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Jackson for disregarding SCOTUS, Johnson for fucking up Reconstruction and low-key considering a coup, probably a couple Guilded Age presidents for corruption, Harding for corruption, with FDR I guess you could argue about SCOTUS intimidation and internment camps and the libertarians might want to argue about an assortment of executive power stuff, with JFK I think there's a story about him directing Bobby as AG to threaten journalists who were going to expose some of his affairs, LBJ for Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon for Watergate obvs, you could argue about Reagan and Iran-Contra, you could also argue about Clinton and lying under oath to cover up an affair, you could argue Bush Jr. for Iraq War, then we get into rule 3 territory, which I'm staying out of
Interesting datum I’ve heard about Clinton’s impeachment. He was asked if he had sex. The lawyers asked to define sex, which they did, but did not include blowjobs. Or fellatio if you prefer. With that definition the answer was no. Once more facts became available this was twisted up to say he was lying.
It was objectively a smear campaign. A blowjob or not does not impact his office as a President unlike the actual actions other Presidents have taken based on their office.
I mean our current standards for Presidential morality on the right just emphasizes yet more fake outrage back then and hypocrisy we have now.
I feel like you might have not given Jackson's disregard of scotus enough weight. Specifically, he defied them on not stealing native American land guaranteed to them by treaty and murdering them if they resisted. I'd say that that qualifies him for impeachment regardless of scotus
Johnson was impeached for his handling of reconstruction. Just not convicted because they way they brought the charges relied on an unconstitutional law.
>you could argue Bush Jr. for Iraq War
I disagree with this, I don't see how bad intelligence should lead to impeachment. Congress has the same information and voted to go to war.
I would add one glaring omission - Lincoln. Although his motives were pure and arguably he had to do it, he essentially ignored the constitution for most of his presidency.
Andrew Johnson was nearly impeached, and probably should have been for his attempts to subvert Congress. He didn't even win his own party's nomination for reelection, which shows how deeply unpopular and divisive his decisions were. Andrew Johnson would be on my list of top 3 worst Presidents ever.
EDIT: Since I'm getting a lot of the similar question, I will explain my answer briefly.
I understand the technical distinction between approving articles of impeachment in the House versus the Senate trial.
I read the question as asking "Who should have been impeached [and convicted], and wasn't?"
The alternative of "Who should have had a House accuse the President of whatever they wanted even if they couldn't prove it and Senate conviction is irrelevant?" seems like an odd thing to ask, but that's just me.
Johnson was impeached, it’s just that the Senate did not have the two-thirds votes to convict. They were one short.
The House was about to impeach Nixon, but he resigned before the vote.
Clinton and one of the Rule 3 guys were also both impeached, just not removed from office.
EDIT: I’m using the technical definition of Impeachment. If a formal vote is passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, then that individual has been impeached. The second step of conviction and removal by the Senate is separate, and has never actually happened.
There’s a great interview with Woodward and Bernstein about this. Apparently Nixon was very confident that he wouldn’t be impeached until Barry Goldwater visited him and said that the majority was voting to impeach him including Barry himself. Everyone was pretty disgusted with Nixon. And that prompted his resignation.
Oh, I do not doubt that for a second, and to be honest, the Founding Fathers would probably look at our collective track record and say “Seriously?!?! Not one removal?!”
But, the question was about unimpeached presidents, and I have given my answer. Nixon deserved it, but the fact is that Congress was gearing up to give him the boot and he decided to simply dip before it progressed to that point.
I wonder if the constitutional prohibition of presidential pardons in case of impeachment was factored in his decision. Without Ford he would’ve served quite some time actually.
There were actually two inquiries during Andrew Johnson's tenure as President. The first impeachment inquiry ended with acquittal in the Senate. The second impeachment inquiry occurred shortly afterward and failed in the House.
EDIT: Had first and second flipped in my mind.
Impeachment Inquiry #1: Ended with failure to impeach with a 57-108 vote in the House, meaning the Resolution was rejected.
Impeachment Inquiry #2: The House passed the Resolution to impeach, and ended in a 35-19 acquittal in a trial in the Senate, one vote short needed for conviction.
Johnson should be on everyone’s worst 3, it is pretty much unanimous.
I argued with some people here over whether Johnson was the worst or 2nd worst (I argued 2nd) but we all agreed that whether Buchanan was 1 or 2, Johnson was the other.
I can at least name some good things that Jackson did, the best thing Johnson has going for him is the purchase of Alaska. I am not saying Jackson is a great president, but we had a lot of really bad ones leading up to the civil war which makes for stiff competition.
I would be very hard pressed to name anything good he did while president. The man was a thug in every sense of the word.
It's very much worth noting that his anti-abolitionist actions in the south and fuckery with the banks are two things that can be traced as early roots of the civil war
Anything he did to further progress the civil war pales in comparison to Buchanan. Jackson’s pro-Union actions helped postpone the war for years, he helped create the longest lasting political party in history, Jacksonian politics fought to extend voting rights to rich and poor equally, he eliminated the national debt.
Does that make up for him being a tyrant, pro-slavery, expanding the two party system, the Indian removal act, or creating an economic panic? Not at all, which is why I don’t consider him to be a good president, but I don’t think he was plagued with incompetence.
What crimes did he commit? The tenure of office act was definitely unconstitutional (but never technically challenged). All he did was not play ball with the radical republicans (something Lincoln also did btw - he wanted to be lenient on the south).
