- I'm announcing the
House of Representatives
is moving forward with an
official impeachment inquiry.
- The president can
attack the whistleblower--
- [Narrator] Though it's
unclear what impeachment charges
the US House may level against
President Donald Trump,
a discussion about what
the US Constitution means
by 'high crimes and
misdemeanors' has already begun.
- He's guilty of very serious
high crimes and misdemeanors.
- Not one of 'em have pointed out
a high crime or misdemeanor.
- [Narrator] A whistleblower's complaint
focuses on a July 25th
phone call between Trump
and his Ukrainian counterpart,
Volodymyr Zelensky.
The complaint alleges that Trump
sought to use the powers of his office
to push Ukraine to investigate
Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son,
and White House officials
acted to conceal evidence.
- The call was perfect.
When the whistleblower reported it,
he made it sound terrible.
- The debate in Congress is being informed
by impeachment proceedings
over the past 150 years
involving three presidents.
In each instance, the
legislative branch grappled with
what the minds behind
the Constitution intended
with the words 'high
crimes and misdemeanors'.
- It's obviously a
pretty enigmatic phrase.
- [Jason] While Professor Frank Bowman
recently published a book on the subject,
he says the drafters of the Constitution
derived the phrasing from
British parliamentary practice.
- It doesn't mean what it seems to mean,
because if we read the words
'high crimes and misdemeanors'
as modern 21st-century Americans,
the first thing we think of is, "Oh, well,
"there must be an indictable,
prosecutable crime involved,"
and that's plainly not the case.
- [Jason] Bowman says the president
committing a crime in the framers' eyes
was neither necessary
nor always sufficient.
- I think what they had in mind
was a tool for the legislature
to deal with executive overreach,
with executive abuse of power,
and, in particular,
corruption by the president.
- [Jason] President Andrew
Johnson was impeached in 1868
after breaking a law, but
it didn't ultimately result
in his removal from office.
After the assassination of
President Abraham Lincoln,
Johnson assumed leadership of
post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Johnson favored readmitting
Southern states back quickly.
The Republican-controlled
Congress vehemently objected.
When Johnson let former leaders
of the Confederacy regain political power,
his fellow Republicans were horrified.
- The specific reason
for which he's impeached
was a violation of the
Tenure of Office Act
that said that the president
could not fire a list of appointees,
including the Secretary of War,
without first getting the
consent of the Senate.
- [Jason] Johnson did so anyway,
asserting that the
Tenure of Office Act was,
in his view, unconstitutional.
- And as soon as he did it, within days,
they filed articles of impeachment
because now they had a concrete offense
to which they could point.
- [Jason] Johnson escaped
conviction in the Senate
by a single vote.
- Some people would say it was because
some members of the Senate
were worried about impeaching a president
over what some perceived
as a policy difference,
even a really very profound one.
- [Jason] By resigning
from office in 1974,
President Richard Nixon ducked
almost-certain impeachment
by the House and conviction by the Senate.
- I shall resign the presidency,
effective at noon tomorrow.
- [Jason] That came after
the House Judiciary
Committee's investigation
into the Watergate scandal.
The committee considered the meaning
of 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.
Nixon's defenders argued that no evidence
directly linked Nixon to criminal acts.
- We are in effect saying, Mr. Chairman,
that a president may be
impeached in the future
if a Congress expresses no
confidence in his conduct.
- [Jason] The House Judiciary
Committee ultimately approved
three articles of
impeachment against Nixon:
obstruction of justice, abuse of power,
and contempt of Congress.
- They considered that
argument and rejected it
and concluded 'high
crimes and misdemeanors'
is a much broader term,
that it involves the kinds of behavior
that render a president unfit for office,
whether it's criminal or not.
- I misled people, including even my wife.
I deeply regret that.
- [Jason] During President
Bill Clinton's impeachment
in 1998, the Republican-controlled House
focused on Clinton's alleged crime:
obstructing justice and lying under oath
about his sexual affair
with Monica Lewinsky.
- This is called perjury.
The matter before the House
is a question of the
willful, premeditated,
deliberate corruption of the
nation's system of justice.
- [Jason] House Democrats,
many conceding that Clinton's
behavior was reprehensible,
argued that the punishment of impeachment
didn't fit the crime.
- We are considering overturning
the free choice and vote of
almost 50 million Americans.
- On this vote--
- [Jason] The House, voting
largely along party lines,
impeached Clinton.
Before the Senate's trial,
legal scholars weighed on
whether Clinton's behavior
amounted to what the
Consitution's authors meant
by 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.
The Senate, also
controlled by Republicans,
failed to muster the two-thirds
of members' votes needed
to convict and remove Clinton from office.
- Alleged abuses by President Clinton
do not indicate that he
is a danger to the nation.
- We don't remove presidents
for small matters.
I mean, that is, I guess,
the lesson of the Clinton impeachment.
- [Jason] Democrats now face the challenge
of convincing the public
that Trump's alleged abuses
of power are no small matter
and also to make the case
that the country can't afford
to wait until November of 2020
for the voters to decide
if Trump should remain in the Oval Office.
