House Democrats ask Trump to testify at his impeachment trial

[cmarshall]

 

29 minutes ago, Sujo said:

Perhaps you should argue with a group of about 150 bipartisan constitutional experts.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/21/legal-scholars-federalist-society-trump-convict-461089

 

That's what I have been doing.  The signatories to that letter make the bush league error of regarding impeachment and removal as punishment, which it plainly isn't, since the Constitution is careful to point out that a president removed be impeachment remains liable to criminal prosecution.  If impeachment and removal were punishment then subsequent prosecution would constitute double-jeopardy.

 

Impeachment and removal are designed to protect the Republic from the dangers of abuse of power.  In the present case, the voters have already removed the imminent danger.  The DoJ may now address punishment.

 

Interpreting the Constitution is not a specialty that renders citizens helpless without the expertise of legal scholars.  The Constitution was written by men with less education than we have and it was written for and ratified by citizens.

Edited February 7, 2021 by cmarshall

[cmarshall]

6 minutes ago, Sujo said:

He is a threat if he gets into office again. Him being n jail cannot stop that. Senate conviction can, thats why they have that option.

 

otherwise trump could resign 1 minute before senate trial then get back in with no issue. Federal crimes are a different standard and though he may meet the standard for conviction in the senate he may not in the court.

 

in any event, if convicted in the senate, no prosecutor would proceed in the court.

 

So, you worry that Trump could run for president from prison and win?  Really?  

 

There is no basis for your last speculation, since there is no precedent.  It's just as logical to assume that convicting Trump in court would be easier following a conviction by the Senate.

 

 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

To be honest I am happy to leave the debate about impeachment to the more learned and the legal minded. If I made a case I would be just reading a news article and then restating it.

My point is that from my reading it is clear that the argument for the legality of impeachment is strong and that the strong majority, not just Democrats,  believe this to be the case.

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post and related comments removed

[Pattaya Spotter]

On 2/7/2021 at 2:02 PM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

To be honest I am happy to leave the debate about impeachment to the more learned and the legal minded. If I made a case I would be just reading a news article and then restating it.

My point is that from my reading it is clear that the argument for the legality of impeachment is strong and that the strong majority, not just Democrats,  believe this to be the case.

 

 

I think we agree on the House impeachment...they have the power to impeach sitting constitutional officers of the federal government. They have done so. However, the more tricky question is the Senate holding an impeachment trial after the officer in question no longer holds their position. Maybe we can cordially agree to disagree on this point, while also agreeing that there are scholars on both sides of the argument. However, I would just ask you how far should we take your position...should we also retroactively impeach former presidents Washington for owning slaves and Jefferson for allegedly raping a woman? These are certainly "crimes" of moral turpitute and the power of Congress to impeach is not limited to only formal crimes on the statute books. I'm sure if we looked closely, we could find such actions or outright corruption on the part of most former presidents...how far do you want to take this?

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post and response removed

[Sujo]

1 hour ago, cmarshall said:

 

 

That's what I have been doing.  The signatories to that letter make the bush league error of regarding impeachment and removal as punishment, which it plainly isn't, since the Constitution is careful to point out that a president removed be impeachment remains liable to criminal prosecution.  If impeachment and removal were punishment then subsequent prosecution would constitute double-jeopardy.

 

Impeachment and removal are designed to protect the Republic from the dangers of abuse of power.  In the present case, the voters have already removed the imminent danger.  The DoJ may now address punishment.

 

Interpreting the Constitution is not a specialty that renders citizens helpless without the expertise of legal scholars.  The Constitution was written by men with less education than we have and it was written for and ratified by citizens.

Thanks but when it comes to legal advice i prefer those that are constitutional scholars. Not bush league lawyers.

 

The doj only acts on criminal matters. The impeachment does not. Conviction can also result in him never holding office again, a criminal sentence does not. If it only for imminent threat then there would not be the provision to disallow him running for office again.

 

I prefer the advice of those that are considered experts in their field.

[Sujo]

1 hour ago, cmarshall said:

 

So, you worry that Trump could run for president from prison and win?  Really?  

 

There is no basis for your last speculation, since there is no precedent.  It's just as logical to assume that convicting Trump in court would be easier following a conviction by the Senate.

 

 

You underestimate the stupidity of trump supporters.

 

Different standards of proof from senate to a criminal trial. Also he can be convicted in the senate even if no crime. So no, it would not be easier to do.

