how to get rid of a president david priess

Through design or improvisation, presidents have been (or can be) ousted by voters, rejected by their own parties, removed in place by opponents or subordinates, dismissed preemptively, displaced by death, taken out by force, declared unable to serve, or impeached and removed. The overwhelming focus politicians, pundits, and scholars put on electing leaders needs to be balanced by attention to the odd mix of elegant and distasteful ways those leaders have left office.

Looking at how we’ve come to eject presidents across more than two centuries - using means from the partisan to the personal, the institutional to the ad hoc, the fair to the foul - shines a different light on the American political experience. In How to Get Rid of a President: History’s Guide to Removing Unpopular, Unable, or Unfit Chief Executives, he explores the Founding Fathers’ system to limit executive power - and how American citizens have resorted to darker paths to do the same. Priess says we have a lot to learn from history. I believed the time was right in 1974, and I believe the time is right once again. It was designed to protect our democracy and to preserve the rule of law. When the time is right, they meant for us to use the tool. But I see impeachment as the grand and solemn tool that our Founders gave us to address whether a president should be removed from office. Reining in presidential misconduct can be achieved other ways, they assert. In The Case for Impeaching Trump, Holtzman draws on her time as a member of the House Judiciary Committee during Richard Nixon’s presidency.įor some, impeachment is something toxic to be avoided at all costs. Elizabeth Holtzman, D-NY, and former CIA officer David Priess have released their contributions to the genre. (The two went head-to-head on our show earlier this year.)

The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump by Ron Fein, John Bonifaz, and Ben Clements.Īllan Lichtman’s The Case For Impeachment, followed by Alan Dershowitz’s The Case Against Impeaching Trump. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz’s To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment. This is the year of the impeachment book.

How to get rid of a president david priess