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 an impeachable offense.

Applying the tools of legal interpretation, as we do below, puts a sharper point on this definition of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." It also confirms that the Framers principally aimed the impeachment power at a few core evils, each grounded in a unifying fear that a President might abandon his duty to faithfully execute the laws. Where the President engages in serious abuse of power, betrays the national interest through foreign entanglements, or corrupts his office or elections, he has undoubtedly committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" as understood by the Framers. Any one of these violations of the public trust is impeachable. When combined in a scheme to advance the President's personal interests while ignoring or injuring the Constitution, they state the strongest possible case for impeachment and removal from office.

A.Lessons from British and Early American History

As Hamilton recounted, Britain afforded "[t]he model from which the idea of [impeachment] has been borrowed." That was manifestly true of the phrase "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." The Framers could have authorized impeachment for "crimes" or "serious crimes." Or they could have followed the practice of many American state constitutions and permitted impeachment for "maladministration" or "malpractice." But they instead selected a "unique phrase used for centuries in English parliamentary impeachments." To understand their choice requires a quick tour through history.

That tour offers two lessons. The first is that the phrase "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was used only for parliamentary impeachments; it was never used in the ordinary criminal law. Moreover, in the 400-year history of British impeachments, the House of Commons impeached many officials on grounds that did not involve any discernibly criminal conduct. Indeed, the House of Commons did so yet again just as the Framers gathered in Philadelphia. That same month, Edmund Burke—the celebrated champion of American liberty—brought twenty-two articles of impeachment against Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India. Burke charged Hastings with offenses including abuse of power, corruption, disregarding treaty obligations, and misconduct of local wars. Historians have confirmed that "none of the charges could fairly be classed as criminal conduct in any technical sense." Aware of that fact, Burke accused Hastings of "[c]rimes, not against forms, but against those eternal laws of justice, which are our rule and our birthright: his offenses are not in formal, technical language, but in reality, in substance and effect, High Crimes and High Misdemeanors."

Burke's denunciation of Hastings points to the second lesson from British history: "high Crimes