. Wow, is still there.
38:42
Speaker 1: So they voted against acquittal, they voted, they voted against impeachment,
38:48
Speaker 1: I should say, yeah, yeah, they were Republicans. So, uh
38:52
Speaker 1: so Clinton Clinton made it out and I was reading this,
38:54
Speaker 1: there's this really fascinating five thirty eight blog about UM.
38:59
Speaker 1: I think it's called will Trump be Impeached? And it's
39:04
Speaker 1: you know, it's five thirty eight. So they've got all
39:06
Speaker 1: this data and everything to back up what they're saying.
39:09
Speaker 1: So they were saying one of the one of the
39:12
Speaker 1: sure signs that uh, an impeachment's probably not going to
39:15
Speaker 1: go through is like how divided the parties are. If
39:20
Speaker 1: the parties are are um within themselves, no no between
39:25
Speaker 1: the two, Like, if you're probably going to have a
39:28
Speaker 1: party line vote, it's probably people. Probably people aren't gonna
39:31
Speaker 1: defect enough to actually vote for impeachment, or if they do,
39:34
Speaker 1: they're not gonna defect enough to vote for um for
39:39
Speaker 1: conviction in the Senate. Right, And that was the case
39:42
Speaker 1: of Clinton, right right, right, But today it would take
39:46
Speaker 1: Republican senators to say to get together and say, hey,
39:53
Speaker 1: maybe even get this guy out of here and get
39:55
Speaker 1: pens in there, and like and commit uh you know,
39:59
Speaker 1: what's it called on ship mutiny? Commit mutiny? Yeah, it almost.
40:04
Speaker 1: I mean, with the introduction of Pen's out of nowhere,
40:07
Speaker 1: it definitely seemed like that was plan B from the
40:10
Speaker 1: party all along. I would not be at all surprised
40:13
Speaker 1: if that actually happened. I don't think very many people
40:16
Speaker 1: would be surprised if that happened. But I saw that
40:19
Speaker 1: in that same five thirty eight blog there's um like
40:22
Speaker 1: a betting odds website that they cited that that gave
40:27
Speaker 1: like even odds that Trump would um would not finish
40:30
Speaker 1: out his full four year term, which is that's pretty significant,
40:35
Speaker 1: you know, fifty chance, that's crazy. Yeah. My call from
40:41
Speaker 1: the beginning was that he would not finish out his
40:42
Speaker 1: four year term because he would resign. He would not
40:47
Speaker 1: allow himself to be impeached. I don't think so either,
40:50
Speaker 1: is that he would resign and claim to be a
40:52
Speaker 1: victim of the political system and basically say I told
40:57
Speaker 1: you all along it was the swamp. I couldn't drain it.
41:01
Speaker 1: Now I'm a victim of it. Man. So p T.
41:06
Speaker 1: Barnum played by Hugh Jackman, Hugh Jackman from Subway And
41:14
Speaker 1: then now this one if this goes through, just call
41:16
Speaker 1: me nostro Chukas from now on. Oh man, it's not fat.
41:21
Speaker 1: So there's I have two T shirts. Uh, there's a
41:25
Speaker 1: very um interesting And the reason I said that this
41:29
Speaker 1: is right after he got elected was because I was like,
41:32
Speaker 1: I don't think he really wants to be president for
41:34
Speaker 1: four years. I read that in multiple places that he's
41:38
Speaker 1: not He doesn't actually enjoy the actual presidency. Yeah, and
41:42
Speaker 1: and from what I've heard, he gets very bored with
41:45
Speaker 1: doing the same thing and politics is certainly not the
41:47
Speaker 1: way he's used to doing business. And like, I was
41:50
Speaker 1: just like, man, the guy's gonna get tired of this
41:51
Speaker 1: after a couple of years and just want to go
41:53
Speaker 1: back to his kushy civilian life. Uh, and then be
41:58
Speaker 1: a be a martyr political and say, yeah, I couldn't
42:01
Speaker 1: do what I wanted to do, so I'm a victim.