[Sujo]

23 hours ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

I think we agree on the House impeachment...they have the power to impeach sitting constitutional officers of the federal government. They have done so. However, the more tricky question is the Senate holding an impeachment trial after the officer in question no longer holds their position. Maybe we can cordially agree to disagree on this point, while also agreeing that there are scholars on both sides of the argument. However, I would just ask you how far should we take your position...should we also retroactively impeach former presidents Washington for owning slaves and Jefferson for allegedly raping a woman? These are certainly "crimes" of moral turpitute and the power of Congress to impeach is not limited to only formal crimes on the statute books. I'm sure if we looked closely, we could find such actions or outright corruption on the part of most former presidents...how far do you want to take this?

 

They have also impeached office holders that werent sitting.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by onthedarkside
comment re hidden post removed

[cmarshall]

23 hours ago, Sujo said:

Thanks but when it comes to legal advice i prefer those that are constitutional scholars. Not bush league lawyers.

 

The doj only acts on criminal matters. The impeachment does not. Conviction can also result in him never holding office again, a criminal sentence does not. If it only for imminent threat then there would not be the provision to disallow him running for office again.

 

I prefer the advice of those that are considered experts in their field.

 

Be my guest.  I prefer to consult the opinions of legal scholars prior to doing my own thinking.  In any case legal scholars line up on both sides of this issue.   For instance, here is retired Judge Luttig arguing against impeachment trials of private citizens.   

 

The sequencing of the House impeachment proceedings before Trump’s departure from office and the inauguration of the new president, followed by a Senate impeachment trial, perhaps months later, raises the question of whether a former president can be impeached after he leaves office.

The Constitution itself answers this question clearly: No, he cannot be.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/12/once-trump-leaves-office-senate-cant-hold-an-impeachment-trial/

 

 And here is the similar opinion of Prof. Phillip Bobbit of Columbia Law School

 

There is no authority granted to Congress to impeach and convict persons who are not “civil officers of the United States.” It’s as simple as that. But simplicity doesn’t mean unimportance. Limiting Congress to its specified powers is a crucial element in the central idea of the U.S. Constitution: putting the state under law.

 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-senate-shouldnt-hold-late-impeachment-trial

 

When the experts do not agree, it would seem that we have to do our own thinking.

[cmarshall]

23 hours ago, Sujo said:

They have also impeached office holders that werent sitting.

 

 

But in the two such cases most often cited as precedents, Blount in 1797 and Belknap in 1876, the Senate refused to convict even though they regarded both former office-holders as guilty just because they held that the Senate lacked jurisdiction.

 

So, not much of a precedent there.  

 

And there are other cases where if the Congress believed that a president could be impeached after leaving office they would have done so or at least would have considered the option.  But when Nixon resigned in August, 1974 to avoid impeachment and removal there was no such discussion in the Congress.

[Sujo]

5 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

 

Be my guest.  I prefer to consult the opinions of legal scholars prior to doing my own thinking.  In any case legal scholars line up on both sides of this issue.   For instance, here is retired Judge Luttig arguing against impeachment trials of private citizens.   

 

The sequencing of the House impeachment proceedings before Trump’s departure from office and the inauguration of the new president, followed by a Senate impeachment trial, perhaps months later, raises the question of whether a former president can be impeached after he leaves office.

The Constitution itself answers this question clearly: No, he cannot be.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/12/once-trump-leaves-office-senate-cant-hold-an-impeachment-trial/

 

 And here is the similar opinion of Prof. Phillip Bobbit of Columbia Law School

 

There is no authority granted to Congress to impeach and convict persons who are not “civil officers of the United States.” It’s as simple as that. But simplicity doesn’t mean unimportance. Limiting Congress to its specified powers is a crucial element in the central idea of the U.S. Constitution: putting the state under law.

 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-senate-shouldnt-hold-late-impeachment-trial

 

When the experts do not agree, it would seem that we have to do our own thinking.

One of the many against luttig.

 

https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/no-it-would-not-be-unconstitutional-for-trumps-impeachment-trial-to-take-place-after-hes-out-of-office/

 

The supreme court should decide the limits etc of an impeachment but it wont. The senate solely decides what it can and cannot do.

[Sujo]

2 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

 

But in the two such cases most often cited as precedents, Blount in 1797 and Belknap in 1876, the Senate refused to convict even though they regarded both former office-holders as guilty just because they held that the Senate lacked jurisdiction.

