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1 (October 30, 1998)

handle is hein.crs/crsabci0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 98-899 A October 30, 1998 Impeachment Grounds: Part 6: Quotes from Sundry Commentators Charles Doyle Senior Specialist American Law Division Summary This is a collection of selected background materials pertinent to the issue of what constitutes impeachable misconduct for purposes of Article II, section 4 of the United States Constitution quoted below. It includes quotations from treatises and law reviews on the question. Unfortunately, the constraints of time and space, among others, preclude presentation of little more than a hint of the views of the cited works. It is the last of six segments that together with footnotes comprise, Impeachment Grounds: A Collection of Selected Materials, CRS Report 98-882. The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on impeachmentfor, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. U.S.Const. Art. II, §4 Charles Black Impeachment: A Handbook 39-40 (1974) Omitting qualifications, and recognizing that the definition is only an approximation, I think we can say that 'high Crimes and Misdemeanors,' in the constitutional sense, ought to be held to be those offenses which are rather obviously wrong, whether or not 'criminal,' and which so seriously threaten the order of political society as to make petulant and dangerous the continuance in power of their perpetrator. The fact that such an act is also criminal helps, even if it is not essential, because a general societal view of wrongness, and sometimes of seriousness, is, in such a case, publicly and authoritatively recorded. The phrase 'high Crimes and Misdemeanors' carries another connotation-that of distinctness of offense. It seems that a charge of high crime or high misdemeanor ought to be a charge of a definite act or acts, each of which in itself satisfies the above requirements. General lowness and shabbiness ought not to be enough. The people take Congressional Research Service **** The Library of Congress CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web

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