THE DAMAGE DONE BY NOT REMOVING BILL:

This study touches on most of the specific charges directed against President Trump, but it does not answer the question of whether he should be impeached and removed from office. Instead, it is designed to serve as a primer on the purpose, history, and scope of the Constitution's impeachment provisions -- and a corrective to some of the popular myths that have grown up around the remedy.

First among those myths is the notion that impeachment is reserved solely for criminal abuses of office. Perversely, as the power of the office has grown, that misconception has ensured that the federal official with the greatest capacity to do harm now enjoys stronger job protection than virtually any other American.

But the remedy James Madison described as "indispensable ... for defending the community against the incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the Chief Magistrate" isn't limited to violations of the law or abuses of official power. As the 1974 House Judiciary Committee report on "Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment" put it, impeachment was "intended to reach a broad variety of conduct by officers that is both serious and incompatible with the duties of the office." "A good magistrate will not fear [impeachments]," Massachusetts' Elbridge Gerry insisted at the Constitutional Convention, and "a bad one ought to be kept in fear of them." Through the exercise of the "sole Power of Impeachment," the House can call even the most powerful federal officer to account. That power should never be invoked lightly, but neither should Americans fear to wield it, should it become necessary.

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