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(Dec. 22, 2019) \u2014 The United States Supreme Court \u2013 in a 9-0 holding \u2013 unequivocally ruled that no trial is required for the Senate to acquit, or convict, anyone impeached by the House of Representatives.\u00a0 Even liberal Justices Stevens and Souter concurred in the ironclad judgment.\u00a0 The\u00a0case<\/a>\u00a0is Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993).<\/p>\n Once you comprehend the momentous importance of this case, you will then understand why Harvard Law School professor (and Democrat impeachment witness), Noah Feldman, recently published an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0erroneously claiming that President Trump hasn\u2019t been impeached yet.<\/p>\n Feldman\u00a0isn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0trying to help the President.\u00a0\u00a0He knows the Senate can acquit immediately without waiting for Speaker Pelosi to transfer articles of impeachment, or for House impeachment managers to be appointed.\u00a0\u00a0This is because the Supreme Court has ruled \u2013 in the Nixon\u00a0case<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 that how the Senate goes about acquitting or convicting any impeached person is non-justiciable, in that the\u00a0Senate\u2019s power is plenary and the Supreme Court may not even review it.<\/p>\n This means that if the Senate acquits Trump immediately \u2013 without a trial \u2013 the Supreme Court has no authority,\u00a0whatsoever<\/i>, to review the Senate\u2019s acquittal, and there isn\u2019t a damn thing the House can do about it.<\/p>\n Feldman is distracting the nation from understanding the full scope of Senate acquittal authority.\u00a0 He knows that if\u00a0the House hasn\u2019t impeached the President, the Senate could not immediately acquit him.\u00a0\u00a0This is\u00a0why Feldman\u00a0appears<\/i>\u00a0to be defending POTUS.<\/p>\n Appearances are deceptive.\u00a0\u00a0Feldman\u2019s true game is to provide cover for Pelosi\u2019s power play in not delivering the articles of impeachment or choosing House impeachment managers, neither of which is necessary for the House to impeach.\u00a0 The Constitution doesn\u2019t mention \u201carticles of impeachment\u201d or \u201cimpeachment managers.\u201d And once the House impeaches, the Senate takes over.\u00a0\u00a0The House then has no power whatsoever to dictate terms of a trial.\u00a0\u00a0No trial is even required.<\/p>\n The Nixon court held that \u201cthe word \u2018sole\u2019 indicates that this authority is reposed in the Senate and nowhere else<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 Feldman\u00a0is fully aware of this, and he fears the American people will discover the truth.\u00a0\u00a0This is why he is trying to convince you that the House has not impeached the President yet.<\/p>\n House Resolution 755 states that the House voted to impeach\u00a0<\/i>President Trump,\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0it voted to exhibit articles of impeachment to the Senate.\u00a0 The\u00a0twin<\/i>\u00a0objectives of the resolution are stated clearly in the text of\u00a0H.R. 755<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cRESOLUTION<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.<\/i><\/p>\n Resolved,\u00a0That Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n The resolution passed.\u00a0\u00a0It was resolved that the President \u201cis impeached\u201d\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0that the articles be \u201cexhibited\u201d to the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0The first objective was accomplished when the resolution passed, and the second objective has not yet been accomplished.\u00a0 But formal transmission of the articles is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0required by the Constitution for there to be an impeachment.<\/p>\n The Senate has no authority to determine what conduct is impeachable or what process the House uses to impeach.\u00a0\u00a0On the other hand, the House has no authority over the Senate\u2019s sole power to acquit, or convict, or the process invoked to either end.<\/p>\n Therefore, no trial is necessary for the Senate to acquit immediately.\u00a0\u00a0This saga could be over right now.\u00a0\u00a0Feldman realizes this is true, so he invented a bogus unwritten requirement into the Constitution, to the effect that impeachment is a\u00a0process<\/i>\u00a0requiring transmission of articles of impeachment to the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0Feldman, of course, does not mention the Nixon case.<\/p>\n WALTER NIXON\u2019S IMPEACHMENT CONVICTION<\/b><\/p>\n Walter Nixon<\/a>\u00a0was the Chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.\u00a0\u00a0He was convicted of making false statements before a grand jury and sentenced to prison.<\/p>\n The\u00a0investigation stemmed from reports that Nixon accepted a gratuity from a Mississippi businessman in exchange for asking a local district attorney to halt the prosecution of the businessman\u2019s son.\u00a0\u00a0(Sound familiar?)\u00a0\u00a0Because Nixon refused to resign from his office as a United States District Judge, he continued to collect his judicial salary while serving out his prison sentence.<\/p>\n The House of Representatives adopted three articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate voted to use Senate Impeachment Rule XI, allowing the presiding officer to appoint a committee of Senators to \u201creceive evidence and take testimony.\u201d The committee did its work then presented the full Senate with a transcript of the proceeding and a report on the facts.