A history of threats to impeach

"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given time in history." Little did Gerald Ford know that he was writing his own story when he made that observation two years prior to the Watergate break-in that launched his improbable elevation to the presidency. At the time he made that pithy observation, Congressman Ford was doing President Richard Nixon's bidding by demanding the impeachment of liberal lion Justice William O. Douglas from the Supreme Court. The Democrats had put the screws to Nixon's otherwise deserving court nominee, Clement Haynsworth, because he had neglected to recuse himself from two cases in which he had an attenuated conflict. They later gave the thumbs down to Judge G. Harrold Carswell, a demonstrable bigot, who as it turns out liked to seek romance in public men's rooms. So Ford went after Douglas for serving on the board of the Parvin Foundation, whose benefactor, Al Parvin, was a shady character, and for writing articles in avante garde magazines with nudie photos.

The whole thing was a political charade, as talk about impeachment nearly always is. There is a long history of threats of impeachment constituting little more than theatre, and calls for President Donald Trump's ouster have thus far been limited to the lunatic fringe. But the appointment of Bob Mueller as special prosecutor within the Justice Department should give the president pause, because of its eerie similarity to Watergate.

Article I, Section two of the U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach, making it, in effect, a grand jury with the power to indict the proverbial ham sandwich. The Senate then becomes judge and jury with the chief justice "presiding," which merely means he keeps order, but can't make one.

The Federalist Party lost control of both the presidency and the Congress in 1800, and decided in a lame duck session to create lots of new judgeships for President John Adams to fill before making his exit. In 1805, some Democrats decided it was payback time and impeached Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, who can best be described as the Antonin Scalia of his day. The Senate wisely decided that impeachment was an extraordinary remedy and not a political tool, and Chase kept his robe.

In Pennsylvania, Federalist Judge Walter Franklin was impeached for getting reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving a War of 1812 draft dodger named Houston. He was acquitted by the Pennsylvania Senate with the assistance of young lawyer/legislator James Buchanan. Buchanan became known as a good attorney to hire, because the judge owed him his job.

The most severe constitutional crises in our history took place when radical Republican congressmen who were out for blood after the Civil War were frustrated by President Andrew Johnson's adherence to the conciliatory tone President Abraham Lincoln had expressed addressing how best to put the country back together; "With malice toward none, with charity for all ... let us strive on to bind up the nations wounds and to care for him who has borne the battle." The House impeached Johnson on a variety of bogus grounds, particularly for violating the Tenure of Office Act, which made it impossible for the president to fire anyone without congressional approval. Johnson squeaked by in the Senate by one vote only. Freshman Sen. Edmund G. Ross, a radical Republican from Kansas "looked down into my open grave" and cast an improbable no vote that saved constitutional government as we know it. He was run out of town, ran a newspaper in the New Mexico territory, and was promptly forgotten until President John Kennedy resurrected his memory in "Profiles in Courage."

President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying in response to an irrelevant question in a deposition he never should have been compelled to attend in a groundless lawsuit. Everyone knew that the democratically controlled Senate would never convict him, but that didn't stop politics from overruling common sense, and the public's business was put on hold while "the world's most deliberative body" debated about cum stains. The silliness of L'affair Lewinsky and the Javert-like partisan zeal of Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr convinced both sides that enough was enough and the special prosecutor statute expired without a friend at its funeral.

Mueller, however, will not operate pursuant to that statute, but under the auspices of the Justice Department, as did Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already recused himself from the matter, and the chain of command is led by careerists with no loyalty to Trump or fear of firing. Getting fired by him can only be a career booster. Just as it did during Watergate, the Congress will conduct parallel investigations and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, with a fresh six years ahead of him, cannot be counted on by the White House to play it anything but straight. Republicans will be mindful that Republicans like Lowell Weicker, Bill Cohen, Howard Baker, and his counsel Fred Thompson all came out of Watergate smelling like roses because they followed the evidence where it led, while Nixon defenders like Ed Gurney, Wiley Mayne, and Charles Sandman saw their careers evaporate.

It also bears mention that Watergate was kept alive in its early stages by FBI man Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, who sang to the Washington Post in no small measure because he resented Nixon's infringement on the FBI's turf by establishing his own personal, taxpayer-financed spy ring in the White House. Needless to say, Trump hasn't made many friends at the Bureau.

Last, but not least, there are tapes; tapes that will tell if Trump is lying or not. Nixon was done in when their existence was revealed by former aide Alexander Butterfield. Trump let that cat out of the bag himself.