Does Mr. Lacovara believe that this is a dangerous abuse of the impeachment process?
Philip Lacovara: Any decision to impeach a president is fraught with risk . It certainly unsettles the government and unsettles our allies. It also increases the likelihood of another impeachment on marginal or limited justifications. But if a majority of the members of Congress believe that the President has engaged in conduct that seriously undermines his integrity and his fitness to lead the country, they have a constitutional responsibility to decide whether that justifies putting him on trial and allowing the Senate to decide whether he engaged in the conduct and whether he should be removed. sweetypiesue asks: Why are the representatives so willing to impeach him but not the Senate? Philip Lacovara: The breakdown in the House seems to be on party lines. And it has generally been the case that the House has been more partisan. This has been the rather continuous pattern since the early days of the Republic. The Andrew Johnson case, 130 years ago, illustrates what is likely to be t