<\/p>\n The Senate voted by more than a two-thirds majority to convict Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0The presiding officer then entered judgment removing Nixon from his office as United States District Judge.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon thereafter commenced suit, arguing that Senate Rule XI violates the constitutional grant of authority to the Senate to \u201ctry\u201d all impeachments because it prohibits the whole Senate from taking part in the evidentiary hearings.<\/p>\n Nixon sought a declaratory judgment that his impeachment conviction was void and that his judicial salary and privileges should be reinstated. The District Court held that his claim was non-justiciable, 744 F. Supp. 9 (D.C. 1990), and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. 290 U. S. App. D.C. 420 (1991).\u00a0\u00a0The Supreme Court accepted the case, and then ruled that they had no power to review the Senate\u2019s impeachment process.\u00a0 They affirmed that the case was non-justiciable.\u00a0\u00a0The Court focused its attention on the word \u201csole\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cPetitioner devotes only two pages in his brief to negating the significance of the word \u2018sole\u2019 in the first sentence of Clause 6. As noted above, that sentence provides that \u2018[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.\u2019 We think that the word \u2018sole\u2019 is of considerable significance. Indeed, the word \u2018sole\u2019 appears only one other time in the Constitution\u2013with respect to the House of Representatives\u2019 \u2018sole<\/b>\u00a0Power of Impeachment.\u2019 Art. I, \u00a72, cl. 5 (emphasis added).\u00a0The common sense meaning of the word \u2018sole\u2019 is that\u00a0the Senate alone shall have authority to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted.\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/i>\u00a0<\/b>(Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n The Court\u2019s holding is clear: the Senate\u00a0alone<\/i>\u00a0determines acquittal or conviction. The Senate committee prepared a report, submitted the report to the Senate, and the Senate voted to convict.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon demanded a full trial before the entire Senate.\u00a0\u00a0He did not get one.\u00a0\u00a0He lost and was removed.\u00a0\u00a0The Supreme Court held that it did not have the power to review the Senate\u2019s conduct.\u00a0\u00a0As to the meaning of the word \u201ctry\u201d in the impeachment clause, the court\u2019s majority opinion states:<\/p>\n \u201cThe conclusion that the use of the word \u2018try\u2019 in the first sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause lacks sufficient precision to afford any judicially manageable standard of review of the Senate\u2019s actions is fortified by the existence of the three very specific requirements that the Constitution does impose on the Senate when trying impeachments: the members must be under oath, a two thirds vote is required to convict, and the Chief Justice presides when the President is tried. These limitations are quite precise, and their nature suggests that the Framers did not intend to impose additional limitations on the form of\u00a0the Senate proceedings<\/b>\u00a0by the use of the word \u2018try\u2019 in the first sentence.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>[Emphasis added.]<\/p>\n The Court\u2019s use of the word \u201cproceedings\u201d is telling in the extreme.\u00a0\u00a0Any action by the Senate is a\u00a0proceeding<\/i>, but not every proceeding is a\u00a0trial<\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0If the Senate proceeds with a motion to dismiss, or a motion to acquit the President, no trial is required.<\/p>\n The Nixon Court continued by making it absolutely clear that an impeachment trial is not required, holding that the Senate is not limited in any way by the word \u201ctry\u201d in convicting or acquitting impeached persons:<\/p>\n \u201cIn the case before us, there is no separate provision of the Constitution which could be defeated by allowing the Senate final authority to determine the meaning of the word \u2018try\u2019 in the Impeachment Trial Clause\u2026 [W]e conclude\u2026that the word \u2018try\u2019 in the Impeachment Clause does not provide an identifiable textual limit on the authority which is committed to the Senate<\/b>. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is\u00a0<\/i>Affirmed.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>(Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n Nothing in the Constitution, or in the ruling by the Supreme Court in Nixon, requires the Senate to \u201ctry\u201d anyone after the House impeaches.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate can simply acquit the President without trying him, because the Senate alone has the power to convict or acquit. The Supreme Court held that there is no identifiable textual limit on that authority.\u00a0\u00a0Justice White\u2019s concurring\u00a0opinion<\/a>\u00a0worried that such broad authority in the Senate could be abused, but six of the nine justices joined the majority opinion.\u00a0\u00a0All nine approved judgment.\u00a0\u00a0And the Senate\u2019s plenary authority is controlling law.<\/p>\n If there is a tie on a motion to acquit or dismiss, the Constitution gives Vice President Pence the tie-breaking vote.\u00a0\u00a0If the Democrat Senators running for President have no conflict of interest, neither does Pence.