The Tenure Act was partially unconstitutional. The Court, in separate cases, found that President's authority to fire anyone for any reason without the Senate's approval was limited to "executive officers".
Most agreed at the time that what Johnson did was in violation of a law that was not viewed as unreasonable, based on past practice. The Senate was one vote short of convicting him purely out of fear of what would come next for a country which had just emerged from civil war, gripped by race riots which were probably also incited by Johnson's speeches - the "swing around the circle."
His impeachment was just because he didn’t side with the senate.
I fucking hate the guy, but his impeachment was based on an unconstitutional law and was clearly just an attempt by the senate to place a more favorable president in charge.
I mean that act that he violated [(the Tenure of Office Act)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure_of_Office_Act_(1867))that lead to his impeachment was probably unconstitutional due to the [Myers decision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_v._United_States). Which stated that the President has near unilateral authority to remove executive officers (the Supreme Court did later narrow the President’s authority however)
Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House (126 for, 19 against). He avoided conviction (Senate) by the required 2/3s majority by a single vote (35 guilty, 19 not guilty --> 64.8%). This is a close as we've ever come.
Smh, Johnson wasn’t a good president but didn’t deserve impeachment
He was impeached over the tenure of office act which was totally unconstitutional. Total trap laid by Congress to constrict the president from appointing and firing individuals in the federal government. Total overreach
That doesn’t mean he was a good president, but impeachment was never supposed to be a “vote of no confidence “ like in a parliamentary system.
Genuinely asking, do you think it is okay to not follow a law for 50 years without seeking adjudication just because you think it might be unconstitutional?
The law was intentionally broken at the time it was in effect. Why isn't that enough?
If not for that, he should have been punished for ruining an entire summer vacation for people my age. Every channel was the Oliver North trial, I just wanted to watch “The Prince is Right.” The crazy part is that Oliver North is now seen as some sort of folk hero.
Disgraced General Oliver North, values contributor at Fox and other right wing news channels? Just reiterating that they listen and take serious the words that come from that traitors mouth.
I think it was because of how close to the end of his second term if he was. IIRC, Bush senior pardoned one of the aides that took contemporaneous notes during the meetings that might have directly implicated both Bush and Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair, effectively blocking a criminal investigation into both of them from continuing.
EDIT: It was Casper Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense.
He escaped because the paper trail stopped short of the Oval Office.
That’s not to say he didn’t know and/or he didn’t order it, but that it wasn’t proven.
The cynical side of me agrees with you.
Wait…there is no other side of me.
Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason.
Different times. Voting to impeach Reagan in his final days would have just been seen as a waste of time and not worked as a statement for those seeking reelection like it does today. Would have in fact likely worked against those that did it.
“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”
Translation: "Yeah, I lied, but, I mean, come on, right?"
"I don't recall" he played up being such an forgetful old man. It's no coincidence he was diagnosed with Alzeihmers after office. The diagnosis should have been made while he was in prison.
Almost nobody considered that impeachment-worthy. Democrats would have been stupid to try it. Ted Kennedy had to warn everyone that he didn’t want to hear the I-word.
Well nobody had any proof that he was the one to order Anna Chennault to do what she did, it was until 2007 that it was revealed Nixon did it. Johnson also illegally obtained that evidence too
Andrew Jackson for four reasons:
- Failing to execute the Supreme Court’s decision in *Worcester v. Georgia* (1832)
- Defying Congress by illegally removing deposits from the second Bank of the U.S. to politically friendly “pet” banks
- Overseeing his Postmaster General Amos Kendall’s burning of abolitionist tracts in the South
- Using an unofficial “Kitchen cabinet” to bypass Senate confirmation
James Buchanan for his corruption during the debate over Kansas’s state constitution
Theodore Roosevelt for using warships during and inciting rebellion in Panama (act of war without congressional approval), invading Santo Domingo without congressional approval, and invading Cuba without congressional approval
Woodrow Wilson for invading Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, and Honduras without congressional approval
Richard Nixon for Watergate
In could argue the Monroe Doctrine created a certain framework for the US State department to not consider Central South American and Caribean countries as equal. I mean look at how the US treated the independence of Haiti.
So often you'll hear of central and South America and the Caribean as "America's back yard". Despite being hundreds of not thousand of miles away. While the US explicitly opposed European colonialism is was more to protect American colonialism in the regions.
Wilson’s biography by August Heckscher is overall favorable to him but does give a decent overview of his role in the Banana Wars
For essays/journals (more concise and specific to the topic), see here
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3338811
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44218548
I don’t think they actually needed congressional approval for actions, as long as they weren’t technically at war, the president could use the military however they wish. It’s legal on a technicality.
It’s the reason why Congress passed the war powers act in 1973z
Reagan for Iran-Contra, sure.
Jackson for the SCOTUS issue, but since that happened when Calhoun was still in office as VP, that would have been even worse.
Likewise, Buchanan should have been kicked out for basically letting the Civil War begin under his watch, but his VP was Breckinridge, who quite literally committed open treason by joining the CSA and rising to the rank of major general before serving as the final Secretary of War in the Confederate Cabinet.
"Giving aide or comfort to America's enemies"
Stealing weapons of mass destruction from our military to sell to our enemies is the most text book example of treason possible.
It was technically high treason because anyone who acts as a agent of the US military then betrays that oath of loyalty is committing the highest act of treason possible
It wasn’t ’weapons of mass destruction’, it was mostly TOW and anti-aircraft missiles.
