Impeachment still a bad idea
February 14, 2001
“I think it’s time to move on,” President Bush said Tuesday of the congressional probes of Clinton’s last acts as president.He’s right. Clinton did quite a few questionable things during his last day in office — especially the pardon of Marc Rich and taking $28,000 in gifts meant for the White House and not his family.The Rich pardon is controversial because his wife, Denise Rich, has donated more than $1.3 million to the Clintons and other Democrats since 1993, causing some people to wonder if Marc Rich’s pardon was “bought.”Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., has even been talking about the possibility of holding another set of Clinton impeachment hearings. Specter said he wouldn’t be surprised if someone in the House raised the issue soon.Constitutional experts are divided on whether a president can technically be impeached upon leaving office.Enough already. A president’s pardon power is absolute — a controversial pardon hardly rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”Even if impeaching Clinton again is constitutionally possible, what’s the point? He’d only lose his pension and maybe some funds for his library foundation. His legacy is already scarred, and with all the controversy, Hillary’s presidential hopes are about as flat as her new hairdo.The best thing Republicans could do for Clinton’s legacy would be to impeach him again. A post-presidency impeachment would only validate the Clintons’ claims of a conspiracy against them and thoroughly confuse a public that thought impeachment No. 1 was overkill.Clinton’s pardon of Rich smells fishy, but there’s nothing anyone can realistically do about it, so let’s take our new president’s advice and get over it.editorialboard: Carrie Tett, Greg Jerrett, Katie Goldsmith, Andrea Hauser and Jocelyn Marcus