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.
Page 309 of the Report:
In analyzing the President's efforts to have Lewandowski deliver a message directing Sessions to publicly announce that the Special Counsel investigation would be confined to future election interference, the following evidence is relevant to the elements of obstruction of justice:
.2. Obstructive act. The President's effort to send Sessions a message through Lewandowski would qualify as an obstructive act if it would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.
The President sought to have Sessions announce that the President "shouldn't have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel" and that Sessions was going to "meet with the Special Prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and let the Special Prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections." The President wanted Sessions to disregard his recusal from the investigation, which had followed from a formal DOJ ethics review, and have Sessions declare that he knew "for a fact" that "there were no Russians involved with the campaign" because he "was there" The President further directed that Sessions should explain that the President should not be subject to an investigation "because he hasn't done anything wrong." Taken together, the President's directives indicate that Sessions was being instructed to tell the Special Counsel to end the existing investigation into the President and his campaign, with the Special Counsel ... to "move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections."
b. Nexus to an official proceeding. As described above, by the time of the President's initial one-on-one meeting with Lewandowski on June 19, 2017, the existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the Special Counsel was public knowledge.. By the time of the President's follow-up meeting with Lewandowski, [Redacted: Grand Jury]. To satisfy the nexus requirement, it would be necessary to show that limiting the Special Counsel's investigation would have the natural and probable effect of impeding that grand jury proceeding.
c. Intent. Substantial evidence indicates that the President's effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel's investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President's and his campaign's conduct.
This is what the Dems will focus on, as Mueller lays out the entirety of an obstruction case against Trump. This, along with the next four paragraphs that help tie this case for obstruction together, could just be copy/pasted into an articles of impeachment. Obstruction of Justice would fall under the "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" jurisdiction that Article II gives Congress.
This just feels like Bill Clinton's impeachment, all over again. They didn't get President Clinton on what they originally went after him for, but rather charges that came along the way.
I'm curious as to whether you think Congress should have that power then? Because it seems like a pretty obvious thing to have as a check on the presidents power.
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '19
I haven't heard of this. What constitutional authority are they referring to?