What constitutional clauses did each set of impeachment articles invoke and how were they framed?
Executive summary
Two recent sets of House impeachment articles (H.Res.353 and H.Res.415) invoke the Constitution’s impeachment architecture: the House’s “sole Power of Impeachment” in Article I and the removal standard in Article II, Section 4 (“Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”), while framing specific charges against the President as violations of distinct constitutional clauses — e.g., alleged usurpation of the Appropriations Clause and abuses of Article I powers [1] [2]. The government’s basic procedural authorities over impeachment — House initiation and Senate trial — are rooted in Article I and Article II and are summarized in multiple official commentaries [3] [4] [5].
1. Constitutional scaffolding invoked: House power, Senate trial, and removal standard
Both resolution texts anchor their authority in the Constitution’s impeachment provisions. They cite Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 to establish the House’s “sole Power of Impeachment” and Article I’s rules assigning the Senate the trial role, and they repeatedly invoke Article II, Section 4’s removal standard — “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” — as the constitutional threshold for conviction and removal [1] [3] [5].
2. How the articles translate constitutional text into discrete counts
H.Res.353 organizes its accusations into labeled articles such as “Obstruction of Justice, Violation of Due Process, and a Breach of the Duty to Faithfully Execute Laws,” “Usurpation of the Appropriations Power,” and “Abuse of Trade Powers and International Aggression,” and ties each to constitutional provisions — for example, the Appropriations Clause in Article I, Section 9 — to argue those actions amount to impeachable “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” [1]. H.Res.415 likewise frames a broader charge of unfitness and alleged attacks on separation-of-powers norms, tying specific conduct to constitutional commitments like the Due Process Clause [2].
3. Legal theory in play: “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as a capacious standard
Both resolutions rest on the familiar congressional view that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not limited to statutory indictable crimes but can encompass serious abuses of constitutional duty and trust. That interpretive posture echoes historical and scholarly readings cited in congressional and research materials, which note the Framers left the phrase deliberately broad and that practice over time has “liquidated” its meaning through political and institutional judgment [6] [7].
4. Clause-by-clause examples — what the texts specifically invoke
- Appropriations Clause: H.Res.353 charges “Usurpation of the Appropriations Power” and cites Article I, Section 9 and related appropriations text to allege constitutional violation by executive control over funds [1].
- Vesting and Speech/ Debate / First Amendment connections: The obstruction and threats to members of Congress in H.Res.353 are framed as attacks on the legislative branch’s independence, invoking the Article I Vesting Clause and the Speech or Debate Clause plus free-speech principles in support of an impeachment theory [1].
- Due Process and separation-of-powers: H.Res.415 explicitly accuses violations of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause and alleges undermining of judicial independence — framed as constitutional harms supporting impeachment [2].
5. Competing perspectives and institutional limits
Congressional sources and constitutional commentators underscore competing views: some Members frame improprieties as impeachable abuses of office, while others argue the Constitution’s removal standard should track traditional criminality or a narrower conception of “high Crimes.” The Constitution Annotated and CRS materials emphasize that the Framers’ text is sparse and that Congress has historically defined the contours through practice — meaning political judgment and precedent matter as much as clause-text [3] [8] [6].
6. What the public materials do not settle
Available sources do not provide a definitive, text-only rule for when a particular clause violation becomes an impeachable “high Crime”; instead, they show Congress relies on a mix of clause citation and political judgment to frame articles [6] [7]. The resolutions cite constitutional clauses to ground allegations, but the ultimate legal question — whether those clause-linked acts meet impeachment’s constitutional standard — is resolved politically by the House and Senate, not by a court according to the sources provided [3] [8].
7. Why clause selection matters in practice
Framing particular articles around specific constitutional clauses performs two functions: it supplies a legal vocabulary that anchors political charges (e.g., Appropriations Clause or Due Process) and it signals to Senators and the public a plausible constitutional rationale for removal. Congress’s own commentary and historical analyses show that invoking clauses like Article I appropriations provisions or Article II duties is a standard method to translate conduct into impeachable allegations [1] [6].
Limitations: this analysis uses only the provided congressional texts and interpretive guides. It does not evaluate evidence underlying the allegations nor report subsequent House or Senate actions beyond the cited documents [1] [2] [3].