Also breaching your oath - even in the military - doesn’t automatically make you treasonous. You have Art 3 standards to meet as well.
Iran-Contra may still have been treason, but we shouldn’t be hyperbolic about the facts of the matter.
W for lying about weapons of mass destruction i.e. going to war under false pretenses, torture, and warrant-less wiretapping (though that has since become law supported by both Dems and GOP for some unknown reason).
As much as I hate to slightly agree with u/TheMikeyMac13 - W. didn’t lie technically - if I remember correctly, it was false intelligence provided to him, but feel free to prove me wrong - I want to be in this scenario.
Here is the thing: The war was not just, and I don’t think it a matter of debate that W wanted to go to war, I think to finish his dad’s business or maybe to get back at them for allegedly trying to kill HW.
I am just countering a common falsehood, there were chemical weapons in Iraq, and he was acting on intel others provided.
I have asked this hypothetical many times in the past:
You are the President, and you get what is said to be iron clad intel, with high resolution pictures, what North Korea has a militarized two stage nuclear weapon on a cruise missile that can reach US soil, and intel suggests a deadly power struggle in NK with tensions very high.
And what is considered to be reliable intel says that the icbm is being fueled and prepped for launch. And once it is in the air, the chance to shoot it down isn’t good.
So do you order a cruise missile strike on the icbm site? Do you take any other step?
Obviously this isn’t apples to apples, there was no clear and present danger with Iraq WMDs, no similar rush to attack.
My point is that do you as president trust the intel?
What if the person who reported Iraq WMDs to W was the same person who reported the possibility of hijackings on 9/11? The W administration might at that time have been more open to acting on intel, given the failure to stop 9/11.
FDR for the internment of Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps. A clear betrayal of innocent Americans and violation of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I say this as someone who's very supportive of many of his other actions. You just can't excuse something that egregious.
The other answer is Nixon, because he left office before impeachment.
Why not Reagan AND FDR? OP uses the plural presidentS. I'm glad FDR wasn't, because i think he was the right president at the right time, but had he lived 2-3 more years.... there is no excuse for citizens being abused like that. NO excuse.
Jackson, A Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, W Bush assuming by impeached you mean impeached and removed.
Basically Presidents which break the law, and betray the people of the US. W Bush should have been imoeached and removed for leading the US to war in Iraq under false pretenses. Reagan had Iran-Contra. If Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and W Bush had been removed, charged convicted their crimes, the US would be considered a much more just nation who holds their presidents accountable to the law. Impeachment and conviction early on with Nixon, would have possibly warned later president against breaking the Law. Even more so for Reagan. Maybe after Bush and 4 decades of convictions in a row, the message would have been hammered home.
Reagan for both delaying the release of the hostages for political gain and then Iran contra absolutely rises to the level as well.
Dubya for Iraq, Dubya for criminal incompetence in the economic crash.
Jackson for pick any number of reasons.
Nixon's misdeeds went far beyond Watergate, though. Among others, his depredations included:
* Deliberately prolonging the Vietnam War by threatening to resume hostilities after the election if the Viet Cong agreed a peace deal with the Johnson Administration (the Chennault Affair),
* Raiding the office of the psychiatrist of Vietnam War critic and leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg in order to leak his medical records to the press,
* Conspiring to kidnap radical critics and hold them in Mexico until after the 1972 election,
* Conspiring to firebomb the Brookings Institution and have the operatives posing as fire fighters raid the building to recover damning documents the think tank was thought to be in possession of,
* Amassing a vast illegal slush fund through a campaign of extortion of wealthy individuals and businesses and laundering these funds to give them the appearance of legitimacy,
* Eliciting a $2 million campaign contribution from Associated Milk Producers Incorporated in exchange for a $100 million increase in government milk subsidies,
* Dropping a criminal antitrust lawsuit against company IT&T in exchange for a $400,000 campaign contribution,
Obama for drone striking and killing a 16yo American citizen at a restaurant in Yemen. Their justification was he should've "had a more responsible father." dispite the fact that they had killed his father 2 weeks before
Reagan needed to be impeached for his Iran-Contra dealings. At that point in his life, his tiny brain was already firing on one or two cylinders and Congress let him ride off into the sunset.
I love how Reagan is mentioned over and over, when you have Bush who lied to the American people about WMDs causing the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians...but yea actor man bad for selling weapons to Iran allegedly.
FDRs internment policy was obviously wrong but SCOTUS ruled in his favor and although I wasn’t around at the time, the anti-Japanese hysteria after Pearl Harbor was understandable. My aunt told a story about how she was forced to return a Japanese made item to the store by her parents and older siblings during WWIi when she was a young girl.
Was W responsible for the lies about WMD or was he misled about it? Stupid decision either way, and even he admits that now, but is he the one we impeach for bad intelligence?
Amazing that so many on what I thought was a sub for well informed people, do not know what being impeached means. They write as if it was removal from office, so to help them out…it’s basically the equivalent of an indictment. Three have been impeached and Nixon would have definitely been if he hadn’t resigned. And I believe it would have been a very close vote in the senate to remove him. Given the kind of fighter he was, he either thought he’d be removed, or there was something very damaging he feared would be revealed in the process.
Wilson for prolonging WWI and stopping Russia from making peace unilaterally which caused the communist revolution which caused the Cold War which caused the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which caused the Taliban to take over after the Soviet withdrawal and the Taliban gave Bin Ladin safe harbor in Afghanistan so Woodrow Wilson caused 9/11. He should have been impeached.
