A former George W. Bush administration official has warned that Barack Obama may face impeachment over the latest allegations to emerge from Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation.
Bush’s former speechwriter David Frum has put Obama on notice, saying the ex-POTUS could face being impeached when Republicans take back the House after the midterms.
In a Friday court filing, Durham made an extraordinary claim that tech companies doing work maintaining the DNS system (The Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet’s system for mapping alphabetic names to numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses like a phone book maps a person’s name to a phone number.
According to Durham, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign paid the tech company to illegally spy on President Donald Trump’s servers.
As part of an effort to try and find dirt on Trump, Durham’s filing alleges the Trump Tower servers were monitored before the election and the White House servers were monitored after Trump was sworn into office.
The Left argues that this is not a big deal, just part of the job to maintain the system.
However, Durham goes out of his way to say the tech executive exploited his access to try to find dirt on Trump – while he was the sitting President of the United States.
“It’s a very good bet than *an* impeachment is coming if GOP wins the House,” David Frum warned.
“But whom? In 2021, some legal experts argued that a former president can be impeached.
“At the time, most GOPers rejected this theory.
“If they win the House, they may rediscover it and go after former President Obama on some theory based on some of the allegations rolled out by John Durham.
“An Obama impeachment would be much more exciting to GOP small-donor base – and much more lucrative to the large industry that fundraises from that base.”
He reposted a statement from Don Trump Jr with the caption:
“See what I mean? Impeaching ‘Sleepy Joe’ in 2023 wouldn’t fire up the pro-Trump neurotransmitters – or open pro-Trump wallets – in the way that a retrospective attack on Obama would.”
It’s a very good bet than *an* impeachment is coming if GOP wins the House. But whom? In 2021, some legal experts areud that a former president can be impeached. At the time, most GOPers rejected this theory. If they win the House, they may rediscover it – https://t.co/HW9Mbixbqq
— David Frum (@davidfrum) February 13, 2022
– and go after former President Obama on some theory based on some of the allegations rolled out by John Durham. An Obama impeachment would be much more exciting to GOP small-donor base – and much more lucrative to the large industry that fundraises from that base.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) February 13, 2022
See what I mean? Impeaching “Sleepy Joe” in 2023 wouldn’t fire up the pro-Trump neurotransmitters – or open pro-Trump wallets – in the way that a retrospective attack on Obama would …. pic.twitter.com/ClEA4aQpxq
— David Frum (@davidfrum) February 13, 2022
Frum linked to an article that said:
“The Constitution gives the House the “sole Power of Impeachment.”
It gives the Senate the “sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
The House cannot prosecute its impeachment before some other, more friendly body than the Senate, and the Senate cannot initiate its own impeachment process.
“The Constitution does not specify the scope of the impeachment power, except to delineate the types of charges that can be the basis for an impeachment, limit the types of punishments the Senate can impose on the convicted, and direct that certain officers “shall be removed from office” upon impeachment and conviction.
“So it seems important to know what this ‘power of impeachment’ is that has been vested in the House. The founders borrowed this power from British parliamentary practice and state constitutional practice, which does not suggest that the ‘power of impeachment’ was intrinsically limited to incumbent officers.
“Quite the contrary, in fact: British practice indicates that the ‘power of impeachment’ is the power to lodge formal allegations that an individual engaged in misconduct while holding a governmental office. Impeachments of former officers were both known and explicitly textually allowed. The framers did not discuss the matter one way or another, but they could easily have understood that the ‘power of impeachment’ implicitly includes a jurisdiction over former officials.
“The text is at best vague and at worst includes former officers. And if the House can impeach them, then the Senate can try them, because the Senate has the power ‘to try all impeachments’.”
