By Today, in the House of Representatives, the House Judiciary Committee held its first full hearing on the impeachment of President Trump. Here are answers to your questions and my thoughts on how it went for all three witnesses.
The first witness was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in the previous hearings offered a couple of interesting observations about Congress in general and about impeachment proceedings in particular.
Pelosi started off the hearing by mentioning how Congress is supposed to be “due process.” She didn’t explicitly say that we are “due process,” but I get the sense that she was referring to a constitutional due process right that Congress can’t just ignore. She told the committee that impeachment proceedings are not a trial, but rather a “process” for the impeachment of a president.
In reality, what they are attempting is a trial. This is something that is very often used in the US, but it is actually quite unique to the UK. Even though the UK did not have a trial until the 18th century (since then, the House of Commons and the House of Lords were the only two legal bodies), that did not mean that no trial was going on.
In the US a judge is a person who has been convicted and sentenced for crimes that have already been committed. This is a type of a trial that takes place in the US, but not in the UK. As in the UK, this is a very different matter. If you don’t have a trial, you are in the process of running your own show. It’s a very different country. A trial in the US can occur before you have any evidence.
In the UK a trial can be held by a jury of your peers. In the UK, this means that you must be charged with a crime. In the UK, the UK is a constitutional democracy and therefore has a trial by jury. In the UK, you must be proven guilty of the charge before you can be convicted. You can be acquitted. The same goes for US courts. In the US, a judge is not a person who has been convicted of crimes that have already been committed.
In the UK, you have the right to face your accuser if you can prove that a person has been accused of a crime. If you can prove to the court that someone has been accused of a crime, they can order you to face your accuser, which means that if you can prove to the court that someone has been accused of a crime, you will be able to face them.
So, in the UK, judges are appointed by the government, not the courts, so they are not bound by the same rules of evidence as the court where they are sitting. The same goes for US courts.
This is the only reason that the US has impeachment hearings. Because the Senate can impeach a president for any “high crime and misdemeanor” (as defined by the Constitution), including impeachment for anything that looks like a felony (like corruption). This is the only way that the House can impeach a president, and the Senate can impeach a president for any “high crime and misdemeanor” (as defined by the Constitution).
And the same goes for US courts. Because the Senate can impeach a president for any high crime and misdemeanor as defined by the Constitution, including impeachment for anything that looks like a felony like corruption. This is the only way that the House can impeach a president, and the Senate can impeach a president for any high crime and misdemeanor as defined by the Constitution.
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