Good day citizens and welcome to this podcast edition of the Thomas Jefferson Hour.

Impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.

And Mason you probably are staying up too late and you don't need to hear all this anyway, right?

So the question is, what did the founding fathers intend by the impeachment clause of the Constitution.

I think it surprises some to know that it doesn't just involve presidents.

Other national officers can be impeached, and in Jefferson's administration, two were impeached and in Jefferson's administration two were impeached Judge John Pickering of

New Hampshire who was an alcoholic and insane by anyone's measure and then Justice

Samuel Chase of the Supreme Court who was a

ruffian and a browbeater and a bully and he was acquitted.

And both appointed by President Washington, correct?

That is correct.

Jefferson appointed three to the Supreme Court, they all wound up disappointing him in one

form or another, but what this programs really teach me is that we've had four impeachment

episodes with respect to the presidency, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, William Jefferson

Clinton, and now Donald Trump. Just four out of the 45 presidents and

Nixon was never impeached he was going to be and nobody has ever been

removed by the Senate. So it's a very, very rare thing and an incredibly high standard.

It takes two-thirds vote in the Senate.

That's 67 under our system now.

And getting 67 senators to agree on something of that gravity is essentially an impossibility.

But it should be, it should be that difficult and it shouldn't be as simple.

Well, it shouldn't be so simple well it shouldn't be so

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