Impeaching Cabinet Secretaries

Daily Kos Staff

Sunday July 29, 2007 · 10:05 AM PDT

2007/07/29 · 10:05

Following on the New York Times editorial calling for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales if a special prosecutor isn't appointed, Josh Marshall takes the historical view of impeachments of Cabinet members. Turns out, it's only happened once: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, impeached after his resignation.

So this means that in almost 220 years of history under the constitution, the impeachment power has never been used to remove a cabinet secretary from office. Not once. And that's really saying something. But the reason isn't that hard to figure given the structure of our government. The normal course when a cabinet secretary has been implicated in grave wrongdoing or has lost the confidence of the overwhelming number of senators (which I think he clearly has, though partisan loyalty has kept many Republicans from saying it) is for him or her to resign. And if they won't see fit to resign the president fires them since if nothing else the person can't fulfill the responsibilities of office under those debilitating circumstances.

But then there is the big 'unless'.

Unless the president is party to the wrongdoing that placed the cabinet secretary in jeopardy. And that is clearly the case we have here, which explains the historical anomaly that the possibility of Gonzales' impeachment is even a topic of serious conversation.

Bush is always saying he doesn't care how much his constituents hate him, because all he cares about is how history will judge him. And he does seem determined to give history ample opportunity to do that, by putting himself in contention for a downright historical number of measures of bad presidents.

Impeaching Cabinet Secretaries

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