Belknap’s case thus stands for the conflicting notions that officials can be impeached and tried after leaving office, but that it will be harder to convict them.Ĭonstitutional precedents function differently in Congress than they do in courts. Had senators been bound by the Senate’s jurisdictional vote, or were conviction possible with a simple majority rather than two-thirds, Belknap would have been convicted. Of the 25 senators voting “not guilty,” 22-more than enough to guarantee acquittal-indicated that they had done so on the grounds that Belknap was no longer in office. After two months of trial, Belknap was acquitted 37-25 (short of a two-thirds majority). There, the Senate voted 37-29 that it had jurisdiction to try an ex-official-a more extreme decision than in Trump’s case given that Belknap was out of office when the House impeached him. This is just what had happened in Belknap’s case in 1876.
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But the result was ambiguous, leaving late impeachability unsettled in Trump’s case. Had Trump been convicted, it would have established a strong precedent in favor of late impeachability. Had Trump’s jurisdictional vote gone the other way and the case been dismissed, it would have established a strong precedent against late impeachability (similar to the way Blount’s case stands as a strong precedent against the impeachability of senators). The vote did not bind senators to accept that jurisdiction was proper when they cast their guilty/not guilty votes four days later (notwithstanding the House managers’ assertion to the contrary).
43 SENATORS WHO VOTED NOT GUILTY TRIAL
9 that it had jurisdiction over Trump, the only formal effect of the vote was to allow the trial to go forward.
43 SENATORS WHO VOTED NOT GUILTY FREE
But as a practical matter-practical matters being decisive in impeachment cases-some senators will still feel free to reject late impeachment, making a conviction harder (but not impossible) to obtain.
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Future Senates will feel just as free to conduct the trial. Future Houses of Representatives will feel just as free as this one did to impeach presidents late in their terms, or even shortly afterward. The short answer is that the precedential landscape is pretty much where it was before. The question now becomes what sort of precedent Trump’s case will represent the next time “late impeachment” is on the table. William Blount in 1798 and former Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876-featured prominently in the discussion.
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During former President Trump’s second impeachment episode, precedents-especially the impeachment trials of former Sen.