WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to fight apossible impeachment effort by Congressional Democrats in the US SupremeCourt.
That could be difficult — the US constitution, and the court itself, havemade clear that it has no role in impeachment proceedings, which representthe legislature’s power to check wrongdoing by the president.
But Trump’s tweet suggested the White House is taking seriously a debateamong Democrats on whether to launch the process that could remove thepresident on the basis of evidence of obstruction of justice in the Muellerreport released last week.
“The Mueller Report, despite being written by Angry Democrats and TrumpHaters, and with unlimited money behind it ($35,000,000), didn’t lay aglove on me. I DID NOTHING WRONG,” Trump wrote.
“If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the USSupreme Court.”
Released on Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report fromhis Russia meddling investigation listed a dozen separate actions by Trumpthat supported obstruction allegations.
But Mueller demurred on concluding if they amounted to a crime, leavingthat decision to Congress, where the House of Representatives has the powerto impeach a president — formally charge him — and the Senate to find himinnocent or guilty.
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The constitution is clear on the process: the very first article gives theHouse of Representatives “the sole power of impeachment” and the Senate“the sole power to try all impeachments.”
In a 1993 case testing those principles, the Supreme Court itself ruledunanimously that it did not have a role.
“Giving the Supreme Court a role in the impeachment process itself wascarefully considered but deliberately and emphatically discarded” by theauthors of the constitution, said Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe.
Democrats on Wednesday were still debating whether undertaking apolitically divisive impeachment effort would be a good idea less than 19months before the next presidential election.
