Coach goes over board sometimes.
Article 2 section 4
The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
So the question becomes can it be proven that POTUS was derelict of duty, which resulted in the deaths of 4 Americans. If so should impeachment proceedings take place and/or should he be charged with criminal negligence?
As I said, I have been questioning what credible information Coach has that led him to make those extremely serious allegations. As such, I was specifically referring to
credible information he "observed" because I know that information will never be made public. Hence, I made reference to the executive privilege; however, due to
United States v. Nixon, I created a homework assignment for Coach regarding the words: political question.
While you correctly stated Article II, §4, I did not include it in my discussion for a few reasons. First, this discussion will go
WAY above Coach's head. Second, it's extremely rare as only two presidents have ever been impeached and none removed. Third, neither of the impeachments were related to the president's Commander in Chief power with regard to troop movement. I state troop movement* because the Supreme Court has deemed that to be the president's Article II, §2, Commander in Chief power. More specific to Benghazi, the Supreme Court stated:
It is quite apparent that if, in the maintenance of our international relations,
embarrassment-perhaps serious embarrassment-is to be avoided and success for our
aims achieved, congressional legislation which is to be made effective through
negotiation and inquiry within the international field must often accord to the
President a degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction which would
not be admissible were domestic affairs alone involved. Moreover, he, not Congress,
has the better opportunity of knowing the conditions which prevail in foreign
countries, and especially is this true in time of war. He has his confidential sources
of information. He has his agents in the form of diplomatic, consular and other
officials. Secrecy in respect of information gathered by them may be highly
necessary, and the premature disclosure of it productive of harmful results. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Co., 299 U.S. 304, 320 (1936).Thus, the Supreme Court holds that the president can act without congress when dealing with international relations, especially during a time of war due to the reasoning above. Additionally, the Supreme Court intervened during Johnson's impeachment by finding the Tenure in Office Act violated the separation of powers.
Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), discussed in §4.2.2. Also, with regard to the Supreme Court interfering with an impeachment, in
Nixon v. United States, Justice Souter's concurring opinion stated that if the Senate acts in a way that "seriously threaten(s) the integrity of its results...judicial interference might well be appropriate." 506 U.S. at 254. Thus, not only are the chances slim that Congress would impeach Obama in the first place, it's possible that the Supreme Court may find an impeachment against Obama while acting as Commander in Chief, to be unconstitutional. Most importantly to the discussion at hand, any sensitive subject matter/evidence will be withheld from the public. That brings us back to square one and that is, Coach cannot and will not obtain information regarding what really took place. So, he will continue to use his special education imagination to increase his getbig post count.
*
Fleming v. Page, 50 U.S. 603, 619 (1850).
*
Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 139(1866).