 

So, not much of a precedent there.  

 

And there are other cases where if the Congress believed that a president could be impeached after leaving office they would have done so or at least would have considered the option.  But when Nixon resigned in August, 1974 to avoid impeachment and removal there was no such discussion in the Congress.

Nixon was pardoned. Ford was too nice to him to let it go further.

 

In Belknaps case you are mistaken. The senate specifically considered if he could be impeached out of office and voted that he in fact could be.

 

Its a long read.

 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitutionality-trying-former-president-impeached-while-office

[cmarshall]

3 minutes ago, Sujo said:

One of the many against luttig.

 

https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/no-it-would-not-be-unconstitutional-for-trumps-impeachment-trial-to-take-place-after-hes-out-of-office/

 

The supreme court should decide the limits etc of an impeachment but it wont. The senate solely decides what it can and cannot do.

 

My point, which seems to have escaped you, is that there is expert opinion on both sides of the issue.  So, how can you decide to leave it to the experts?  Flip a coin?  Count heads weighted by publications cited?

 

The decision of a Senate impeachment trial cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court since it is not a judicial decision and does not fall under the appellate jurisdiction of the Court.  However, it might be possible for the SC to rule against a conviction if the following unlikely sequence of events were to occur:  The Senate convicts Trump and disqualifies him from holding office in the future.  Nevertheless, Trump registers as a candidate in a Republican primary in 2024.  Senator Cruz, who is also registered in the primary seeks and obtains a court injunction barring Trump from registering for the primary on the basis of the Senate conviction and disqualification.  Trump then appeals to overturn the injunction repeatedly until it reaches the Supreme Court.  At that point the Court, assuming it took the appeal at all, would have to decided whether the Senate conviction and disqualification was constitutional or not.  Unless they just duck the issue in one way or another.

 

That would be interesting, but isn't going to happen, because the Senate isn't going to convict, as we we all know.  

[cmarshall]

8 minutes ago, Sujo said:

Nixon was pardoned. Ford was too nice to him to let it go further.

 

In Belknaps case you are mistaken. The senate specifically considered if he could be impeached out of office and voted that he in fact could be.

 

Its a long read.

 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitutionality-trying-former-president-impeached-while-office

 

Nixon was not pardoned for a month after he left office.  During that time there was not even any discussion about continuing the impeachment.  None.  Zero.  Zip.

 

I have read the Belknap case.  After the motion that you mention, twenty-three of the senators voted to acquit specifically because the Senate lacked jurisdiction.  So, hardly a ringing precedent for the ages.

[mtraveler]

3 hours ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

If anyone, let alone a president, committed "insurrection" against the United States, do you think it's right for federal prosecutors to wait for the impeachment process to end to consider their options? Especially when the maximum punishment from the House impeachment and Senate trial would be removal from office [already happened] and a ban from future federal office. I mean during the interim, Donald Trump could be plotting another "insurrection" right...so wouldn't it prudent, if there was any case to be made, that federal prosecutors move with all speed and haste to arrest and charge Mr. Trump and therefore protect the country? The fact none has done so speaks volumes.

 

And if they had already arrested and charged Mr. Trump, you would be caterwauling that it's barely 2 weeks into a new administration, and that it's disgraceful that they're going after him this quickly.  (By the way, don't you think Letitia James and SDNY have more than enough information to indict Trump?  Why do you think they haven't made a move yet?)  

 

Furthermore, you say:  "... do you think it's right for federal prosecutors to wait for the impeachment process to end to consider their options" (italics mine). Who says they aren't considering the options right now?  Are you privy to their conversations?  

[cmarshall]

45 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

 

Nixon was not pardoned for a month after he left office.  During that time there was not even any discussion about continuing the impeachment.  None.  Zero.  Zip.

 

I have read the Belknap case.  After the motion that you mention, twenty-three of the senators voted to acquit specifically because the Senate lacked jurisdiction.  So, hardly a ringing precedent for the ages.

 

Let me add that since pardons cannot be applied to impeachments Ford's pardon of Nixon only protected him from federal criminal prosecutions.  Since both the House and the Senate had the votes in hand to impeach and convict Nixon at the time, they could have done so, if they had accepted this new theory on impeaching private citizens who have previously held office.  The fact that they never even discussed such an option shows that no one at the time believed it to be possible.

