impeachment Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

GOP Rep. files articles of impeachment against SDNY judge

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 23:19:04 +0000

Inset: U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer (U.S. Courts/YouTube). Background: Republican Candidate for President Donald Trump attends the Building America’s Future, Southeastern Pennsylvania Roundtable at the Drexelbrook Event Center on October 29, 2024, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (Matt Bishop/imageSPACE/Sipa USA via AP Images).

A Republican member of the House on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against a federal judge who recently barred DOGE staffers from accessing sensitive Treasury Department data.

Early on the morning of Feb. 8, Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued a temporary restraining order blocking such access and requiring all the relevant Elon Musk-aligned employees to “destroy” any copies of documents that were previously downloaded.

Reaction online was swift and fierce – with numerous allies of President Donald Trump calling for Engelmayer’s impeachment.

Now, those calls have been answered.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Republican from Wisconsin, filed House Resolution 143, which accuses the judge of “high crimes and misdemeanors” over the temporary restraining order. The bill was subsequently referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

“Paul Engelmayer, as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, engaged in judicial misconduct when he halted President Donald J. Trump’s Executive order establishing and implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency on purely political grounds, demonstrating clear bias and prejudice against the President and the 74,000,000 Americans who voted for him,’ the first article of the resolution reads.

Under a heading alleging “judicial misconduct and abuse of judicial authority,” the first article of impeachment takes direct stock of Engelmayer’s ruling and alleges that the temporary restraining order” demonstrates clear bias and prejudice against the President” and “willfully” disregards “established legal precedent.”

Van Orden also criticizes the judge for the speed with which the temporary restraining order was granted.

The resolution alleges Engelmayer acted “outside the bounds of judicial decency” by “submitting this injunction in the middle of the night” and says the timing “may have been done with the intent to influence the outcome of cases to favor certain parties.”

Temporal concerns, of course, did play a part in issuing the pre-injunction pause – but the judge did not mention the predawn nature of the ruling. The temporary restraining order was issued in response to a request for emergency relief from a 19-state coalition led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“The Court’s firm assessment is that, for the reasons stated by the States, they will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief,” the temporary restraining order reads. “That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.”

The second article of impeachment is quite a bit shorter, premised on the “abuse of judicial power,” and reads, in full:

Judge Paul Engelmayer has abused his judicial office by using his authority to further personal or political interests, contrary to the constitutional responsibility to apply the law impartially, including the improper handling of this case in a manner that demonstrates favoritism or undue influence, undermining the fundamental principles of justice.

The impeachment effort jumps the gun – in this case, a Sig Sauer P226 – on similar such articles promised last week by Rep. Eli Crane, an Arizona Republican. In a Wednesday afternoon post on X (formerly Twitter), Crane said he would file his resolution by Friday. Both Van Orden and Crane previously served as U.S. Navy SEALs.

The Trump administration, for their part, quickly implored the court to reconsider the restraining order – arguing that it appears to cover Senate-approved Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The next day, U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas – to whom the case was actually assigned – clarified the scope of the restraining order to make clear that it did not apply to “any Officer of the United States Department of the Treasury nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate.”

As of this writing, the impeachment bill has no cosponsors.

Source link

The post GOP Rep. files articles of impeachment against SDNY judge appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Taking ‘legal long shot,’ Trump’s lawyers point to impeachment judgment clause in immunity argument

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 12:53:58 +0000

Constitutional Law

Taking ‘legal long shot,’ Trump’s lawyers point to impeachment judgment clause in immunity argument

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 2, 2024, 2:16 pm CST

The Aug. 1, 2023, indictment against former President Donald Trump alleges that he spread lies that election fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election and he actually won. Trump knew that his claims were untrue, the indictment says. Photo by Jon Elswick/The Associated Press.

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are taking their immunity argument to a federal appeals court after the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 22 rejected a request by special counsel Jack Smith to grant certiorari before judgment to quickly decide the issue.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments in the case next week, the New York Times reports. At issue is whether Trump is immune from Smith’s election-interference prosecution because it is based on actions that Trump took while in office.

Part of the lawyers’ argument focuses on the impeachment judgment clause, which says impeached parties who are convicted in the U.S. Senate can still be criminally prosecuted, according to the New York Times.

The impeachment judgment clause reads: “Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States. But the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”

Trump was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

In a “legal long shot” argument, Trump’s lawyers contend that the clause “presupposes that a president who is not convicted may not be subject to criminal prosecution,” the New York Times says.

In a “slightly narrower but still audacious argument,” the lawyers argue that a president who is acquitted by the Senate can’t be prosecuted for the acquitted conduct, the New York Times reports.

Smith argued in his brief that the impeachment judgment clause constrains sanctions available to Congress but places no limits on post-impeachment criminal prosecution.

An acquittal in an impeachment trial isn’t necessarily based on a factual conclusion that the impeached party did not commit impeachment offenses, Smith said. He pointed to statements by at least 31 of the 43 senators who voted to acquit Trump that their vote was at least partly due to the fact that Trump was already out of office, and they didn’t think that there was jurisdiction for the trial.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C., had ruled against Trump on the immunity issue Dec. 1.

“Nothing in the impeachment judgment clause prevents criminal prosecution thereafter,” she wrote.

How Appealing linked to the brief for Trump and additional coverage, while the National Law Journal covered the Supreme Court’s rejection of Smith’s petition for certiorari before judgment.

“As 1 judge temporarily lifts Trump gag order, another says he’s ‘way beyond’ warning stage”

“Trump’s election-subversion co-conspirators included DOJ official, 4 other lawyers, indictment says”

Source link

The post Taking ‘legal long shot,’ Trump’s lawyers point to impeachment judgment clause in immunity argument appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.