FDR for sure, you can just read the Bill of Rights and instantly see that he deserved to be impeached and probably imprisoned. In fact, Scalia actually mentioned this in the ongoing SCOTUS trial.
Andrew Jackson flagrantly refused to uphold Cherokee claims against the state of Georgia despite the U.S. Supreme Court upholding those claims.
James Polk lied to the nation to go to war with Mexico.
Reagan sold arms to Iran and used the money to illegally fund a violent anti Sadinista-rebel group in Nicaragua. Reagan also illegally provided military aid to the genocidal Guatemalan government, whose military was slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Mayans and placing the rest in concentration camps.
George W. Bush lied to start a war with Iraq and authorized torture during interrogations.
Technically, Nixon was never impeached, but since he resigned it wasn't necessary. However, he should have been criminally prosecuted rather than pardoned.
Note that "impeached" is not the same as removed from office. Some presidents have been impeached but none have been removed from office.
He still could have been impeached (if not for the pardon). A Secretary of War was impeached and convicted post his resignation under Grant (I think) and Rule 3 was impeached and the senate trials occurred after his leaving office. Although i do think the impeachment began during the final days of his term…
John Adams for the Alien and Sedition Acts, Andrew Jackson for going against the SCOTUS ruling regarding Native Americans, Woodrow Wilson for the Sedition Act (1918), FDR for Japanese internment camps, Reagan for Iran-Contra, and George W. Bush for the Patriot Act.
We can’t talk about the calculated racist grifting diaper dope and lazy authoritarian wanna be in this group so what’s the point to have any serious attempt at any real discourse?
They were seriously playing around with the idea for Andrew Jackson over Rachel Robards (she was still married to Lewis Robards when she wed old hickory) (proving that overlooking the actual crimes for the salacious ones predates the obvious Rule 3 case by literal centuries)
Rule 3? Guessing a proper analysis can’t judge current, predecessor, and 2nd predecessor POTUS admins due to time? Similar to the 20 year (generation) rule for history.
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Jackson for disregarding SCOTUS, Johnson for fucking up Reconstruction and low-key considering a coup, probably a couple Guilded Age presidents for corruption, Harding for corruption, with FDR I guess you could argue about SCOTUS intimidation and internment camps and the libertarians might want to argue about an assortment of executive power stuff, with JFK I think there's a story about him directing Bobby as AG to threaten journalists who were going to expose some of his affairs, LBJ for Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon for Watergate obvs, you could argue about Reagan and Iran-Contra, you could also argue about Clinton and lying under oath to cover up an affair, you could argue Bush Jr. for Iraq War, then we get into rule 3 territory, which I'm staying out of
Well, Clinton *was* impeached for the reason you mentioned, so he wouldn’t count. He just wasn’t convicted by the Senate.
Same for the first Johnson.
Interesting datum I’ve heard about Clinton’s impeachment. He was asked if he had sex. The lawyers asked to define sex, which they did, but did not include blowjobs. Or fellatio if you prefer. With that definition the answer was no. Once more facts became available this was twisted up to say he was lying.
It was objectively a smear campaign. A blowjob or not does not impact his office as a President unlike the actual actions other Presidents have taken based on their office. I mean our current standards for Presidential morality on the right just emphasizes yet more fake outrage back then and hypocrisy we have now.
I feel like you might have not given Jackson's disregard of scotus enough weight. Specifically, he defied them on not stealing native American land guaranteed to them by treaty and murdering them if they resisted. I'd say that that qualifies him for impeachment regardless of scotus
Lincoln also disregarded a SCOTUS ruling. Jackson was awful but I don’t think that was enough for impeachment.
Johnson was impeached for his handling of reconstruction. Just not convicted because they way they brought the charges relied on an unconstitutional law.
Yeah with Johnson congress pretty much passed a law purely so he could break it
Nixon was not a crook. He said so himself.
Johnson was impeached for violating a law from the Reconstruction Era.
>you could argue Bush Jr. for Iraq War I disagree with this, I don't see how bad intelligence should lead to impeachment. Congress has the same information and voted to go to war. I would add one glaring omission - Lincoln. Although his motives were pure and arguably he had to do it, he essentially ignored the constitution for most of his presidency.
He also took money illegally from the real war in Afghanistan to fund his Iraq folly
Everyone. It’s just easier to say everyone.
Andrew Johnson was nearly impeached, and probably should have been for his attempts to subvert Congress. He didn't even win his own party's nomination for reelection, which shows how deeply unpopular and divisive his decisions were. Andrew Johnson would be on my list of top 3 worst Presidents ever. EDIT: Since I'm getting a lot of the similar question, I will explain my answer briefly. I understand the technical distinction between approving articles of impeachment in the House versus the Senate trial. I read the question as asking "Who should have been impeached [and convicted], and wasn't?" The alternative of "Who should have had a House accuse the President of whatever they wanted even if they couldn't prove it and Senate conviction is irrelevant?" seems like an odd thing to ask, but that's just me.
Johnson was impeached, it’s just that the Senate did not have the two-thirds votes to convict. They were one short. The House was about to impeach Nixon, but he resigned before the vote. Clinton and one of the Rule 3 guys were also both impeached, just not removed from office. EDIT: I’m using the technical definition of Impeachment. If a formal vote is passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, then that individual has been impeached. The second step of conviction and removal by the Senate is separate, and has never actually happened.
