Trump and High Misdemeanors

Impeach the motherfucker

As you probably know, the Constitution says that a president can be impeached and removed for “high crimes and misdemeanors”. The high crimes part seems pretty straightforward; those are things like treason, bribery, staging an insurrection, or blackmailing a foreign leader to smear your electoral opponent. But what’s a high misdemeanor?

I’m not a Constitutional expert, but I feel like Trump has helpfully given us some examples of impeachable high misdemeanors this week.

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First, at the beginning of the week, a reporter asked Trump about the Epstein files. He pointed at her and sneered, “Quiet piggy!”

Not satisfied with that exercise in gutter bullying, Trump topped himself yesterday. A group of Congresspeople with military and intelligence backgrounds filmed a statement reminding military servicepople that they had an obligation not to obey illegal orders. In response, Trump blithered out a five word post, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”

Trump’s attack on the reporter was clearly not a crime; rude misogynist bullying is vile and ugly, and it might be grounds for a workplace harassment suit in a workplace environment, but it’s not a felony offense. The statement that Congresspeople have committed sedition punishable by death is a dicier case; threatening public officials is a felony. Trump is accusing these Democrats of a crime and saying that the penalty for that is death; if he was just some random asshole, he might be able to argue that this is not a true threat or that he was arguing for a legal process rather than vigilante violence (though worth pointing out that IANAL.)

Of course, Trump is not a random asshole; he is the asshole in chief. As such, he has much greater power and influence than most of us. When he says someone should be executed, there are a lot of diehard MAGA loyalists with guns who will hear that as marching orders. For that matter, when he points at a reporter and suggests she should be demeaned and punished, there are a lot of diehard MAGA loyalist with guns who will hear that as marching orders—and perhaps bosses and professional contacts who will worry that she will be targeted, and who will therefore disavow her. Presidents wield great influence; they can casually ruin someone’s life.

And this is what I think is the essence of the idea of “high misdemeanors.” Presidents are capable of abuses of power which are not crimes in part because no one else has that kind of power to abuse. Misusing that power—insulting reporters in a way that models contempt for the first amendment, targeting partisan opponents for wink wink death threats as a way to silence them, temporarily or permanently—aren’t exactly what you’d think of as “high crimes”, since they don’t have the gravitas, or the criminal penalties, of treason or bribery. They’re petty—but petty actions by the most powerful person in the country, or the world, can have ugly consequences. They can destroy democracy. They can destroy lives.

Which is why the founders said that you could be impeached not just for high crimes, but for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” A president can be impeached for committing crimes, but he can also be impeached for disgracing and misusing the power of his office. Thus Andrew Johnson was impeached for making speeches “with a loud voice, certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues” intended to smear and debase Congress. Which sure seems like a precedent.