The Impeachment Mess

The Constitution's Option for Impeachment After a President Leaves Office

I understand there are a lot of people who are furious with the President and afraid of what he might do. I’m furious with the man too, but for more than just his actions this past Wednesday. However, I don’t think impeachment is the way to go. Let’s look at the calendar to better understand why.

The House is not likely to have a vote on any impeachment articles until sometime later this coming week. In any case, the Senate is not in session (except for pro forma sessions) until January 19 – one day before Inauguration Day. Majority Leader McConnell is unlikely to take up any impeachment articles that day (Chuck Schumer will not be majority leader until Kamala Harris is confirmed on the 20th).

So, if the House does vote for impeachment articles, the Senate will have to take them up after Biden is confirmed and Trump is out of office. This will have the unfortunate effect of delaying confirmation of Biden’s cabinet nominees and any further COVID relief legislation. It would be very unfortunate if that were the case. Given the delay in transition, it’s very important that Biden’s nominees get confirmed and in place as soon as possible.

Further, the effect of impeachment may only be to make Trump ineligible for running again in 2024 and even that will require two thirds of the Senate to agree which I think is very unlikely.

There’s lots to do folks and I’ll be talking about some of it soon, so let’s have our Congress get on with implementing Biden’s agenda and stop wasting time.