It was the president's last year in office, but his rivals in Congress were determined to

force him out prematurely by impeaching him.

The president was, in the view of his critics, a racist, who had thwarted the will of Congress,

violating the law and his oath to uphold the Constitution.

He had disgraced the presidency, delivering in temperate and inflammatory remarks, and

loud threats against duly elected lawmakers.

No, we're not talking about Donald Trump here, but Andrew Johnson, the very first president to get impeached.

The story of that impeachment is told in a compelling new book, The Impicers, by Brenda Winaple,

that explains how radical Republicans appalled that Johnson's determined efforts to thwart the granting of civil rights

for newly freed African-Americans were determined to remove him and came within one vote of doing so.

In the traditional histories, Johnson's impeachment was legislative overreach, and the Senator who tipped the scale had been Ross was a hero,

earning him a whole chapter in then-Senator John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles and Courage.

But in Winaple's telling, Ross's vote to save Andrew Johnson, but in Winaple's telling, Ross's vote to save Andrew Johnson was anything but heroic.

He may well have been bribed, she writes, and Johnson's impeachment was a noble endeavor to write grievous wrongs and horrific abuses being inflicted on an oppressed minority.

We all lies in Washington this week on former special counsel Robert Mullers upcoming testimony,

and with as many as 80 Democrats now demanding that the House Judiciary Committee open up impeachment proceedings against Trump,

we'll look back at America's first impeachment on this episode of Buried Treasure.

Because people have got to know whether or not they're President of the crop, well I'm not a crop.

I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostage. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true,

but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

There will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth and nothing else.

We now have with us Brenda Winaple, the author of the impeachers, the trial of Andrew Johnson,

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