\u00a0\u00a0Regardless, the Constitution\u00a0directly<\/i>\u00a0gives Pence the tie-breaking vote, so the GOP can lose three votes, but the Dems would need four GOP defectors to overrule the Chair.<\/p>\n Not only did the Supreme Court reject the assertion that it could review the Senate\u2019s conduct in acquitting or convicting any person impeached by the House, the Court held that it couldn\u2019t even identify a limit upon the Senate\u2019s authority to acquit or convict.<\/p>\n The Court also held that no separate provision of the Constitution is defeated by such a plenary construction of the Senate\u2019s authority.\u00a0\u00a0Therefore, not even the sole power of the House to impeach is defeated by the Senate\u2019s sole power to acquit or convict.\u00a0\u00a0Boom.\u00a0\u00a0Just end it now, Mitch.<\/p>\n Note that current House Representative Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge, was impeached and removed from the bench.\u00a0\u00a0He also argued in federal court that the Senate owed him a trial before the full Senate, after he too was convicted by a Senate committee report.\u00a0\u00a0The D.C. District Court initially threw out Hastings\u2019 impeachment conviction in the Senate, but after the Nixon ruling, that decision in favor of Hastings was vacated.\u00a0\u00a0The district court then\u00a0dismissed<\/a>\u00a0Hastings\u2019 suit as non-justiciable according to Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0Hastings remains impeached and removed from the bench.<\/p>\n MORE ON FELDMAN\u2019S RUSE<\/b><\/p>\n Noah Feldman\u2019s deceptive legal analysis\u00a0continued<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cStrictly speaking, \u2018impeachment\u2019 occurred \u2013 and occurs \u2014 when the articles of impeachment are presented to the Senate for trial. And at that point, the Senate is obliged by the Constitution to hold a trial.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n This is the meat of Feldman\u2019s paper chase fairy-tale, and it\u2019s wrong on both claims.\u00a0\u00a0Feldman asserts that in passing H.R. 755, the House only \u201cvoted\u201d to impeach, but that the impeachment is not completed until the articles are presented to the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0That claim fails upon reading the actual text of H.R. 755, which both impeaches the President\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0requires that the articles be exhibited to the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0If the resolution had only mentioned exhibiting the articles, then Feldman might have a point.\u00a0\u00a0But the resolution also clearly states that the President \u201cis impeached.\u201d\u00a0 Full stop.<\/p>\n Second, once impeached, the Senate is certainly not \u201cobliged by the Constitution to hold a trial.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Harvard\u2019s esteemed Professor Feldman is certainly aware of the 9-0 Nixon holding.\u00a0\u00a0Yet, he fails to mention it at all in his viral\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0published by Bloomberg.\u00a0\u00a0And this is so very telling.\u00a0\u00a0He ignores the most important Supreme Court decision in US history regarding impeachment.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s just lame, bro.<\/p>\n Of course, the House would be well within its sole power to cancel impeachment by voting on a new resolution, but until the House actually takes a subsequent official action, the President remains impeached.\u00a0\u00a0So the Senate may acquit immediately.<\/p>\n I find it absolutely frightening that the President\u2019s legal team might be\u00a0considering<\/a>\u00a0Feldman\u2019s position as beneficial to POTUS.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s even more disturbing that multiple conservative outlets have sadly taken Feldman\u2019s bait.\u00a0\u00a0Rather than agreeing with his fairy-tale construction of impeachment authority, the President\u2019s legal team should be pressuring the Senate to rightfully acquit the President immediately, before the House can invent more fake facts from deep state saboteurs that Pierre Dilecto and friends will rely upon in removing the President from office.\u00a0\u00a0You don\u2019t want a full trial in the Senate, Mr. President.\u00a0\u00a0If it gets that far, your goose may be\u00a0cooked<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0End it now.<\/p>\n Schiff, Pelosi and Nadler wielded their authority with a hammer.\u00a0\u00a0Their abusive impeachment inquiry broke from historical precedent.\u00a0\u00a0They cracked the whip with stealth force.\u00a0\u00a0And the framers knew such abuses would occur.\u00a0\u00a0The majority opinion in Nixon quotes Federalist Paper No. 66 in discussing that the framers intended each chamber of Congress be a check on the other, whenever one might abuse its sole power regarding impeachment:<\/p>\n \u201cNixon fears that if the Senate is given unreviewable authority to interpret the Impeachment Trial Clause, there is a grave risk that the Senate will usurp judicial power. The Framers anticipated this objection and created two constitutional safeguards to keep the Senate in check. The first safeguard is that the whole of the impeachment power is divided between the two legislative bodies, with the House given the right to accuse and the Senate given the right to judge.\u00a0Id.,\u00a0No. 66, p. 446. This split of authority \u2018avoids the inconvenience of making the same persons both accusers and judges; and\u00a0guards against the danger of persecution from the prevalency of a factious spirit in either of those branches.