Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/51

 to enforce its orders"? That could fatally weaken the Judiciary's role under Article III of the Constitution. On behalf of a unanimous Court, Chief Justice William Howard Taft—who had previously served as President—explained that "exceptional cases like this ... would suggest a resort to impeachment."

Two impeachment inquiries have involved claims that a President grossly violated the Constitution's separation of powers. The first was in 1868, when the House impeached President Andrew Johnson, who had succeeded President Abraham Lincoln following his assassination at Ford's Theatre. There, the articles approved by the House charged President Johnson with conduct forbidden by law: in firing the Secretary of War, he had allegedly violated the Tenure of Office Act, which restricted the President's power to remove cabinet members during the term of the President who had appointed them. President Johnson was thus accused of a facial abuse of power. In the Senate, though, he was acquitted by a single vote—largely because the Tenure of Office Act was viewed by many Senators as likely unconstitutional (a conclusion later adopted by the Supreme Court in an opinion by Chief Justice Taft, who described the Act as "invalid" ).

Just over 100 years later, this Committee accused a second chief executive of abusing his power. In a departure from prior Presidential practice—and in contravention of Article I of the Constitution— President Nixon had invoked specious claims of executive privilege to defy Congressional subpoenas served as part of an impeachment inquiry. His obstruction centered on tape recordings, papers, and memoranda relating to the Watergate break-in and its aftermath. As the House Judiciary Committee found, he had interposed "the powers of the presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself functions and judgments necessary to exercise the sole power of impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives." Put simply, President Nixon purported to control the exercise of powers that belonged solely to the House and not to him—including the power of inquiry that is vital to any Congressional judgments about impeachment. In so doing, President Nixon injured the constitutional plan: "Unless the defiance of the Committee's subpoenas under these circumstances is considered grounds for impeachment, it is difficult to conceive of any President acknowledging that he obligated to supply the relevant evidence necessary for Congress to exercise its constitutional responsibility in an impeachment proceeding." The House Judiciary Committee therefore approved an article of impeachment against President Nixon for abuse of power in obstructing the House impeachment inquiry.

But that was only part of President Nixon's impeachable wrongdoing. The House Judiciary Committee also approved two additional articles of impeachment against him for abuse of power, one