But the REAL question is: Can Senator Arlen ("NOT PROVEN!!") Specter be committed to an asylum while still in office?
From Drudge:
<<SENATOR STUNS WASHINGTON: WE COULD IMPEACH HIM AGAIN!
Sun Feb 11 2001 15:55:34 ET
WASHINGTON -- [AFP] -- A veteran US Republican senator suggested Sunday former president Bill Clinton could be impeached again in connection with a series of pardons and sentence commutations he issued at the end of his term, including the controversial pardon of billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich.
"This may surprise a lot of people and I'm not suggesting that it should be done, but president Clinton technically could still be impeached," said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, in an interview with Fox television.
Specter, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is looking into 140 pardons and 36 sentence commutations issued by Clinton at the eleventh hour of his presidency and is expected to hold a hearing on the matter on Wednesday.
The loudest outcry was caused by Clinton's pardon of Rich, who fled the United States for Switzerland in 1983 faced with charges he failed to pay more than 48 million dollars in taxes.
Rich was also charged with buying more than 200 million dollars worth of oil from Iran, a violation of a US trade embargo, at the very moment Tehran was holding Americans hostage.
"A president may be impeached for the emoluments of office such as the substantial sums being spent on the library, such as the bodyguards, such as pension," said Specter.
The senator said the option was brought up to him by a former legal counsel to former president Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon soon after the latter's ignominious 1974 resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Specter said that while he was not officially proposing to launch new impeachment proceedings against Clinton, "somebody in the House of Representatives may do that tomorrow."
Clinton was already impeached by the House in 1998 on perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. He was acquitted by the US Senate in early 1999.
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TRANSCRIPT FROM FOX NEWS SUNDAY:
[FOX's Tony Snow, Brit Hume and Sen. Arlen Specter [R-PA]
SNOW: So, Senator, let's suppose it's a breach of trust. Let's suppose that people find out that the Rich pardon was conducted under auspices they don't like. What on earth can Congress do about it?
SPECTER: Well, in our investigation we found a very interesting point that I hadn't known about in talking to the counsel who represented President Ford in the pardon of President Nixon. And this may surprise a lot of people, and I'm not suggesting that it should be done, but President Clinton technically could still be impeached. And you say how can that happen, he's out of office? Because a president may be impeached for the emoluments of office, such as the substantial sums being spent on the library, such as the bodyguards, such as his pension.
President Clinton avoided a conviction on impeachment the last time around because he had not lost the confidence of the American people, and we didn't want to shake up the government, but he's not in office anymore.
HUME: Are you planning to propose that he be impeached?
SPECTER: No, I'm not suggesting it, but Brit, wait and see. Somebody in the House of Representatives may do that tomorrow. That's their job to talk about articles of impeachment.
HUME: Do you have someone in mind or are you just speculating?
SPECTER: Well, no, I don't have anybody in mind. But I was surprised to find that you could impeach a president after he was out of office. And some people have suggested that you don't need a constitutional amendment because you could always impeach a president, and when it's done in the last days, a lot of responses were, ``Well, you can't impeach the president, he's out of office.'' So that when counsel to President Ford told me that impeachment is still possible, I don't think that trial would take too long.
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