WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.038 When America’s founding fathers were debating how to set up a brand-new government, 00:00:04.038 --> 00:00:09.039 they ran into a problem: What should happen if a president, in Benjamin 00:00:09.048 --> 00:00:13.928 Franklin’s words, has “rendered himself obnoxious?” 00:00:14.094 --> 00:00:16.904 Most countries didn’t have elected leaders. 00:00:16.904 --> 00:00:18.197 Or ways to get rid of them, if necessary. 00:00:18.197 --> 00:00:23.091 So Franklin and the framers turned to a provision of British common law known as impeachment: 00:00:23.091 --> 00:00:25.098 Trial, conviction, punishment. 00:00:25.098 --> 00:00:31.067 In Great Britain, impeachment could be brought against anybody, any citizen. 00:00:31.949 --> 00:00:36.660 And it also could result in any punishment, including death. 00:00:36.066 --> 00:00:41.128 Michael Gerhardt is a constitutional law professor who literally wrote the book in impeachment. 00:00:42.028 --> 00:00:46.967 So they put impeachment in the constitution and then set up a whole series of unique american 00:00:47.219 --> 00:00:48.380 features in it. 00:00:48.038 --> 00:00:52.085 The constitution lays out three offenses for which any federal official, including the 00:00:52.085 --> 00:00:53.123 President, can be impeached. 00:00:54.023 --> 00:00:58.034 The first two, treason and bribery, are pretty straightforward. 00:00:58.034 --> 00:01:00.092 Treason means helping enemies of the United States. 00:01:00.092 --> 00:01:03.157 Bribery, taking money or gifts in exchange for a political favor. 00:01:04.057 --> 00:01:10.100 And the last phrase, other high crimes and misdemeanors, is not defined in the constitution 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:17.007 But these were thought to be serious offenses against the Republic, and serious breaches 00:01:17.007 --> 00:01:18.126 of trust. 00:01:18.189 --> 00:01:22.271 For three U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, the question 00:01:23.009 --> 00:01:27.680 of whether to impeach and remove them from office centered around whether their behavior 00:01:27.068 --> 00:01:32.467 fit in this third category of high crimes and misdemeanors. 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:37.020 The process of Impeachment has to start in the House of Representatives. 00:01:37.002 --> 00:01:40.037 Any member can introduce an impeachment resolution. 00:01:40.037 --> 00:01:55.136 A resolution, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors 00:01:55.469 --> 00:01:57.566 But plenty, like this one, go nowhere. 00:01:58.439 --> 00:02:02.410 That’s because impeachment charges, have to be approved by a majority of the House 00:02:02.041 --> 00:02:03.780 Judiciary Committee. 00:02:04.149 --> 00:02:08.660 Next, the full House of Representatives votes on whether to impeach. 00:02:08.066 --> 00:02:11.154 If a simple majority votes yes, the President is officially impeached. 00:02:12.054 --> 00:02:16.085 But that doesn’t mean they lose the presidency. 00:02:16.085 --> 00:02:18.178 That decision happens in a Senate trial. 00:02:19.078 --> 00:02:20.175 The Senators act as the jury. 00:02:21.075 --> 00:02:25.158 They hear evidence from both sides And if 67% of those Senators vote to to convict, 00:02:26.058 --> 00:02:28.112 the President is removed from office. 00:02:29.012 --> 00:02:31.059 This has never actually happened. 00:02:31.059 --> 00:02:36.062 In 1863, a House majority voted to impeach Andrew Johnson for firing is Secretary of 00:02:36.089 --> 00:02:37.089 War. 00:02:37.089 --> 00:02:40.178 This was after months of conflict after Reconstruction following the civil war. 00:02:41.078 --> 00:02:46.115 The only other president impeached by the House was Bill Clinton in 1998. 00:02:47.015 --> 00:02:53.023 But in both cases, not enough Senators voted to actually remove them from office. 00:02:53.023 --> 00:02:58.072 Johnson was only one vote short, but in Clinton’s case, it wasn’t even close 00:02:58.072 --> 00:03:04.098 The Respondent, William Jefferson Clinton, is not guilty as charged in the Senate article 00:03:04.098 --> 00:03:05.098 of impeachment. 