42:03
Speaker 1: M So that's ducks. You heard it here first. So
42:09
Speaker 1: so if so, Trump hasn't been impeached it, but they
42:12
Speaker 1: they've already brought it up. It sounds like, although it
42:15
Speaker 1: kind of waxed and waned in early December, all of
42:19
Speaker 1: the especially the left leaning um news outlets, were like impeachment.
42:23
Speaker 1: People are actually talking about impeachment. It is probably gonna
42:26
Speaker 1: happen now, and then if you look like a week later,
42:29
Speaker 1: all of those articles are gone. They just moved on
42:32
Speaker 1: to something else, right, which is pretty ridiculous, But the
42:35
Speaker 1: status quo these days, so, um, who knows what's gonna
42:39
Speaker 1: happen with Trump, But the chances of him actually being
42:43
Speaker 1: impeached and convicted are extraordinarily low because he's president. Right.
42:49
Speaker 1: That's just such an enormous thing to remove a president
42:52
Speaker 1: from office. What's not quite as enormous is to remove
42:56
Speaker 1: a federal judge, which is why out of the sixty
42:58
Speaker 1: people in the Ied States who have ever been impeached,
43:02
Speaker 1: I think it's even more than sixty, um and convicted,
43:07
Speaker 1: which is down to fifteen, all of those I believe
43:10
Speaker 1: were federal judges. Correct, Um, they were you know, you
43:17
Speaker 1: name it. They were d u I drunks or drunk
43:20
Speaker 1: in court, or tax evaders or accepted bribes or perjuring themselves.
43:26
Speaker 1: Like yeah, federal judges have have sort of carried the
43:30
Speaker 1: mantle for impeachment, you know. Yeah, and in a really
43:33
Speaker 1: weird way they are laying their impeachment trials have laid
43:37
Speaker 1: the groundwork for the big ones that you see. Yeah,
43:41
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you asked your uncle he would tell
43:43
Speaker 1: you that. Yeah. They went back and looked at impeachment
43:45
Speaker 1: trials for federal judges to see, you know, what procedures
43:48
Speaker 1: were used and followed and what the rules were. So these,
43:52
Speaker 1: the impeachment of federal judges who were drunk on the bench,
43:56
Speaker 1: are paving the groundwork for for presidents to be in
44:00
Speaker 1: peached with you know, impeached by um. And then there
44:03
Speaker 1: was a Senator, William Blunt from North Carolina. He was
44:07
Speaker 1: the only Senator to ever be impeached, and his trial
44:10
Speaker 1: actually established that senators and representatives couldn't be impeached. They
44:15
Speaker 1: were immune to impeachment because they weren't civil officers. That instead,
44:21
Speaker 1: their own party could run them or their own body.
44:24
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So, if you were a senator, two thirds
44:27
Speaker 1: of the Senate could vote for you to get out
44:29
Speaker 1: of the Senate. If you were a representative, two thirds
44:32
Speaker 1: of the House could vote for you to get out
44:33
Speaker 1: of the House. And that's what they did to Blunt.
44:35
Speaker 1: They said, we can't impeach you, but we can use
44:37
Speaker 1: this other thing. And and it's basically like a vote
44:40
Speaker 1: of no confidence, which also comes from Parliament as well. Interesting. Yeah, uh,
44:45
Speaker 1: well this week in real time, this will already have
44:48
Speaker 1: happened by the time this is released. But I think
44:51
Speaker 1: tomorrow there is a special election within the Democratic Party
44:57
Speaker 1: on who will be the top Democrat on the House
45:00
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee. Uh, this is gonna happen in the midterms.
