Can a president only be impeached for crimes committed in office?
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  Can a president only be impeached for crimes committed in office?
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Author Topic: Can a president only be impeached for crimes committed in office?  (Read 308 times)
President Johnson
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« on: April 23, 2019, 02:03:14 PM »

Can a president only be impeached for crimes committed while serving in office?

Imagine this scenario: A presidential election ends in a 269-269 tie and the Democratic candidate bribes a Republican congressman (or vise versa) for his vote. This becomes the deciding vote to dissolve a tie in his state and gets the candidate to 26 state delegations. Would this be impeachable? Technically, the bribe took place before the president was sworn in office. If this is not impeachable, Donald Trump could not be impeached even if he colluded with Russia since it would have taken place in 2016.

All the crimes Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were accused of took place while they were in office.
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2019, 03:18:19 PM »

There really aren't any criteria for impeachment. All that's needed is the appropriate number of votes in Congress. Yeah, the standard is high crimes & misdemeanors, but Congress gets to decide what those are & when they count. Hence Gerald Ford's famous impeachment quote: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."
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