Former independent counsel Ken Starr warned that the Founding Fathers would not have supported a “partisan” impeachment like the one he claims is unfolding against President Trump.
Starr noted that many of the founders, such as President James Madison, feared that a partisan impeachment would damage the country.
“[Partisan impeachment] is precisely what they did fear. In effect, we are doing that which Mr. Madison warned against,” Starr explained. “We talk about Hamilton in Federalist 65, and rightly so, but Mr. Madison warned against successfully on the floor that having grounds of impeachment that would include maladministration, I think that’s what this debate is really all about.”
“The framers were very, very concerned about the idea of a truly partisan impeachment as opposed to that which Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats have said in the past, we need to have something bordering on consensus,” he added.
Starr explained that it was evident that the framers wanted a bipartisan impeachment process because the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove the president from office.
As Starr noted, Pelosi has failed to get even one Republican to announce support for impeachment, and a few Democrats have broken from the party to oppose at least one of the two articles of impeachment.
Starr, 73, investigated President Bill Clinton leading up to Clinton’s impeachment. He has been a critic of the Democratic impeachment effort against Trump, though he has conceded he believes the president displayed “poor judgment” in his phone call with the Ukrainian president.
