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Dave Bugg

wrote:
Dave Bugg wrote:
wrote:
Dave Bugg wrote:
wrote:

If there is insufficient evidence it may be because there
is insufficent support in the House of Representatives for
impeachment hearings. Sufficient evidece to support
an impeachment of Richard Nixon did not appear until
after the impeachment hearing had begun.

Actually, Nixon resigned PRIOR to the House even beginning to
consider the merits of the articles of impeachment. So there was no
impeachment hearing.

To be precise, the House Judiciary comittee held hearings on the
Watergate break in and cover up and thereby discovered the
evidence needed to support articles of impeachment. While no
'impeachment hearings' oper se were held, articles of impechment
had been introduced and had Nixon not resigned, one or more would
surely have been pased by the comittee. E.g. no 'impeachment
hearing' per se would have been held.

But that wasn't your point. You stated that evidence to support an
impeachment did not appear until *after* the impeachment hearing
began. You were incorrect. The hearings of the judiciary committees
WERE NOT an impeachment hearing.

Yes, and I remind you that I corrected that error myself above.

My point still stands that Articles of Impeachment must
contain relevant facts and evidence to support itself when presented
to the House for passage.

I agree that they should. 'Must' is too strong a term as the House
_may_ pass whatever they wish, no matter how absurd it may be.

Articles of Impeachment have to have a valid basis for
consideration *prior* to presenting them to Congress. This means
that there must
be evidence in existence. The basis for Impeachment must already be
in-place.

Could you cite somethign to support this?

Look at the Constituitonal description of Impeachement.

I am unaware of
any requirement stated in or implied by the Constitution that
prohibits the House from investigating allegations and discovering
evidence of an impeachable offense on its own intitiative.

That was not what I said, nor is it what you stated. You stated that
Articles of Impeachment could be a period of evidenturary discovery,
which of course, they cannot be.

No, I did not.

You did when you stated "Sufficient evidece to support an impeachment of
Richard Nixon did not appear until after the impeachment hearing had begun".
To me this indicated that you thought that discovery could be conducted
during the actual impeachment hearing.

Nor can I parse your statement in such a way as
to produce anything intelligible. I think that we both have been
hasty and written sentences with such bad syntax as to obscure
whatever it was we wished to communicate.

Sorry, too much time spent empaneled on Grand Juries. Evidenturary discovery
is the investigative period needed to gather evidence of wrong doing.

The Articles of Impeachment must contain the
rationale -- through facts in evidence -- to provide support for
bring a motion of impeachment before the House. To arrive at the
facts in evidence to develop the Articles, fact finding hearings and
other methods of discovery are usually undertaken. But, unlike what
you had stated, discovery of facts are not undertaken *after* the
Articles are presented to the House. After the Articles are
presented, the facts in evidence are judged by the House members to
either support or not support impeachment.

I did not state that "discovery of facts are undertaken *after* the
Articles are presented to the House. " Nor did I state anything that
reasonably could be interpretted as such.

When you stated "Sufficient evidece to support an impeachment of Richard
Nixon did not appear until after the impeachment hearing had begun", I
reasonably interpreted such.

Moreover the historical
example I presented, that of the House Judiciary Comittee's Watergate
hearings, is an example of Articles of Impeachment being introduced
after evidence was discovered, not befor

But, Articles of Impeachment were NOT introduced to the House. Nixon
resigned prior to that event

Indeed,
historically, that seems to have been the norm. Prior to the
creation of the Office of the Independent Counsel, which no longer
exists, impeachment investigations were conducted by the House
independently of any criminal investigations on the part of the
Justice Department.

You seem to lack knowledge of what Articles of Impeachment are and
the purpose that they serve. Any investigation to determine if facts
are in evidence is put into play PRIOR to the Articles being
drafted, because the Articles are all about facts in evidence to
support the alleged reasons for impeachment.

You seem to have not read my example of how the House Judiciary
Comittee did just that, in that order.

I did, but I think you need to re-read the thread.

If there is evidence that "Bush Lied", and if the lie is considered
by members of Congress to rise to the level of Treason, Bribery, or
Other Crimes or Misdemeanors, then the basis and facts supporting
an impeachment are drawn up into Articles of Impeachment. Any
group of congressfolk can do this. Democrats can do so right now,
if they
have the facts to support the Articles.

They don't even have to be Congress folk nor do they need a factual
basis. But to be acted upon by the Congress an article of
impeachment must first be introduced into the House or
Representatives by a member
of the House. That is probably what yo meant, but keep in mind
that
the Senate has no authority to impeach, only the House.

No, facts in evidence do not have to come from congressfolk. That's
not what I was talking about. But it would take a member of the
House to form the evidence into Articles of Impeachment, which is
what I *was* talking about.

That's wrong. Anyone can author an Article of Impeachment. Only
a member of the House of representatives can introduce that Article
of Impeachment. Senators and Congressmen seldom ar the actual
authors of the legislation they introduce.

Point taken.

And if you would have taken the time to read my post prior to
responding, you would have seen that I properly covered who has
responsibility to determine impeachment vs which house is
responsible for the trial.

Please cite the House rules which allow the majority to do this.
Quite the contrary, the minority has procedural abilities to conduct
whatever hearings and factfinding is necessary in cases of misdeeds
by the Executive branch.

Please cite the House Rules that allow a minority on a committee
to conduct hearings before a House committee, when the majority
of committee members vote against doing so.

....snip of requests for citations

Sure. I'll show you mine when you show me yours.

--
Dave
www.davebbq.com