[Pattaya Spotter]

28 minutes ago, mtraveler said:

 

And if they had already arrested and charged Mr. Trump, you would be caterwauling that it's barely 2 weeks into a new administration, and that it's disgraceful that they're going after him this quickly.

That's my point...Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump was such a danger to the country that he had to be impeached a second time, even though he had less than 2 weeks left in office. The Democrat Party argues he is such a threat that he must still be tried in the Senate and barred from future office. If this is the case, why also hasn't a federal prosecutor also rushed to file criminal "insurrection" charges against this dangerous individual...could it be because the action in Congress is just a "dog and pony" show?

 

32 minutes ago, mtraveler said:

By the way, don't you think Letitia James and SDNY have more than enough information to indict Trump?  Why do you think they haven't made a move yet?

Good question...why not...was it because there is nothing there and the investigations by these Democrat officials was just to embarras the president during the election? 

 

34 minutes ago, mtraveler said:

. do you think it's right for federal prosecutors to wait for the impeachment process to end to consider their options" (italics mine). Who says they aren't considering the options right now?  Are you privy to their conversations?  

Again, if Donald Trump committed all the heinous crimes that are being alleged...what are they waiting for? 

[placeholder]

5 minutes ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

That's my point...Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump was such a danger to the country that he had to be impeached a second time, even though he had less than 2 weeks left in office. The Democrat Party argues he is such a threat that he must still be tried in the Senate and barred from future office. If this is the case, why also hasn't a federal prosecutor also rushed to file criminal "insurrection" charges against this dangerous individual...could it be because the action in Congress is just a "dog and pony" show?

 

Good question...why not...was it because there is nothing there and the investigations by these Democrat officials was just to embarras the president during the election? 

 

Again, if Donald Trump committed all the heinous crimes that are being alleged...what are they waiting for? 

This is laughable. You think just because Trump's elite strike force of a legal team acted in a slapdash manner, that's how prosecutors should act, too? If they are making a case against Trump, they're not going to tip their hand until they have a solid organized case against him.  Good lawyers, whether they're working for the defense or the prosecution, don't rush.

And just because the Congress judged Trump to be a danger to the country, that doesn't mean he has violated any laws. The founders of the Constitution discussed this issue at length and noted explicitly that an official needn't violate any laws to be impeached and convicted.

Give it up, already.

[Rimmer]

An off topic post and reply have been removed

[RJRS1301]

18 minutes ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

That's my point...Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump was such a danger to the country that he had to be impeached a second time, even though he had less than 2 weeks left in office. The Democrat Party argues he is such a threat that he must still be tried in the Senate and barred from future office. If this is the case, why also hasn't a federal prosecutor also rushed to file criminal "insurrection" charges against this dangerous individual...could it be because the action in Congress is just a "dog and pony" show?

 

Good question...why not...was it because there is nothing there and the investigations by these Democrat officials was just to embarras the president during the election? 

 

Again, if Donald Trump committed all the heinous crimes that are being alleged...what are they waiting for? 

Your argument has become circular and no one here is in a position to answer, and no here has access to all the decisonmakers, so dragging your rhetoric on serves no purpose to answer your question, but it appears to be giving you some satisfaction to continue down a certaon path in the hoope of justifying what many millions of others find unjustifiable.

The Senate answer regarding their legality will be resolved in the near future.

The rest is up to others.

We only know the incompetence has gone, and become a fart in the toilet bowl of history, Only the stench remains

 

[Sujo]

2 hours ago, cmarshall said:

 

Nixon was not pardoned for a month after he left office.  During that time there was not even any discussion about continuing the impeachment.  None.  Zero.  Zip.

 

I have read the Belknap case.  After the motion that you mention, twenty-three of the senators voted to acquit specifically because the Senate lacked jurisdiction.  So, hardly a ringing precedent for the ages.

Its a long read. But in that link i provided they specifically voted on whether they can convict when out of office. Something like 37 to 29 that it was constitutional.

[Sujo]

55 minutes ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

That's my point...Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump was such a danger to the country that he had to be impeached a second time, even though he had less than 2 weeks left in office. The Democrat Party argues he is such a threat that he must still be tried in the Senate and barred from future office. If this is the case, why also hasn't a federal prosecutor also rushed to file criminal "insurrection" charges against this dangerous individual...could it be because the action in Congress is just a "dog and pony" show?

 

Good question...why not...was it because there is nothing there and the investigations by these Democrat officials was just to embarras the president during the election? 

 

Again, if Donald Trump committed all the heinous crimes that are being alleged...what are they waiting for? 

