Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The tomb of Tristram and Isoude
(1862)

"Perhaps the founders intended this."

The impeachment of a President takes separation of powers to dizzying levels. The indictment, brought by the House of Representatives, requires only a simple majority to be advanced to the Senate, where the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides in a trial. A supermajority of sixty-seven Senators must vote to convict there, and thereby remove the accused from office. The Senate may also optionally choose to bar the convict from ever again holding Federal office. Think of this process as a trial complicated by partisan politics played at their most frenetic by the terrified. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached and then acquitted in the Senate. Donald Trump was impeached twice, then acquitted in the Senate twice. Few equate this impeachment process with justice. Andrew Johnson was impeached for cause, only for a cowardly Senate to refuse to impose well-deserved justice. Bill Clinton was brought up on what history would recognize as trivial, if not trumped-up charges, only to be gratefully acquitted by a thankfully sane Senate. Trump committed treason twice and was acquitted both times by an equally guilty and complicit Senate.

It takes much more than committing a crime to be considered Impeachable. As our incumbent, who has yet to meet a law he felt capable of abiding by in his first term, and seems damned determined to demonstrate again for those who weren’t paying attention then, even committing unspeakable crimes daily, doesn’t rise to any Impeachable level if the incumbent’s party holds the legislature. This regrettable reality feeds an Invulnerability Myth, encouraging precisely the behavior the impeachment process was originally intended to handle. The people understandably come to feel as though their government imposes upon them rather than serves them, and this seems precisely what the impeachment process was intended to address. It elevates caution to the point of appearing indistinguishable from cowardice.

It’s not uncommon for a prosecutor to refuse to indict an obvious perpetrator because they don’t feel as though they can win a conviction at trial. Perhaps the crime seems too complicated for a jury to comprehend, or the evidence seems altogether too circumstantial. Plenty of criminals get away with their crimes. In fact, our incumbent held the record for crimes committed, both unindicted and convicted, of any candidate in the history of this once-great nation. There was no second place. He stands in the office today as a powerful testament to why our Constitution desperately needs an amendment declaring that no one convicted of a felony can ever be elevated to serve as our President. We must be a country of laws if we expect to dispense justice equally. Felonious Presidents contradict some tacit tenet underlying self-governance. Our President must, above all, remain above suspicion.

Being beneath suspicion doesn’t necessarily mean an impeachment indictment’s coming. Once the Democrats regain the House, and even if they manage to take the Senate in the midterms, impeachment promises only a lengthy process. The due process, even for the low-life-iest President like our present incumbent, promises to try everyone’s patience beyond their natural limits. It demands a form of discipline almost unimaginable in jurisprudence, for the indicted incumbent remains in office while the evidence gets aired and, if successfully indicted and tried in the Senate, he remains in office through that trial. This incumbent scoffs at more than convention and will doubtless bring new insults to the office while the outcome remains in contention. I predict strategic chaos to emerge as his primary defense, even though strategy has never been more than a fantasy for every other initiative this sorry incumbent has sponsored. I predict troops being deployed again to sanctuary cities for more than imaginary immigrants this time, but for Democrats, and phony US Attorneys arresting witnesses called by the prosecution to prevent them from testifying. Shenanigans aplenty! Chaos rather than justice.

I might conclude that Impeachment, while prescribed by our Constitution as the remedy for precisely the sort of incumbent we presently suffer under, in practice, it seems unlikely to result in either conviction or removal, though I remain prepared to be proven wrong. Once the world economy finally falls into irreparable chaos and people here start experiencing food shortages for themselves, the difficulties introduced by our incumbent, who apparently never successfully passed an economics course in college, should become obvious enough for even the balance of the MAGA rabble to comprehend. Even then, the stigma associated with becoming the first party in American history to lose their President to impeachment and conviction, then removal from office and an injunction from ever holding future Federal office, could likely convince even the most severely politically wounded to vote against impeachment in the Senate. Impeachment seems nothing more or less than Constitutionally-sanctioned politics, and because of this, it seems inherently, inescapably corruptible and therefore corrupt. Our incumbent seems unlikely to live that long. Perhaps the founders intended this.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz