Former special counsel Ken Starr says the Senate does not have the authority to try a former president for impeachment, as the impeachment trial of former President Trump begins next week.
Former special counsel Ken Starr says the Senate does not have the power to try a former president for impeachment, as the Senate opens an impeachment trial against former President Trump next week.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday (Feb. 1), Starr said the upper chamber (Senate) cannot try a president after he leaves office.
The answer is obviously not,” Starr said. He added that “the text of the Constitution is absolutely clear that the verdict in impeachment cases” is “disqualification and possible disqualification of the president.
He argued that “by definition, a former official cannot be removed from office.
Starr was a former U.S. general counsel and a central figure in the impeachment of former President Clinton in the 1990s.
Last week, 45 Republican senators voted against the impeachment trial, which was scheduled to begin on Feb. 8. The result implies that Democrats were unable to secure at least 17 votes from Republicans for a conviction and that the Senate is unlikely to convict former President Trump by more than two-thirds (67 votes) in a February impeachment trial.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who was supposed to preside over the Senate impeachment trial, declined to oversee the event. Instead, Senate Democrats appointed Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman pro tempore, to preside over the trial.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week that last week’s vote against the trial was “very irresponsible.
Starr added, “The Senate has absolutely no jurisdiction to try Donald Trump, and if they continue to do so, they will …… violate the Constitution’s private rights stripping bill to punish the outgoing president.
Not long ago, Alan Dershowitz, a leading Harvard law professor, made a similar argument to Starr’s.
Dershowitz told Fox News, “This (impeachment) would be unconstitutional. The Constitution is very clear. The subject, the purpose, of impeachment is to remove a sitting president. And there are two precedents (for impeachment). One is very clear, when President Nixon resigned after he foresaw that he would be removed from office by impeachment, and he left office without impeaching him.
In the early 1970s, former President Nixon chose to resign rather than face the possibility of a Senate trial.
Dershowitz said of Nixon’s impeachment, “It was clear that the Senate had lost jurisdiction by then.
Another precedent Dershowitz cited was a failed impeachment in history, when it was for the removal of the secretary of war. In the initial vote, the Senate held by a close vote that they had the authority to try the man who had resigned.
In 1876, the House impeached President Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War for bribery, even though the Secretary of War had resigned. At that Time, the Senate considered whether it still had jurisdiction to hear the case of the former official, and concluded that it still had that authority. Ultimately, the former secretary was acquitted of all charges.
On Sunday, Trump’s office issued a statement saying that the two lead attorneys representing former President Trump in the upcoming Senate trial are attorney David Schoen of Alabama and former Pennsylvania prosecutor Bruce Castor Jr.
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