Richard Nixon's second impeachment article

Articles of Impeachment were adopted by House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974, almost forty years ago.

President Nixon resigned about a week later, and Vice-President Gerald Ford became the new President.



The following text was copied from the website Watergate.info.

The link in the last paragraph is on the original web page.

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.

This conduct has included one or more of the following:

1. He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.


2. He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance.


3. He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial.


4. He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning the unlawful entry into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and the cover-up thereof, and concerning other unlawful activities including those relating to the confirmation of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General of the United States, the electronic surveillance of private citizens, the break-in into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, and the campaign financing practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President.


5. In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

Adopted 28-10 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

In other words, President Nixon abused the power that was given to him as the President by the U.S. Constitution.

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The rest of this page was added on October 29, 2018.

President Obama also abused the power that was given to him by the Constitution.

These are the first five paragraphs of an October 26, 2017 Reuters story.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has reached a settlement with dozens of conservative groups that claimed the Internal Revenue Service unfairly scrutinized them based on their political leanings when they sought a tax-exempt status, court documents showed.

In a pair of lawsuits filed in federal court in 2013, the conservative groups accused the IRS of targeting organizations with such words as “Tea Party” or “patriots” when they applied to the agency for tax-exempt status starting in 2010.

The sides asked the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday to issue a declarative judgment in one of the cases involving 41 plaintiffs that would say the IRS was wrong to apply the United States tax laws based on an entity’s name, position or association with a particular political movement.

“We hope that today’s settlement makes clear that this abuse of power will not be tolerated,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement on Thursday.

The IRS admitted it was wrong when it based screenings of the groups’ applications on their names or policy positions, subjected the groups to heightened scrutiny and delays and demanded unnecessary information from the groups, the agreement in the Washington case said.

This is a similar story, published October 27, 2017 by National Public Radio.

In 1974, and in accordance with the procedure that is in the U.S. Constitution, the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve three Articles of Impeachment for President Richard Nixon.  He resigned before the full House of Representatives could vote whether to impeach him on the three impeachment articles that the Judiciary Committee had decided to approve for him.

This is a copy-and-paste of the first paragraph of this Article of Impeachment, written by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 and approved by them.

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

This is part of the previous paragraph.

"... and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner."

B. Hussein Obama should have been impeached for doing exactly what Richard Nixon did.