00:03:05.098 --> 00:03:09.109 That’s because votes in Clinton’s impeachment in the House and trial in the Senate were 00:03:10.009 --> 00:03:12.084 split almost completely by party. 00:03:12.084 --> 00:03:17.126 part of the disagreement within the Senate had to do with the context in which Clinton's 00:03:18.026 --> 00:03:21.051 actions had taken place. 00:03:21.051 --> 00:03:25.069 The whole thing started when Clinton was sued for sexual harassment by a woman named Paula 00:03:25.069 --> 00:03:28.132 Jones, who worked for him when he was Governor of Arkansas. 00:03:29.032 --> 00:03:33.095 In a deposition for that case, Jones’ lawyers asked Clinton if he’d had a sexual relationship 00:03:33.095 --> 00:03:37.103 with a different employee-- a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. 00:03:38.003 --> 00:03:39.003 Clinton said he hadn’t. 00:03:39.003 --> 00:03:43.082 I did not have sexual relations with that woman. 00:03:43.082 --> 00:03:44.087 Ms. Lewinsky. 00:03:44.087 --> 00:03:45.096 But that wasn’t true. 00:03:46.077 --> 00:03:51.124 I had intimate contact with her that was inappropriate. 00:03:52.024 --> 00:03:54.030 The house will be in order. 00:03:54.084 --> 00:04:02.115 Republicans in the house argued Clinton should be impeached for lying under oath. 00:04:03.015 --> 00:04:08.033 What the defenders want to do is lower the standards by which we judge this president, 00:04:08.033 --> 00:04:12.039 and lower the standards for our society by doing so. 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:16.055 Democrats disagreed that the offense was serious enough to be called a “high crime.” 00:04:16.055 --> 00:04:19.072 At one point, they walked out of the chamber in protest. 00:04:19.072 --> 00:04:26.081 There is one small segment on the far-right, who have lost all objectivity, and are determined 00:04:27.053 --> 00:04:29.138 to impeach the President at all costs. 00:04:30.038 --> 00:04:35.135 House Resolution 6, 11, resolved, that William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United 00:04:36.035 --> 00:04:39.131 States, is impeached, for high crimes and misdemeanors. 00:04:40.031 --> 00:04:43.070 But Clinton’s popularity didn’t really suffer. 00:04:43.007 --> 00:04:48.035 There was not a sense the American people are demanding that he be tossed out of office. 00:04:48.098 --> 00:04:51.157 Not a single Democratic Senator voted to remove Clinton from office. 00:04:52.057 --> 00:04:55.073 Typically, you need to have members of more than one party 00:04:55.073 --> 00:04:59.168 That’s one of the major differences between Clinton’s case and President Richard Nixon’s. 00:05:00.068 --> 00:05:05.153 Over the course of several months in 1973, members of Congress, and the American people, 00:05:06.053 --> 00:05:10.075 learned about Nixon’s possible involvement in a break-in at the offices of the Democratic 00:05:10.075 --> 00:05:11.100 National Committee. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.012 By the time the charges had been shown to have some evidence supporting them, the public 00:05:16.012 --> 00:05:27.103 began to kind of render a judgement against Nixon, which was, his popularity plummeted. 00:05:28.003 --> 00:05:37.061 That evidence came out because Republicans, members of Nixon’s own party, in both the 00:05:37.061 --> 00:05:47.103 House and Senate, called for investigations into the President’s behavior. 00:05:48.003 --> 00:05:52.064 In the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans joined with Democrats to approve Articles 00:05:52.064 --> 00:06:01.071 of Impeachment against Nixon. 00:06:02.034 --> 00:06:13.119 But Nixon resigned before the full house could vote on impeachment because Republican leaders 00:06:14.019 --> 00:06:17.050 had told him there was no way he’d survive. 00:06:17.005 --> 00:06:22.014 Which explains why no president has ever been removed from office by impeachment. 00:06:23.004 --> 00:06:27.012 For that to happen, the president doesn’t just have to commit some high crime or misdemeanor. 00:06:28.002 --> 00:06:30.074 He has to lose his own party. 00:06:30.092 --> 00:06:32.186 In which case, history suggests he’ll see himself out.