45:03
Speaker 1: But when Democratic Representative John Conyers stepped down over sexual
45:09
Speaker 1: harassment allegations a couple of weeks ago, um, they had
45:13
Speaker 1: to hold a special caucus for an election. It's gonna
45:16
Speaker 1: happen tomorrow. And it looks like two people, either Jerry
45:20
Speaker 1: Nadler of New York or Zoe Lofgren of California, are
45:24
Speaker 1: the top two competing for this top spot. And they're
45:27
Speaker 1: both well aware that, um what that means. Uh. In
45:31
Speaker 1: this article here, it's called the battle to lead Trump's
45:33
Speaker 1: potential impeachment. Um, they know what they're It says they're
45:37
Speaker 1: signing up to be Trump's chief antagonist. But they also said, hey, listen,
45:44
Speaker 1: we're not gonna go in there and just start saying impeachment, impeachment.
45:48
Speaker 1: Like if this is ever going to happen, it's got
45:51
Speaker 1: to be the will. We have to feel like it's
45:54
Speaker 1: the will of the American people, Like we have to
45:57
Speaker 1: feel like there are enough Trump supporter is out there
46:01
Speaker 1: that have turned on him because of something he's done. Well, yeah,
46:05
Speaker 1: it'll it'll be like what you said, where it's it's
46:08
Speaker 1: you've just proven everything the guy has said from the
46:10
Speaker 1: moment he started campaigning him from the beginning, and that
46:15
Speaker 1: the elites have it so rigged that even if you
46:17
Speaker 1: do win, they'll just get rid of you. Yeah, I
46:19
Speaker 1: mean one of them they Nadler even said there's not
46:21
Speaker 1: some there's not much point in impeaching and president and
46:24
Speaker 1: having him acquitted in the Senate because that's what happened
46:26
Speaker 1: with Clinton. And like you said, even Republicans largely look
46:29
Speaker 1: back and say, of course that was just a big
46:32
Speaker 1: distracting waste of time. Yeah, that's I mean, that's what
46:35
Speaker 1: I've read as well, is that they it's not looked
46:38
Speaker 1: upon as the finest moment in legal American legal history. Yeah,
46:43
Speaker 1: so what we'll know the outcome tomorrow in real time.
46:45
Speaker 1: And and both of them they are kind of on
46:47
Speaker 1: the same page as as far as that goes there,
46:49
Speaker 1: like we need it needs to be something like legit
46:53
Speaker 1: worth impeaching and president for that most of the American
46:56
Speaker 1: people would agree with. We're not just out to get him,
46:59
Speaker 1: but if he does something, we're out to get him.
47:01
Speaker 1: Or if we find something that he's already done. Yeah exactly. Yeah,
47:06
Speaker 1: So well there you have it. Yeah, if it turns
47:08
Speaker 1: out that he um did obstruct anything, that that would
47:13
Speaker 1: be a big deal to the Two of the three
47:18
Speaker 1: presidents who have been impeached were had at least articles
47:22
Speaker 1: impeachment that included obstruction against them. Yeah, but his his
47:27
Speaker 1: attorneys are saying, have literally said the president can't be
47:32
Speaker 1: guilty of obstruction of justice because they are justice. That's
47:36
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous legal interpretation I've ever heard in my life.
47:41
Speaker 1: I'm going to go on record as saying that they're
47:44
Speaker 1: saying they're above the law. I I am the law.
47:49
Speaker 1: That's what it says. How can I obstruct the law?
47:52
Speaker 1: I'm the law? A crush At any rate, we should
47:56
Speaker 1: probably stop now, all right, Well, if you want to
47:59
Speaker 1: know more about impeachment, uh, you can type that word
48:03
Speaker 1: into the internet and some really interesting stuff. I Mean
48:07
Speaker 1: a lot of it is bone dry, but it's like
48:10
Speaker 1: people are really into like the legal history and um
48:14
Speaker 1: constitutional interpretation. So you can find some pretty interesting articles
48:18
Speaker 1: all around the internet on stuff like this. So just
48:21
Speaker 1: give it a shot, see if it's if it's up
48:23
Speaker 1: your alley. Yeah, and at the very least, if this
48:26
Speaker 1: does happen to play out over the next couple of years,
48:28
Speaker 1: you know, it's good to know how it all works.