<\/b>\u2019\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>(Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n A \u201cfactious spirit\u201d in the House is\u00a0exactly<\/i>\u00a0what the nation just witnessed as Schiff ran his impeachment inquiry from a bunker with an iron fist; exposed phone numbers of House members and journalists; lied to the American people about his staff meeting with the whistleblower; and read an egregiously prejudicial fictitious bilateral call transcript on the House floor as if it were real.<\/p>\n According to the Supreme Court\u2019s holding in Nixon, the Senate has no legal duty to give the House impeachment a trial.\u00a0\u00a0And there is certainly no moral reason for the Senate to respect the pain and suffering Schiff has caused by violating every chance for decency and mutual Congressional respect.\u00a0\u00a0In the face of such a factious spirit, the Senate has every moral right and reason to end the Congressional abuse by acquitting the President immediately.\u00a0\u00a0Impeachment is a political event.\u00a0\u00a0The GOP needs to play hardball politics now.\u00a0\u00a0The people will vote again in November.\u00a0\u00a0Leave it to us.<\/p>\n In 1974, the Duke Law Journal published a comprehensive\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0about impeachment and removal of the President.\u00a0\u00a0The following passage elucidates a simple truth:<\/p>\n \u201cIf impeachment, conviction, and removal are to accomplish a therapeutic effect upon the country, it is essential that the public be convinced of the President\u2019s guilt in the commission of impeachable offenses and thereby be persuaded that his removal is in the constitutional interest of the country. The citizenry must not only be convinced of this but must also be convinced in bipartisan numbers if impeachment is to be dominantly therapeutic rather than divisive.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n There is no bipartisan support for impeachment in the citizenry.\u00a0\u00a0Removal of the President will not be therapeutic.\u00a0\u00a0It will be divisive on a level we have not seen since the Civil War.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate should just end it now.<\/p>\n The Republican Senate majority must rely on the Supreme Court\u2019s 9-0 decision in Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0up to the Senate alone whether they \u201ctry\u201d the President.\u00a0\u00a0They don\u2019t have to.\u00a0\u00a0Nothing in the Constitution requires a trial to acquit.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate could simply acquit the President, dismiss the impeachment, or adjourn\u00a0sine die<\/a><\/i>, which is what they did when Andrew Johnson was impeached.<\/p>\n The point here is that the GOP holds power in the Senate, and the law gives them multiple options for ending this national disaster immediately.\u00a0\u00a0The Republican Senators should not surrender their authority to Schiff, Nadler and Pelosi.\u00a0\u00a0That would be a tragedy.<\/p>\n When the House abuses its power, the upper chamber is empowered to check that abuse.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate may acquit without a trial, without any input from the House, and without any possible review by the Supreme Court.\u00a0\u00a0This is not an esoteric theory of Constitutional law.\u00a0\u00a0This is the exact holding of a 9-0 decision by the Supreme Court.\u00a0 They could end this today by reconsidering Senate rules upon a simple majority.\u00a0\u00a0Analysis<\/a>\u00a0of this procedure was published at Lawfare back in January by Bob Bauer:<\/p>\n \u201cThe House may choose to impeach or not, and one can imagine an argument that the Senate is just as free, in the exercise of its own \u2018sole power,\u2019 to decline to try any impeachment that the House elects to vote.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThe current rules governing Senate practice and procedure do not pose an insurmountable problem for this maneuver. Senate leadership can seek to have\u00a0the rules \u2018reinterpreted\u2019\u00a0at any time by the device of seeking a ruling of the chair on the question, and avoiding a formal revision of the rule that would require supermajority approval. The question presented in some form would be whether, under the relevant rules, the Senate is required to hold an impeachment \u2018trial\u2019 fully consistent with current rules\u2014or even any trial at all. A chair\u2019s ruling in the affirmative would be subject to being overturned by a majority, not two-thirds, vote.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Pursuant to the above scenario, the GOP could lose three votes for a tie, and Pence could then break the tie.\u00a0\u00a0But if the Chair determines that no trial is required by the rules, the Democrats would need to flip four GOP votes.\u00a0\u00a0Therefore, the President\u2019s legal team should be pushing for a motion to acquit the President immediately.\u00a0\u00a0Hold their feet to the fire and demand an acquittal vote before any trial.\u00a0\u00a0If this measure fails, the four (or more) GOP defectors will seal their political fate.<\/p>\n The House has no authority to affect how the Senate conducts impeachment proceedings.<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Should the Senate grace Speaker Pelosi\u2019s stunt with any shred of legal credibility, it will usurp the Supreme Court\u2019s holding in Nixon.<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>The Senate must not allow the House to overrule the Supreme Court.\u00a0 They can end it now.\u00a0 Spread the word.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n