They can be waiting to hear the cases against the terrorists that rioted on the capitol. Hearing their testimony.

 

There could be many reasons, they may be finalizing matters now. Simply, we dont know.

 

It was urgent while he was president. Now that he is gone and his faithful are not happy with him for abandoning them, also his twitter is gone, he is much less of an imminent threat.

 

He sure has some other cases to answer to in the meantime.

[cmarshall]

1 minute ago, Sujo said:

Its a long read. But in that link i provided they specifically voted on whether they can convict when out of office. Something like 37 to 29 that it was constitutional.

 

You don't understand.  I will explain it again.  There was a motion in the Senate that was indeed on whether it was constitutional or not.  That motion, which is what you are referring to, passed, from which you conclude that the Senate settled the issue of whether it had jurisdiction to hold an impeachment trial for a private citizen.  However, when the time came to decide the verdict of the trial, Belknap was acquitted because twenty-three senators voted to acquit on the basis that the Senate lacked jurisdiction.  

 

I don't know why the two Senate votes appear to contradict themselves.  Maybe the senators simply changed their minds.  But it doesn't matter since the acquittal based on lack of jurisdiction destroys the case as a precedent to support the impeachment trial of citizen Trump.

[Sujo]

1 hour ago, cmarshall said:

 

Let me add that since pardons cannot be applied to impeachments Ford's pardon of Nixon only protected him from federal criminal prosecutions.  Since both the House and the Senate had the votes in hand to impeach and convict Nixon at the time, they could have done so, if they had accepted this new theory on impeaching private citizens who have previously held office.  The fact that they never even discussed such an option shows that no one at the time believed it to be possible.

That you infer it doesnt mean its true. As i showed you. The precedent is Belknap. The senate specifically voted on the issue and said it was constitutional.

[Sujo]

1 minute ago, cmarshall said:

 

You don't understand.  I will explain it again.  There was a motion in the Senate that was indeed on whether it was constitutional or not.  That motion, which is what you are referring to, passed, from which you conclude that the Senate settled the issue of whether it had jurisdiction to hold an impeachment trial for a private citizen.  However, when the time came to decide the verdict of the trial, Belknap was acquitted because twenty-three senators voted to acquit on the basis that the Senate lacked jurisdiction.  

 

I don't know why the two Senate votes appear to contradict themselves.  Maybe the senators simply changed their minds.  But it doesn't matter since the acquittal based on lack of jurisdiction destroys the case as a precedent to support the impeachment trial of citizen Trump.

Doesnt destroy it at all. They voted to say it was constitutional, thats n record. The vote on conviction can be for anything they want to make up.

 

in short, they found it constitutional but not to convict.

[Sujo]

 

For those others who havent made up their mind. Not only did the senate vote it was constitutional for Belknap, there was also a judge impeached a year after he left office.

 

"In 1861, West Humphreys left his federal judgeship to join the confederacy as a judge. A year later, the House impeached him, and the Senate convicted, removed, and disqualified him from holding any federal office again. If one merely looks at presidential impeachments as a guide in answering the question whether Trump may be tried after leaving office, this precedent will be among those overlooked. No serious impeachment scholar has ever contested Humphreys’ impeachment or conviction though he had abandoned his office a year before his impeachment, conviction, removal, and disqualification."

 

https://www.justsecurity.org/74226/history-shows-the-senate-can-hold-an-impeachment-trial-after-trump-leaves-office/

 

[cmarshall]

 For the record it is my hope that Trump and his whole crime family are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and punished with long prison sentences.  

 

But I am not willing to misread the Constitution for that purpose.

Edited February 8, 2021 by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post and comment on removed

[cmarshall]

20 hours ago, Sujo said:

 

For those others who havent made up their mind. Not only did the senate vote it was constitutional for Belknap, there was also a judge impeached a year after he left office.

 

In 1861, West Humphreys left his federal judgeship to join the confederacy as a judge. A year later, the House impeached him, and the Senate convicted, removed, and disqualified him from holding any federal office again. If one merely looks at presidential impeachments as a guide in answering the question whether Trump may be tried after leaving office, this precedent will be among those overlooked. No serious impeachment scholar has ever contested Humphreys’ impeachment or conviction though he had abandoned his office a year before his impeachment, conviction, removal, and disqualification.

