r/politics • u/RB_Reich Robert Reich • Sep 26 '19

Let’s talk about impeachment! I'm Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, author, professor, and co-founder of Inequality Media. AMA. AMA-Finished

I'm Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor for President Clinton and Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. I also co-founded Inequality Media in 2014.

Earlier this year, we made a video on the impeachment process: The Impeachment Process Explained

Please have a look and subscribe to our channel for weekly videos. (My colleagues are telling me I should say, “Smash that subscribe button,” but that sounds rather violent to me.)

Let’s talk about impeachment, the primaries, or anything else you want to discuss.

Proof: https://i.imgur.com/tiGP0tL.jpg

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u/thedrew Sep 26 '19

Neither party has held a super-majority in the Senate for over 50 years. So you will almost always need bipartisan support for removal from office. What was the crossed line that moved Republicans against Nixon in 1974?

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u/neuronexmachina Sep 26 '19

In Nixon's case it was the "smoking gun tape": https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/05/watergate-smoking-gun-tape-released-aug-5-1974-753086

On this day in 1974, the “smoking gun” tape was made public. At that point, Nixon’s remaining political support on Capitol Hill all but disappeared. The 10 Republican members of the Judiciary Committee who had voted against impeachment in committee announced that they would now vote for impeachment once the matter reached the House floor.

Nixon lacked support in the Senate as well. Sens. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) and Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), the minority leader, told Nixon that no more than 15 senators were willing to even consider an acquittal. Facing impeachment by the House and near-certain conviction in the Senate, Nixon announced his resignation on the evening of Aug. 8, 1974, effective as of noon on the following day.

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u/armcie Sep 26 '19

Its worth noting that Nixon resigned, before he was impeached, but (from wiki):

Even with support diminished by the continuing series of revelations, Nixon hoped to fight the charges. But one of the new tapes, recorded soon after the break-in, demonstrated that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and had approved plans to thwart the investigation. In a statement accompanying the release of what became known as the "Smoking Gun Tape" on August 5, 1974, Nixon accepted blame for misleading the country about when he had been told of White House involvement, stating that he had had a lapse of memory.[229] Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, Senator Barry Goldwater, and House Minority Leader John Jacob Rhodes met with Nixon soon after. Rhodes told Nixon that he faced certain impeachment in the House. Scott and Goldwater told the president that he had, at most, only 15 votes in his favor in the Senate, far fewer than the 34 needed to avoid removal from office

So he misled the public. Something Trump seems to do several times a day.

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u/mlw72z Georgia Sep 27 '19

Nixon resigned before he was even impeached by the house of representatives or convicted by the senate. It was widely thought that he would be convicted had he not resigned. I think the line was crossed easier then because politicians on both sides of the aisle had more honor and dignity than those from today.

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u/nevertulsi Sep 26 '19

There was way more bipartisanship in those days.

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u/elephantphallus Georgia Sep 27 '19

The “smoking gun” tapes that proved he had ordered a cover-up of the Watergate crimes.

In trump's case that is probably every word-for-word transcript that was transferred to the standalone computer for state secrets.

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u/Santi76 Sep 27 '19

Republicans are going to need a clear direct statement on the phone call from Trump in order for them to vote to convict. As in Trump directly saying "Do X to my political opponent and you will get aid" We don't have that right now. It's unclear whether he was doing this or not from the phone transcript. You can plausibly read it either way. We have him bouncing around the edges of the line, but not convincing proof of him undeniably crossing it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 26 '19

The tapes

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u/mutemutiny Sep 27 '19

Yes, but don't forget, Nixon wasn't impeached. It basically got to the point where it was apparent that they would impeach him, and they wanted to spare EVERYONE from actually going through that - it was just better that he resign, and that's what happened. They sent a few guys to talk to Nixon and to tell him Dick, we're gonna impeach you if you don't resign. It's time - go quietly and Gerald will pardon you.

The thing is, Trump isn't the type that would resign or do what's best for party, so I don't know - maybe in that situation they'd just invoke the 25th amendment and say that he wasn't of sound mind or something. Regardless, the point is that there are other ways out of this that still end up with him leaving office, even without being convicted in the Senate.

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u/smarterthanawaffle Sep 26 '19

I don't think Nixon went that far in the process. I think he resigned first.

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u/thedrew Sep 26 '19

I mean, sort of.

Senator Goldwater told Nixon he had lost "almost all" of his support in the Senate. The next day, Nixon resigned.

There wasn't a public vote, but the Republican Caucus turning on its president is pretty clearly what marked the end of the Nixon Administration.

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u/smarterthanawaffle Sep 26 '19

then the question stands. What made the Republicans cross the aisle?

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u/AsperonThorn California Sep 26 '19

A couple of things.

  • There was a lot more Bipartisanship back then. There was no Tea Party, and there wasn't this thought that any compromise was bad.

  • There were tapes.

  • There was no Fox News. There was no 24 hour cable news network to control the narrative and drown out what was really going on. People read the paper, watched the hour of news each night, then processed it. The 24 hour news channels really take the thinking away from the citizen.

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u/VintageSin Virginia Sep 26 '19

He was a year into impeachment inquiries and the day before the vote he was notified by Republicans that they were also going to vote for impeachment. If Republicans in the house overwhelmingly vote for impeachment I'd assume the gang of 8 will come to him just like they did Nixon and flat out tell him he will have to stand trial in the senate.

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '19

Polling, Nixon cratered after the tapes were released, and Senate GOP members suddenly realized they didn’t want to lose their re-election because of a crook.

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u/mlw72z Georgia Sep 27 '19

I'm a bit late on this one but here's a perfect example of how things were different during the watergate hearings. In the following video, Republican counsel Fred Thompson of Tennessee was questioning a White House aid about the possible existence of recordings made in the White House. It was this moment that the country learned of the watergate tapes.

Getting to the truth was important. Notice how dignified the conversation was. Thompson later became a US Senator and ran for President during the 2008 election. He was also a well respected actor and starred in Die Hard 2, The Hunt for Red October, and Law & Order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQXopJ5U-Q

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u/jubjubbirdbird Sep 27 '19

Nixon was never impeached, let alone convicted.