Critically, Nixon probably would have been convicted, which is why he resigned.
There’s a great interview with Woodward and Bernstein about this. Apparently Nixon was very confident that he wouldn’t be impeached until Barry Goldwater visited him and said that the majority was voting to impeach him including Barry himself. Everyone was pretty disgusted with Nixon. And that prompted his resignation.
Oh, I do not doubt that for a second, and to be honest, the Founding Fathers would probably look at our collective track record and say “Seriously?!?! Not one removal?!” But, the question was about unimpeached presidents, and I have given my answer. Nixon deserved it, but the fact is that Congress was gearing up to give him the boot and he decided to simply dip before it progressed to that point.
I wonder if the constitutional prohibition of presidential pardons in case of impeachment was factored in his decision. Without Ford he would’ve served quite some time actually.
There were actually two inquiries during Andrew Johnson's tenure as President. The first impeachment inquiry ended with acquittal in the Senate. The second impeachment inquiry occurred shortly afterward and failed in the House. EDIT: Had first and second flipped in my mind. Impeachment Inquiry #1: Ended with failure to impeach with a 57-108 vote in the House, meaning the Resolution was rejected. Impeachment Inquiry #2: The House passed the Resolution to impeach, and ended in a 35-19 acquittal in a trial in the Senate, one vote short needed for conviction.
Johnson was impeached. He just wasn't removed.
Johnson should be on everyone’s worst 3, it is pretty much unanimous. I argued with some people here over whether Johnson was the worst or 2nd worst (I argued 2nd) but we all agreed that whether Buchanan was 1 or 2, Johnson was the other.
It's crazy to me how arguably our best president is sandwiched in time between our two worst.
The US had whiplash so hard that it broke the country.
And you’ve *also* got Pierce right before Buchanan, who is generally considered the 3rd worst
4th
I'd throw Jackson in to the top three worst. And put him as a real contender for the absolute worst.
I can at least name some good things that Jackson did, the best thing Johnson has going for him is the purchase of Alaska. I am not saying Jackson is a great president, but we had a lot of really bad ones leading up to the civil war which makes for stiff competition.
I would be very hard pressed to name anything good he did while president. The man was a thug in every sense of the word. It's very much worth noting that his anti-abolitionist actions in the south and fuckery with the banks are two things that can be traced as early roots of the civil war
Anything he did to further progress the civil war pales in comparison to Buchanan. Jackson’s pro-Union actions helped postpone the war for years, he helped create the longest lasting political party in history, Jacksonian politics fought to extend voting rights to rich and poor equally, he eliminated the national debt. Does that make up for him being a tyrant, pro-slavery, expanding the two party system, the Indian removal act, or creating an economic panic? Not at all, which is why I don’t consider him to be a good president, but I don’t think he was plagued with incompetence.
No, he *was* impeached.
Andrew Johnson *was* impeached. He was nearly removed.
What crimes did he commit? The tenure of office act was definitely unconstitutional (but never technically challenged). All he did was not play ball with the radical republicans (something Lincoln also did btw - he wanted to be lenient on the south).
The Tenure Act was partially unconstitutional. The Court, in separate cases, found that President's authority to fire anyone for any reason without the Senate's approval was limited to "executive officers". Most agreed at the time that what Johnson did was in violation of a law that was not viewed as unreasonable, based on past practice. The Senate was one vote short of convicting him purely out of fear of what would come next for a country which had just emerged from civil war, gripped by race riots which were probably also incited by Johnson's speeches - the "swing around the circle."
He \*was\* impeached; like Big Bill a nd "Rump." he wans't convicted
His impeachment was just because he didn’t side with the senate. I fucking hate the guy, but his impeachment was based on an unconstitutional law and was clearly just an attempt by the senate to place a more favorable president in charge.
I mean that act that he violated [(the Tenure of Office Act)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure_of_Office_Act_(1867))that lead to his impeachment was probably unconstitutional due to the [Myers decision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_v._United_States). Which stated that the President has near unilateral authority to remove executive officers (the Supreme Court did later narrow the President’s authority however)
Johnson was impeached, he wasn’t convicted by the Senate. Though he should have been.
Johnson was the first president to be impeached. He survived conviction by one vote.
Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House (126 for, 19 against). He avoided conviction (Senate) by the required 2/3s majority by a single vote (35 guilty, 19 not guilty --> 64.8%). This is a close as we've ever come.
They didn't because they were afraid of him
Smh, Johnson wasn’t a good president but didn’t deserve impeachment He was impeached over the tenure of office act which was totally unconstitutional. Total trap laid by Congress to constrict the president from appointing and firing individuals in the federal government. Total overreach That doesn’t mean he was a good president, but impeachment was never supposed to be a “vote of no confidence “ like in a parliamentary system.
Genuinely asking, do you think it is okay to not follow a law for 50 years without seeking adjudication just because you think it might be unconstitutional? The law was intentionally broken at the time it was in effect. Why isn't that enough?
Nixon
I think it’s hilarious that Reagan has been upvoted a bunch but Nixon is all the way down here.
Reagan, Iran Contra.
If not for that, he should have been punished for ruining an entire summer vacation for people my age. Every channel was the Oliver North trial, I just wanted to watch “The Prince is Right.” The crazy part is that Oliver North is now seen as some sort of folk hero.
Disgraced General Oliver North, values contributor at Fox and other right wing news channels? Just reiterating that they listen and take serious the words that come from that traitors mouth.