 

https://www.justsecurity.org/74226/history-shows-the-senate-can-hold-an-impeachment-trial-after-trump-leaves-office/

 

 

I will rejoin the discussion to point out that you have misunderstood the Humphreys case as well.  Humphreys never resigned his federal judgeship even though he accepted a judicial appointment in the Confederacy in 1861 and thereafter no longer performed his duties on the US federal bench.  Therefore, since the federal appointment was for life he remained a federal judge in 1862.  The only way Humphreys, though an open insurrectionist, could be removed from the bench was through impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate followed by removal from office, which is what happened.  Failing to show up to do your job as a judge does not automatically remove you from the bench.  

 

I don't understand why this is not obvious.

 

[Sujo]

Interesting that romney has stated the preponderance of legal views is that trump can be impeached. I never thought i would agree with romney, but after trump he seems to be a choirboy.

[placeholder]

4 hours ago, cmarshall said:

 

You don't understand.  I will explain it again.  There was a motion in the Senate that was indeed on whether it was constitutional or not.  That motion, which is what you are referring to, passed, from which you conclude that the Senate settled the issue of whether it had jurisdiction to hold an impeachment trial for a private citizen.  However, when the time came to decide the verdict of the trial, Belknap was acquitted because twenty-three senators voted to acquit on the basis that the Senate lacked jurisdiction.  

 

I don't know why the two Senate votes appear to contradict themselves.  Maybe the senators simply changed their minds.  But it doesn't matter since the acquittal based on lack of jurisdiction destroys the case as a precedent to support the impeachment trial of citizen Trump.

Was it a majority of Senators who voted to acquit on that basis? Conviction depended on a 2/3 majority but the vote on the constitutionality of impeachment of an official who has resigned only required a majority. Whatever the Senatoriial minority's reasoning for acquittal is irrelevant to the question of constitutionality.  

[cmarshall]

30 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Was it a majority of Senators who voted to acquit on that basis? Conviction depended on a 2/3 majority but the vote on the constitutionality of impeachment of an official who has resigned only required a majority. Whatever the Senatoriial minority's reasoning for acquittal is irrelevant to the question of constitutionality.  

 

Here is the Wikipedia account:

 

Starting on April 5, 1876, Belknap was tried by the Senate.[88] For several weeks Senators argued over whether the Senate had jurisdiction to put Belknap on trial since he had already resigned office in March.[89] Belknap's defense managers argued that the Senate had no jurisdiction;[89] the Senate ruled by a vote of 37–29 that it did.[89][90] Belknap was charged with five articles of impeachment, and the Senate listened to over 40 witnesses.[3] With 40 votes needed for conviction, the Senate voted 35 to 25 to convict Belknap, with one Senator not voting, thus acquitting Belknap of all charges by failing to reach the required two-thirds majority.[3][89][91] All Senators agreed that Belknap took the money from Marsh, but 23 who voted for acquittal believed that the Senate did not have jurisdiction.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_W._Belknap#Senate_trial_and_acquittal

 

It hardly makes sense to believe it irrelevant that the reason that the twenty-three senators voted to acquit was because in their opinion the Senate did not have jurisdiction.  No one's opinion as to the constitutionality of the procedure matters more than those of the senators, since  impeachment trials are not subject to review by the Supreme Court or any other body.  So, the only the Senate itself can decide whether its procedure is and is not constitutional.

 

As I pointed out earlier the fact that the Senate voted two different ways on the issue of constitutionality in that case only reinforces the inutility of the case as a precedent.  Even though it was not a majority that held the trial to be unconstitutional, the case was effectively decided on just that basis.

 

But even if the senators had decided unanimously that the Senate lacked jurisdiction in the the case, that judgment would never have attained the force of law that a precedent in the common law legal system normally achieves.  The practices of the Senate do not constitute a body of common law.  The Constitution, unlike the law, is not amended by precedent.  

 

Precedents in both Houses of Congress constitute mere historical inclinations subject to revision or dismissal by those bodies at any time.  Such precedents have as much and as little weight at any time as any Congress chooses to give them.

 

To sum up, the available precedents do not support the theory that the Senate has jurisdiction to conduct an impeachment trial for a private citizen.  But the precedents themselves are actually irrelevant, since even if they uniformly and clearly represented examples of successful impeachment convictions they would not constrain any subsequent Senate and would not give an incorrect reading of the Constitution the force of an amendment.  But in any case no body other than the Senate can decide that its procedure is or is not constitutional.

Edited February 7, 2021 by cmarshall