Read the impeachment summary assigned to your group and answer the following questions:
1. What impeachment charges were involved in this case?
2. What was the President's defense?
3. How does the case relate to executive privilege?
Johnson:
http://www.vw.vccs.eduvwhansd/HIS269/Documents/Impeachment.html
Clinton:
www.landmarkcases.org/nixon/defendant.html
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Teresa Konopka
*Sorry about the blog mix-up; here is my make-up work. I now know to come to G-Block’s blog if I do not find the assignment on the F-Block blog.
1. What impeachment charges were involved in these cases?
In the case against Johnson, the impeachment charge was that he violated the Tenure of Office Act. He did so by firing the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. Just one year before that, he had passed the Tenure of Office Act, prohibiting the president from removing and executive officer without the Senate’s approval (if the position was first confirmed by the Senate). As for Clinton, the impeachment charges were many. The main one was that he bombed Yugoslavia without the consent of the legislative. Hostility towards Clinton also arose when allegations about sexual misconduct with regards to Monica Lewinski and Paula Jones tarnished his name.
2. What was the Presidents’ defense?
For Johnson, he had little defense. It is even speculated that he went to various hearings in an inebriated state. As for the reason why he truly fired Stanton, it was because Stanton was a favorite of the Radical Republicans whom were spearheading he Reconstruction. Johnson did not favor them. As for Clinton, he tended to have attorneys defend him. For the case with Paula Jones, his attorneys claimed that the president was so busy with presidential duties that the trial had to be postponed. The judge did not go through with this suggestion.
3. How do the cases relate to executive privilege?
Both Jefferson’s and Clinton’s case relates to executive privilege. As a noun, executive privilege is solely the discretionary right claimed by the president to withhold information from Congress or the judiciary. In other words, as cases against presidents tend to result, presidents oftentimes stray from their true reasons for actions and instead spin scenarios in their favor or try to postpone reprimands.
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