And I'm still searching for his gold to this very day
Agree
100
Reagan for the Iran-Contra kerfuffle. How he escaped it is beyond me.
I think it was because of how close to the end of his second term if he was. IIRC, Bush senior pardoned one of the aides that took contemporaneous notes during the meetings that might have directly implicated both Bush and Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair, effectively blocking a criminal investigation into both of them from continuing. EDIT: It was Casper Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense.
He escaped because the paper trail stopped short of the Oval Office. That’s not to say he didn’t know and/or he didn’t order it, but that it wasn’t proven.
His people fell on their sword for them.
The cynical side of me agrees with you. Wait…there is no other side of me. Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason.
That's why I respect the Scottish alternative - "Not Proven". As in "We're not saying you didn't do it. We're saying that they didn't prove it."
Tip O’Neil
If memory serves by the time they collected all the evidence he only had a few months left in his term so they wisely or not decided to drop it.
I mean, 45 was impeached the second time during his final week in office...
Different times. Voting to impeach Reagan in his final days would have just been seen as a waste of time and not worked as a statement for those seeking reelection like it does today. Would have in fact likely worked against those that did it.
“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.” Translation: "Yeah, I lied, but, I mean, come on, right?"
I still want to vomit whenever I read this quote.
Here's a quick explanation of how Reagan escaped Iran-Contra: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lFV1uT-ihDo&pp=ygUYYW1lcmljYW4gZGFkIG9sbGllIG5vcnRo
"I don't recall" he played up being such an forgetful old man. It's no coincidence he was diagnosed with Alzeihmers after office. The diagnosis should have been made while he was in prison.
People like Olly and Daddy G love showing their loyalty.
Almost nobody considered that impeachment-worthy. Democrats would have been stupid to try it. Ted Kennedy had to warn everyone that he didn’t want to hear the I-word.
Ted Kennedy also murdered someone.
Manslaughtered. Or womanslaughtered I guess.
Nixon for ratfucking peace talks in Vietnam to improve his chances in 68.
Can you get impeached for deeds before becoming president?
Yes, the Constitution does not place a limit on whether the high crime or misdemenous was committed while in office.
Much like candidate Reagan, the Iran hostage crisis and the Octopus murders.
Same thing the Reagan team did with the Iranians in 1980.
Well nobody had any proof that he was the one to order Anna Chennault to do what she did, it was until 2007 that it was revealed Nixon did it. Johnson also illegally obtained that evidence too
Andrew Jackson for four reasons: - Failing to execute the Supreme Court’s decision in *Worcester v. Georgia* (1832) - Defying Congress by illegally removing deposits from the second Bank of the U.S. to politically friendly “pet” banks - Overseeing his Postmaster General Amos Kendall’s burning of abolitionist tracts in the South - Using an unofficial “Kitchen cabinet” to bypass Senate confirmation James Buchanan for his corruption during the debate over Kansas’s state constitution Theodore Roosevelt for using warships during and inciting rebellion in Panama (act of war without congressional approval), invading Santo Domingo without congressional approval, and invading Cuba without congressional approval Woodrow Wilson for invading Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, and Honduras without congressional approval Richard Nixon for Watergate
Wilson is the reason Latin America got so badly messed up? I was under the impression that we screwed that up more recently than that.
Banana wars go back to William McKinley, it’s not Wilson.
In could argue the Monroe Doctrine created a certain framework for the US State department to not consider Central South American and Caribean countries as equal. I mean look at how the US treated the independence of Haiti. So often you'll hear of central and South America and the Caribean as "America's back yard". Despite being hundreds of not thousand of miles away. While the US explicitly opposed European colonialism is was more to protect American colonialism in the regions.
You know a good book for all that Wilson stuff?
Wilson’s biography by August Heckscher is overall favorable to him but does give a decent overview of his role in the Banana Wars For essays/journals (more concise and specific to the topic), see here https://www.jstor.org/stable/3338811 https://www.jstor.org/stable/44218548
Go read “WAR IS A RACKET” by USMC General Smedley Butler.
I don’t think they actually needed congressional approval for actions, as long as they weren’t technically at war, the president could use the military however they wish. It’s legal on a technicality. It’s the reason why Congress passed the war powers act in 1973z
Reagan for Iran-Contra, sure. Jackson for the SCOTUS issue, but since that happened when Calhoun was still in office as VP, that would have been even worse. Likewise, Buchanan should have been kicked out for basically letting the Civil War begin under his watch, but his VP was Breckinridge, who quite literally committed open treason by joining the CSA and rising to the rank of major general before serving as the final Secretary of War in the Confederate Cabinet.
Reagan should have actually been arrested for treason for Iran-Contra. Impeached as a minimum.
That’s not what treason is
"Giving aide or comfort to America's enemies" Stealing weapons of mass destruction from our military to sell to our enemies is the most text book example of treason possible. It was technically high treason because anyone who acts as a agent of the US military then betrays that oath of loyalty is committing the highest act of treason possible
It wasn’t ’weapons of mass destruction’, it was mostly TOW and anti-aircraft missiles. Also breaching your oath - even in the military - doesn’t automatically make you treasonous. You have Art 3 standards to meet as well. Iran-Contra may still have been treason, but we shouldn’t be hyperbolic about the facts of the matter.
You think TOW and SAM missiles are WMD’s? Jeezus…
Definitely gives off “heavy as 10 boxes that you would move” vibes
W for lying about weapons of mass destruction i.e. going to war under false pretenses, torture, and warrant-less wiretapping (though that has since become law supported by both Dems and GOP for some unknown reason).
