Lots of smoke for sure, but I'd much rather follow due process and wait for a crime to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a legal setting. Otherwise you're setting a dangerous precedent.

“Beyond a reasonable doubt” does not apply to removing the President from office. The applicable standard is “whatever will convince half of the House and two thirds of the Senate.”

The Constitutional criteria for removal of the President from office are "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors." Here's a good short description:

http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemean...

Yeah, which feels like a slippery slope into political takeovers, especially since the speaker of the house is 3rd in line.

If Republicans were guaranteed to keep the President and VP slot, you'd see an impeachment much more easily. I don't think any Republican will want Pelosi a heartbeat away from the Presidency unless Trump's crime was so clear and egregious that 2/3 of the country wanted him gone.

That’s been the standard since the adoption of the Constitution. If it was a slippery slope, you’d think we would have slipped down it at some point in the past 230 years.

Seems like we're always finding new precedents to set like the "nuclear option" in the Senate.

And 230yrs is pretty young for a country.

Young for a country, pretty old for the same base set of rules within that country.

The "nuclear option" is just a senate rule. It's not a law, it's not in the Constitution.

It's pretty damn hard to slip down a slope that requires 2/3 of the senate to agree with each other.

...by design.

Removal requires 2/3 votes of the Senate, so that seems pretty much like what you are asking for here.

Impeachment is a political process. The dangerous precedents have already been set, for Andrew Johnson and William Clinton.

The former was impeached for firing the Secretary of War without consent of the Senate, and refusing to reinstate Stanton in that position when it did not ratify the dismissal. Acquitted by one vote.

The latter was impeached for lying about inappropriate personal behavior, and obstruction of justice for witness tampering and impeding investigations. Acquitted.

Trump could be impeached by the House for a misdemeanor as inconsequential as littering in a national park. And the standard of proof for conviction in the Senate is not specified. It could be as low as "a police dog alerted on his hamburger wrapper" if his loyal contingent has 33 senators or as high as "we need to analyze, line by line, the source code for the video encoder of the camera that recorded the president dropping the wrapper on the ground, to ensure it has not been tampered with by terrorist immigrant caravans" if his contingent has 34 senators. It is not specified by the Constitution, so it is de facto determined ad hoc by the Senate and chief justice at the time of the trial.

It should be obvious that suspected crimes that are more severe than firing cabinet officials without permission, or covering up a political scandal--such as those imputed to Nixon during the Watergate burglary investigation, or suspected acceptance of foreign emoluments--should be impeached more readily. But as long as the Senate is needed to convict, and the burden of proof is not specified, then the House cannot realistically impeach, and expect a conviction with a president-supporting Senate in place, until the case against can meet the standard of "beyond even petty, unreasonable, and dubiously-contrived doubts". And that is solely so that when the Senate refuses to convict anyway, the evidence and the vote against conviction can be used against the party in subsequent election campaigns.

I have little doubt that the current president will be confronted by a stack of previously sealed criminal indictments on the afternoon of the next president's inauguration day. Those cases will be tried in courts with a fixed standard of proof--beyond reasonable doubt for criminal cases, and preponderance of evidence for civil cases.

--"I have little doubt that the current president will be confronted by a stack of previously sealed criminal indictments on the afternoon of the next president's inauguration day. Those cases will be tried in courts with a fixed standard of proof--beyond reasonable doubt for criminal cases, and preponderance of evidence for civil cases."

The precedent has already been set there also -- both Bill and Hillary Clinton have remained free of prosecution in spite of all the many criminal conspiracies they engaged in.

There's no debate there was just as much, if not more, dirt and conspiracy around them when they were in office as there is around the current occupant of the White House.

Actually, there's an awful lot of debate about that.

There are almost certainly more claims made about/against the Clintons than there are about/against the Trumps. But many of the claims against the Clintons haven't had enough "there" there for anyone but, well, conspiracy theorists to run with them. There have been, as far as I know, considerably fewer actual legal investigations against the Clintons, their associates, and their businesses than against the Trumps, their associates, and their businesses, and certainly far fewer actual charges and indictments.

There's a lot of political history behind the campaign against the Clintons, and a lot of it's fascinating -- but it's not actually a history of a corrupt criminal enterprise, at least on the part of the Clintons. It's the history of personal vendettas and rich conservative ideologues, and the history of the birth of the modern right-wing media movement, starting with the Arkansas Project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Project

The Trump Organization also has a lot of fascinating history, but you know what? From all appearances, it may well be a history of a corrupt criminal enterprise.

Hillary Clinton has never been president, therefore cannot set a precedent in this matter.

Bill Clinton's supposed "conspiracies" are mainly sexual assaults and their ensuing covers-up. Some of his accusers received cash settlements, and presumably would not testify against in any criminal trials. The remainder apparently did not leave enough evidence by the time Clinton left office to pursue criminal charges, or did not come forward until #MeToo emboldened them to do so, long after he left office, and possibly after any relevant statutes of limitations had elapsed.

If Bill Clinton was indeed as dirty as Donald Trump appears to be, he was certainly better at cleaning up the evidence of it. He may have also pursued a policy of being more honest in less critical situations, such that he could attempt a lie--and still be believed based on reputation--when a deception would benefit him most. Furthermore, fewer of Clinton's former aides, employees, and associates were indicted and convicted during his term in office.

It is possible that Clinton was not charged because he was a more cautious criminal. It is also possible the reports of his crimes were invented or exaggerated to weaken him or his wife politically. It is also possible that I think Trump's suspected crimes are so much more severe than Clinton's that the best fixers in the country can't massage them away.

In any case, that's a fallacy of distraction. It doesn't matter what anyone else did but Trump, when the states' attorneys come knocking on Trump's door. They have prosecutorial discretion, and many have political ambitions of their own, so it may well be a matter of whether going after a former president and getting the conviction will help them more in the future than permanently burning all of that president's remaining political allies. Clinton can still pull in some votes and some campaign contributions. Even Nixon had folks that would still go to bat for him after he resigned. Trump is burning his (R) bridges, and snubbing all possible networking opportunities with the (D) side. It's almost like he has no conception whatsoever about how he can stay politically relevant--or at least politically protected--after leaving office.

My point is that it's highly unlikely anybody is coming for him after he leaves office. It's simply not done -- it wasn't even done to Nixon, where there certainly would have been cause.

Lots of things being done in the political arena are things you could previously say "simply aren't done." All while things that simply need to be done are totally ignored.

You're arguing something different from what I'm saying.

That's interesting that the political enemies of the Clintons controlled literally ever lever of government but there has not ever been charges.

What world do you live in that you should continue to make such baseless claims and expect to be taken seriously?

You're confused in thinking republicans are the "political enemies of the clintons" -- many of them are far more an enemy to the current inhabitant of the white house than they ever were or have been to the Clintons. As I recall, one very prominent former Republican president voted for Hillary.

Washington is full of people who want power. They posture and make noise about political sides and beliefs, but in reality most of them are on the same side -- the side of the elite. They want power and money and don't like outsiders. The current inhabitant of the white house isn't part of the gang, and a significant portion of both camps (well, all of one camp and a portion of the other) are working very hard against him every day.

> You're confused in thinking republicans are the "political enemies of the clintons"

Surely you jest.

Not a bit.