48:30
Speaker 1: You know exactly exactly you can I press your friends. Yeah,
48:34
Speaker 1: it could be like they're they're never going to get
48:36
Speaker 1: a supermajority and your friends will be like, what did
48:39
Speaker 1: you just say? What magic word was? What does this
48:42
Speaker 1: have to do with comic books? So, since Chuck said
48:46
Speaker 1: comic books, it's time for listener mail. Uh, this is
48:51
Speaker 1: follow up on cakes. Hey guys, listen episode on cakes
48:55
Speaker 1: so that you might like you might like to know
48:56
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the color of red velvet
48:58
Speaker 1: cakes and experi arians amateur baker who's tested several several
49:03
Speaker 1: red velvet recipes learned it will now mails some down
49:06
Speaker 1: to Johnson Chalk. That's right. It's true that red velvet
49:09
Speaker 1: cake originally got their color from the chemical reaction of
49:11
Speaker 1: the cocoa, vinegar and buttermilk. That is no longer the case.
49:14
Speaker 1: The way cocoa's process has changed since the recipe was invented,
49:17
Speaker 1: So if you rely on the chemical reaction for the color,
49:20
Speaker 1: you will be sorely disappointed. Your cake will simply be brown,
49:23
Speaker 1: but it will be nothing like the red we have
49:26
Speaker 1: come to expect from red velvet cakes. Originally, red velvet
49:30
Speaker 1: cakes from more of a rust color than the bright
49:32
Speaker 1: red we think of now. The cacao in the cake
49:36
Speaker 1: cocoa that the two on the cake also as minimal
49:42
Speaker 1: in comparison to a chocolate cake. Cocoa was originally added
49:45
Speaker 1: to cut the flour create a silky or less glutinous texture,
49:49
Speaker 1: rather than create a chocolate cake. Velvet cakes using vinegar,
49:53
Speaker 1: I guess that's where the velvet comes from. Uh. Using
49:55
Speaker 1: vinegar is a rising agent have a long has a
49:57
Speaker 1: long tradition in American baking, and it is not deserved
50:00
Speaker 1: only for red velvet cakes. Also, you mentioned banana bread
50:04
Speaker 1: with some confusion over age musty bananas, and a lot
50:06
Speaker 1: of people wrote in about this. I'm just a dummy.
50:08
Speaker 1: I didn't get it. Bananas are softer, it cuts back
50:11
Speaker 1: on the work of the baker. Also, banana is naturally
50:14
Speaker 1: sweetened as they ripe yeah, I didn't think about that either,
50:18
Speaker 1: So I guess they're just so sugary and sweet. Once
50:21
Speaker 1: they get black like that, you get little fuzzy sweaters
50:23
Speaker 1: on your teeth when you bite into them. They're that sweet.
50:26
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I heard that expression, sweaters
50:28
Speaker 1: on your teeth, and I was like, oh my god,
50:30
Speaker 1: that's it. Nailed it. Um blah blah blah. Baking, baking,
50:36
Speaker 1: baking nice. Who is that from? Uh? Diana, By the way,
50:41
Speaker 1: she says, if you're not adding chocolate chips your banana
50:44
Speaker 1: nut bread, then you're doing it wrong. Huh, and then
50:46
Speaker 1: she says, best wishes from Diana Garten. Thanks a lot, Diana.
50:50
Speaker 1: That's very nice. If you please do send us some
50:52
Speaker 1: baked goods. It's not joking at all. Uh. If you
50:55
Speaker 1: want to send us some bake goods or just say
50:57
Speaker 1: hi or whatever, who cares. You can tweet to us
51:01
Speaker 1: at josh onm clark or s y s K podcast.
51:04
Speaker 1: You can hang out with us on Facebook dot com,
51:06
Speaker 1: slash Stuff you Should Know or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
51:09
Speaker 1: send us an email the Stuff podcast at how Stuff
51:11
Speaker 1: Works dot com, and as always, joined us at at
51:13
Speaker 1: Home on the Web Stuff you Should Know dot com
51:20
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
51:22
Speaker 1: It How stuff works? Dot com