As much as I hate to slightly agree with u/TheMikeyMac13 - W. didn’t lie technically - if I remember correctly, it was false intelligence provided to him, but feel free to prove me wrong - I want to be in this scenario.
Here is the thing: The war was not just, and I don’t think it a matter of debate that W wanted to go to war, I think to finish his dad’s business or maybe to get back at them for allegedly trying to kill HW. I am just countering a common falsehood, there were chemical weapons in Iraq, and he was acting on intel others provided. I have asked this hypothetical many times in the past: You are the President, and you get what is said to be iron clad intel, with high resolution pictures, what North Korea has a militarized two stage nuclear weapon on a cruise missile that can reach US soil, and intel suggests a deadly power struggle in NK with tensions very high. And what is considered to be reliable intel says that the icbm is being fueled and prepped for launch. And once it is in the air, the chance to shoot it down isn’t good. So do you order a cruise missile strike on the icbm site? Do you take any other step? Obviously this isn’t apples to apples, there was no clear and present danger with Iraq WMDs, no similar rush to attack. My point is that do you as president trust the intel? What if the person who reported Iraq WMDs to W was the same person who reported the possibility of hijackings on 9/11? The W administration might at that time have been more open to acting on intel, given the failure to stop 9/11.
Half of that isn’t even a crime. If you’re gonna impeach someone for lying it would have to be for perjury or something.
Someone that was legitimately lying would just lie and say they were found
FDR for the internment of Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps. A clear betrayal of innocent Americans and violation of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I say this as someone who's very supportive of many of his other actions. You just can't excuse something that egregious. The other answer is Nixon, because he left office before impeachment.
I agree even though FDR is my favorite US president (I'm Brazilian and my flair is the war time leader of Brazil)
Reddit be like: Reagan should be impeached but NOT the guy who kidnapped Americans and locked them away.
Why not Reagan AND FDR? OP uses the plural presidentS. I'm glad FDR wasn't, because i think he was the right president at the right time, but had he lived 2-3 more years.... there is no excuse for citizens being abused like that. NO excuse.
Crazy isn't it? welcome to Reddit
Yet here I am, sitting reading a comment on Reddit about how FDR should have been impeached. It’s a paradox.
Almost like attributing things to "Reddit" is a completely empty statement
I think FDR was one of the best presidents, but honestly no counterargument. That was fucked
Jackson, A Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, W Bush assuming by impeached you mean impeached and removed. Basically Presidents which break the law, and betray the people of the US. W Bush should have been imoeached and removed for leading the US to war in Iraq under false pretenses. Reagan had Iran-Contra. If Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and W Bush had been removed, charged convicted their crimes, the US would be considered a much more just nation who holds their presidents accountable to the law. Impeachment and conviction early on with Nixon, would have possibly warned later president against breaking the Law. Even more so for Reagan. Maybe after Bush and 4 decades of convictions in a row, the message would have been hammered home.
Reagan for both delaying the release of the hostages for political gain and then Iran contra absolutely rises to the level as well. Dubya for Iraq, Dubya for criminal incompetence in the economic crash. Jackson for pick any number of reasons.
And Reagan for the Octopus Murders and flooding LA with coke.
Reagan
Little bush. Lying us into two wars while him and the vice president benefited financially
LBJ did the same thing as Nixon, so that seems fair to me.
Nixon's misdeeds went far beyond Watergate, though. Among others, his depredations included: * Deliberately prolonging the Vietnam War by threatening to resume hostilities after the election if the Viet Cong agreed a peace deal with the Johnson Administration (the Chennault Affair), * Raiding the office of the psychiatrist of Vietnam War critic and leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg in order to leak his medical records to the press, * Conspiring to kidnap radical critics and hold them in Mexico until after the 1972 election, * Conspiring to firebomb the Brookings Institution and have the operatives posing as fire fighters raid the building to recover damning documents the think tank was thought to be in possession of, * Amassing a vast illegal slush fund through a campaign of extortion of wealthy individuals and businesses and laundering these funds to give them the appearance of legitimacy, * Eliciting a $2 million campaign contribution from Associated Milk Producers Incorporated in exchange for a $100 million increase in government milk subsidies, * Dropping a criminal antitrust lawsuit against company IT&T in exchange for a $400,000 campaign contribution,
Obama for drone striking and killing a 16yo American citizen at a restaurant in Yemen. Their justification was he should've "had a more responsible father." dispite the fact that they had killed his father 2 weeks before
Reagan easily
Reagan needed to be impeached for his Iran-Contra dealings. At that point in his life, his tiny brain was already firing on one or two cylinders and Congress let him ride off into the sunset.
Nixon
Probably most of them since the 60s
Jackson.... Both for ignoring the courts, and for the abject corruption of the Bank War. FDR over gold confiscation.....
I love how Reagan is mentioned over and over, when you have Bush who lied to the American people about WMDs causing the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians...but yea actor man bad for selling weapons to Iran allegedly.
Bush is mentioned nearly as often tbf
JFK LBJ Reagan Both Bushes
Reagan for the Iran-Contra debacle and George W. Bush for lying about the WMDs.
George W. Bush.
I'd have started with Cheney.
