the entire constitutional structure. if the president abuses his power, congress has to check the president s actions. it s the only branch with that authority and responsibility, and that s what the impeachment process is fundamentally for. and the constitution will fail. in other words, for feldman, democracy may depend on impeaching the president. for others, it is congress that is overreaching. this is un-american. to understand today s crisis, we need to go back to the last time america debated these issues. we now think of watergate as a time when america came together and forced a crooked president out of office. but to richard nixon and the republican party, the watergate scandal was a partisan war. it was a five-front war with a fifth column. i had a partisan senate committee staff, special
rejecting congress s ability to hold him accountable at all. the rule of law has been built over centuries but it s based on a bluff. the bluff is that at the highest level everyone will respect the rules even though it might not always be possible to enforce compliance. the rule at the heart of the u.s. system is the separation of powers. they ensured that power was shared and that each branch would act as a check on the other. the crucial feature for james madison t chief architect of the constitution was giving to those that administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. as he explained in federalist
president trump refusing to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. they shouldn t be having impeachment inquiries. this is a hoax. donald trump is refusing to comply with the impeachment inquiry in the house of representatives. nancy pelosi, she hands out subpoenas like they re cookies. you want a subpoena? here you go, take them like they re cookies. the president is obstructing congress from getting the facts that we need. how do you impeach somebody that s doing a great job? harvard law professor noah feldman says the president s defiance has plunged this country into a constitutional crisis. when congress is trying to investigate, it must have cooperation from the other branches of government. when the president says, no, i won t participate, the whole
president clinton was thrilled, thinking he was in the clear. on capitol hill, tom delay is known as the hammer. but hard core conservatives led by house majority whip tom delay were hellbent on impeaching him anyway. article 1 is adopted. we have witnesses history. the house impeached bill clinton almost entirely along party lines. the president resigned that his legacy will be forever scarred today. on this article of impeachment in the senate, he was easily acquitted. william jefferson clinton is not guilty. in retrospect, the 1998-99 effort to impeach and remove clinton is viewed as a partisan endeavor because the american people spoke in the midterms in 1998 and said, we don t really want to impeach this president. after the senate trial, congress took the law that created ken starr s job and let it die. no, i m not going to comment. a bipartisan acknowledgement
as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. vowed to wrap up his investigation quickly. would you guys get down! but he was replaced, and his successor, ken starr, was far more aggressive. our job is to gather facts and to get at the truth. expanding the inquiry way beyond whitewater. which is how is this whitewater? the investigation kind of leads in all these different directions. this is truly a wildly historic night. i mean this is just no one could have been happier with starr s aggressive approach than newt gingrich and the republicans. there s been a sea change in american politics. we re winning, we re winning. they had swept into congress in 1994. this is an earthquake. preaching a new gospel of strict, orthodox conservatism. newt gingrich reshapes the republican party. our base wants this, we do this. we do not compromise with democrats.