Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/43

 Framers confirmed—in Hamilton's words—that impeachment concerns an "abuse or violation of some public trust" with "injuries done immediately to the society itself." Impeachment is reserved for offenses against our political system. It is therefore prosecuted and judged by Congress, speaking for the Nation.

Last, but not least, the Framers imposed a rule of wrongdoing. The President cannot be removed based on poor management, general incompetence, or unpopular policies. Instead, the question in any impeachment inquiry is whether the President has engaged in misconduct justifying an early end to his term in office: "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." This phrase had a particular legal meaning to the Framers. It is to that understanding, and to its application in prior Presidential impeachments, that we now turn.

IV.Impeachable Offenses

As careful students of history, the Framers knew that threats to democracy can take many forms. They feared would-be monarchs, but also warned against fake populists, charismatic demagogues, and corrupt kleptocrats. In describing the kind of leader who might menace the Nation, Hamilton offered an especially striking portrait:

"When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense [sic] of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind."

This prophesy echoed Hamilton's warning, in Federalist No. 1, that "of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."

The Framers thus intended impeachment to reach the full spectrum of Presidential misconduct that threatened the Constitution. They also intended our Constitution to endure for the ages. Because they could not anticipate and specifically prohibit every threat a President might someday pose, the Framers adopted a standard sufficiently general and flexible to meet unknown future circumstances. This standard was meant—as Mason put it—to capture all manner of "great and dangerous offenses" incompatible with the Constitution. When the President uses the powers of his high office to benefit himself, while injuring or ignoring the American people he is oath-bound to serve, he has committed