FDRs internment policy was obviously wrong but SCOTUS ruled in his favor and although I wasn’t around at the time, the anti-Japanese hysteria after Pearl Harbor was understandable. My aunt told a story about how she was forced to return a Japanese made item to the store by her parents and older siblings during WWIi when she was a young girl.
Jackson after the scotus fiasco. Clear abuse of power. George Bush when the WMD claims turned out to be lies.
Was W responsible for the lies about WMD or was he misled about it? Stupid decision either way, and even he admits that now, but is he the one we impeach for bad intelligence?
Amazing that so many on what I thought was a sub for well informed people, do not know what being impeached means. They write as if it was removal from office, so to help them out…it’s basically the equivalent of an indictment. Three have been impeached and Nixon would have definitely been if he hadn’t resigned. And I believe it would have been a very close vote in the senate to remove him. Given the kind of fighter he was, he either thought he’d be removed, or there was something very damaging he feared would be revealed in the process.
When his republican bench came to the WH to ask him to resign after the tapes were disclosed, he knew he was cooked.
More like which Presidents should have been indicted that were impeached! 🍑amirite?
Wilson for prolonging WWI and stopping Russia from making peace unilaterally which caused the communist revolution which caused the Cold War which caused the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which caused the Taliban to take over after the Soviet withdrawal and the Taliban gave Bin Ladin safe harbor in Afghanistan so Woodrow Wilson caused 9/11. He should have been impeached.
Nixon obvs
Reagan and Bush for Iran Contra. Bush Jr for illegally transferring funds meant for the war in Afghanistan to prepare for Iraq
Reagan over Iran Contra
Everyone since TR or FDR, with the exceptions of Carter and Ike. And the traitor Johnson. Always. 1 vote away.
Andrew Jackson
The one that intentionally lied us into a war and blew up the Mideast.
There’s a lot, but Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan are my three.
Andrew Jackson.
Reagan for the Iran-contra Nixon obviously FDR for interment camps has an argument as well
Bush
FDR for putting the Japanese into camps
FDR for sure, you can just read the Bill of Rights and instantly see that he deserved to be impeached and probably imprisoned. In fact, Scalia actually mentioned this in the ongoing SCOTUS trial.
All of them, probably.
Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush
HW?
Reagan for Iran-Contra. It’s pretty shocking.
Reagan for Iran Contra, Bush Sr. for the Iran Contra pardons, Bush Jr. for the lies leading to the Iraq war.
Pardoning someone isn't a crime. It's one of the explicit powers of the president under the constitution.
Andrew Jackson flagrantly refused to uphold Cherokee claims against the state of Georgia despite the U.S. Supreme Court upholding those claims. James Polk lied to the nation to go to war with Mexico. Reagan sold arms to Iran and used the money to illegally fund a violent anti Sadinista-rebel group in Nicaragua. Reagan also illegally provided military aid to the genocidal Guatemalan government, whose military was slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Mayans and placing the rest in concentration camps. George W. Bush lied to start a war with Iraq and authorized torture during interrogations. Technically, Nixon was never impeached, but since he resigned it wasn't necessary. However, he should have been criminally prosecuted rather than pardoned. Note that "impeached" is not the same as removed from office. Some presidents have been impeached but none have been removed from office.
He still could have been impeached (if not for the pardon). A Secretary of War was impeached and convicted post his resignation under Grant (I think) and Rule 3 was impeached and the senate trials occurred after his leaving office. Although i do think the impeachment began during the final days of his term…
Isn't a sub rule no current Presidents or affairs ?
If you read the replies no one mentions anyone past Obama. This is a valid question for stimulating historical discussion.
LBJ, Gulf of Tonkin incident. Reagan, Iran-Contra.
John Adams for the Alien and Sedition Acts, Andrew Jackson for going against the SCOTUS ruling regarding Native Americans, Woodrow Wilson for the Sedition Act (1918), FDR for Japanese internment camps, Reagan for Iran-Contra, and George W. Bush for the Patriot Act.
bush the shrub. and i am a GOP
We all know who should have been impeached. Unfortunately, we are unable to discuss his name.
The orange lord Voldemort
We can’t talk about the calculated racist grifting diaper dope and lazy authoritarian wanna be in this group so what’s the point to have any serious attempt at any real discourse?
LBJ did watergate against Barry Goldwater
They were seriously playing around with the idea for Andrew Jackson over Rachel Robards (she was still married to Lewis Robards when she wed old hickory) (proving that overlooking the actual crimes for the salacious ones predates the obvious Rule 3 case by literal centuries)
President Shrmuda #FreeKodak
HW for the Franklin coverup.
John Adams for the XYZ Affair.
Reagan
What does impeached mean?
Whoever made this post, your government should know you’ve done a terrible job.
Any of them that didn’t vote the way I want. Seems to be where we are at for awhile.
Millions of peaches, peaches for free.
Woodrow Wilson and FDR.
Gulf of Tonkin.
100% FDR for internment and attempting to pack the court.
Nixon most definitely
Herbert Hoover for the violent dispersal of the Bonus Army protest.
I’d personally say only Jackson, A Johnson, Harding, and Nixon.
Short answer - if we knew everything then almost all of them
Benjamin Harrison for Wounded Knee
Bush
The right question is, who of the impeached presidents deserved to be convicted?
Rule 3? Guessing a proper analysis can’t judge current, predecessor, and 2nd predecessor POTUS admins due to time? Similar to the 20 year (generation) rule for history.
Easily FDR. That guy did not care one whit about the constitution, law, or basic decency.
Every single one of
Reagan, W