Impeached Former Judge Alcee Hastings Calls for Trump’s Impeachment

Democrat Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), one of only eight federal judges in American history to have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office, joined the list of Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday calling for the impeachment of President Trump.

Hastings joined more than 200 of his Democrat House colleagues who have called for the impeachment of the president, tweeting:

My statement following the emergence of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump and his efforts to block Congress from reviewing the complaint: pic.twitter.com/k74UCtjQ8G

— Alcee L. Hastings (@RepHastingsFL) September 24, 2019

“President Trump’s disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution have reached new heights with the latest reports that he encouraged the leader of a foreign country to pursue investigations concerning Vice President Joe Biden, a possible political opponent in the 2020 election,” Hastings said in the accompanying statement released by his office.
Hastings continued in his statement:

We know that the inspector general for the intelligence community notified Congress of a “credible” and “urgent” whistleblower complaint related to President Trump’s phone conversation with this foreign leader. We also know that President Trump and his Acting Director of National Intelligence continue to unlawfully resist Congress’ requests to review the whistleblower’s complaint.

“This continued insistence on undermining our democracy must be met with the full force and strength possessed by the United States Congress as set forth by our founding fathers in the Constitution, up to and including, Articles of Impeachment,” Hastings concluded.

Hastings had previously not gone so far as to call for impeachment, but his statement Tuesday emphasized that the president’s “undermining our democracy must be met with the full force and strength” of Congress “up to and including, Articles of Impeachment.”

Hastings did not stop his statement with the words “up to” Articles of Impeachment, but he expanded Congressional action to include Articles of Impeachment.

In his statement, Hastings did not specify the specific constitutional grounds for impeachment of the president.

As Breitbart News reported this month, “Democrat Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) is one of only eight federal judges in American history who have been impeached by the House of Representatives, convicted by the U.S. Senate, and removed from office”:

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution clearly specifies the grounds by which a President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United State” (a category that includes federal judges) can be impeached and convicted:

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Members of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate readily concluded that Hastings’ conduct met these standards for conviction and removal from office, as The Washington Post reported on October 21, 1989:

U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings was convicted by the Senate yesterday of engaging in a “corrupt conspiracy” to extort a $150,000 bribe in a case before him, marking the first time a federal official has been impeached and removed from office for a crime he had been acquitted of by a jury.

In a solemn and tense session, the Senate voted 69 to 26 — five votes more than needed for conviction — to find Hastings guilty of the major charge against him and strip the 53-year-old jurist of his lifetime, $89,500-a-year position. . .

Four senators did not vote yesterday because they were members of the House when it voted 413 to 3 in August 1988 to impeach Hastings. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) was not present. Under the Constitution, conviction required the votes of two-thirds of the senators present, or at least 64 in this case.

Hastings was indicted on the bribery charges in 1981, but acquitted by a jury in 1983, as the United States Senate website explains:

In 1981, a federal grand jury indicted Judge Alcee L. Hastings, appointed to the federal district court in 1979, along with his friend William A. Borders, a Washington, D.C. lawyer. Hastings was charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice for soliciting a $150,000 bribe in return for reducing the sentences of two mob-connected felons convicted in Hastings’ court. A year after Borders was convicted of conspiracy, the result of an FBI sting effort, Hastings’s case came before the criminal court. Despite Borders’ conviction, and the fact that Hastings had indeed reduced the sentences of the two felons, he was acquitted in a criminal court in 1983 and returned to his judicial post.

Subsequently, suspicions arose that Hastings had lied and falsified evidence during the trial in order to obtain an acquittal. A special committee of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals began a new probe into the Hastings case. The resulting three-year investigation ended with the panel concluding that Hastings did indeed commit perjury, tamper with evidence, and conspire to gain financially by accepting bribes. The panel recommended further action to the U.S. Judicial Conference, which, in turn, informed the House of Representatives on March 17, 1987, that Judge Alcee Hastings should be impeached and removed from office.

On August 3, 1988, following an investigation by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, the House of Representatives voted 413 to 3 to adopt H. Res. 499, approving 17 articles of impeachment against Hastings, the greatest number of articles in any impeachment proceeding to date. Charges included conspiracy, bribery, perjury, falsifying documents, thwarting a criminal investigation, and undermining the public confidence “in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” The Senate received the articles on August 9, 1988

But Hastings was not done with public life, as Breitbart News reported:

Just three years after his impeachment, conviction, and removal from the federal bench, Hastings was elected in November 1992 as a Democrat to represent Florida’s 23rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has subsequently been re-elected to 13 additional terms. Due to redistricting, he now represents Florida’s 20th Congressional District.

According to a report published by CNN, as of Thursday morning, Hastings is now 1 of 218 Democrat members of the House of Representatives and 1 independent member who is publicly supporting impeachment of President Trump.

Wednesday night, as Breitbart News highlighted:

Every single member of the Democrat conference in the House of Representatives who voted on Wednesday went on the record backing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s extraordinary move earlier this week to open an impeachment inquiry via press conference, effectively confirming it is the sense of all 231 of them who voted with Pelosi that they intend to support impeaching President Donald Trump.

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives may impeach the president by a majority vote on the House floor, which is 218 out of the 435 members of that lower body of our legislative branch. The Senate would then try the president. Conviction and removal from office require a two-thirds vote.