As the presidential race counts down into its final months, the lead that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton enjoys in key swing states appears to be holding, and some conservatives fear that this, combined with an incredibly biased media toward Clinton and against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, all but ensures the Clintons’ national victory on Election Day.
Clinton has a historically high unfavorability rating for a presidential candidate and low trustworthiness rating from voters (she scored an abysmal 67 percent when voters were asked if they considered her dishonest). This, on top of a predicted low voter turnout from Democrats in this election means that confidence in Clinton could be at a historic low for a new president.
In fact, given how many voters don’t like Clinton and don’t trust her, one begins to wonder — would it be possible to impeach the former First Lady from the office of the presidency almost immediately? That is, does the number of people who strongly disfavor Clinton outweigh the number of people who might actually vote for her? From a mathematical perspective, this idea is worth considering.
It’s certainly worthwhile to note that the Clintons are no strangers to impeachment, as the second term of ex-President Bill Clinton showed. While the philandering former leader repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, vowing “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss [Monica] Lewinsky,” prosecutor Kenneth Starr and members of Congress disagreed.
In 1998, the 42nd President of the United States was impeached (meaning formally charged with a crime), yet acquitted on two charges — perjury and obstruction of justice. Had Republicans had more of a majority in the Senate (they occupied 55 seats at the time), almost certainly Bill Clinton would have been convicted and removed from office.
That both Clintons now stand ready to return to the White House after that disgraceful affair and so many others is a testament to their dogged and tireless corrupt politicking.
In order for impeachment of a president to occur, the House Judiciary Committee needs to pass articles of impeachment which the House — and later the Senate — must then vote on. In order for the articles to be drawn up, there would almost certainly have to be an issue over which an impeachment decision could be justified; mere dislike of an office holder is not enough.
In addition, political support for impeachment would need to be present at a Congressional level. If the political will among voters was sufficiently strong, however, it’s likely that a cause or causes could quickly be found to rationalize impeachment, particularly if the president is a controversial or especially active one.
Thus, the prospect of impeaching Clinton “on Day 1” of her term in office is unlikely, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility for, say, her first month or months in the role.
The process of impeachment is not a quick one, nor is it one that can be undertaken without serious consideration of its political and partisan consequences. During any impeachment proceedings, the president continues to retain full presidential powers, and in the case of the Clintons, Bill Clinton as the president’s spouse would be a formidable advocate for his wife’s innocence.
Of course, one has to imagine that, as only the second president to be impeached in U.S. history, Bill Clinton’s might be more than just a small case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Another idea that has to be considered is that, in terms of presidential succession, if the president is removed from power or is forced to resign, the person to immediately succeed him or her is the vice president — in this case, that would be Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine.
While Kaine denounced Bill Clinton’s shameless philandering in 2002, he’s also on the record as supporting virtually all of his running mate’s positions and policies; it’s hard to see how much different he would be in terms of governing than Hillary Clinton.
Nonetheless, a successful impeachment of Clinton would likely send a powerful message to the Democrats that they would be “on warning” against any potential act or position that was severe enough to warrant impeachment of Clinton in the first place.
Some conservatives might be tempted to say, well, if you can impeach Clinton, why not impeach Kaine too? There are several answers to that question, but from a practical point of view, two serial impeachments of presidents has no historical precedent in the United States.
For Republicans, however, the thought could be tempting as the next person to succeed to the office of the president after the vice president is the Speaker of the House, who is likely at this point to be a member of the GOP.
Could two impeachments be pulled off? It’s probably unlikely, for as highly unpopular as the Clintons are, there’s no similar public distaste for Clinton’s running mate Kaine.
Of course, it may be worthwhile to look at other countries, such as Brazil, where the recent suspension of President Dima Rousseff pending her impeachment trial may precede further impeachments there, as a majority (60 percent) of the current Congress is facing current or potential investigations for corruption, electoral fraud, bribery and other crimes.
Certainly, there have already been resignations of other members of Brazil’s government cabinet in the wake of Rousseff’s suspension, and so the idea that a scandal or scandals could taint both Clinton and Kaine together is very possible.
At the same time, if the impeachment of both of them was seen as a partisan move in order to gain Republicans the office of the president without a popular vote, this would be seen as earth-shattering from a political point of view, likely looked at on par with the Supreme Court’s decision in 2000 to award the office of the presidency to George W. Bush despite his not winning the popular national vote.
But the notion of at least removing the Clintons from office has a sweet ring to it, given the incredible number of misdeeds attached to both their names. There is potential, given the talk of a perjury trial for her email server offense, that an impeachment could be waiting for Clinton just after she took office, although whether a past crime committed while she was Secretary of State could justify her impeachment as president is an open question.
Even if she were convicted of perjury over her email server, that doesn’t prevent her from serving as president, although politically, it could look extremely bad, and if there were enough public pressure, it could provoke her to resign (given the Clintons’ history of fighting political battles, however, this is unlikely).
Certainly, these are all intriguing questions worth pondering at length. A successful impeachment of Hillary Clinton would be a blow the Clintons would never recover from, and they would almost certainly be doomed to live out the rest of their public lives in disgrace.
The phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” could regain a new life in the media. An impeachment might even affect Chelsea Clinton’s chances of ever running for office (which she’s never talked about seriously despite taking a high-level role in running her family’s infamous Foundation in the last few years).
Without a doubt, impeachment — of Clinton and possibly Kaine — is a prospect that conservatives should at least have in the back of their minds moving forward.
