So, Nancy Pelosi finally pulled the trigger on impeachment.  After rushing the impeachment articles through the House in December (because President Trump is “an existential threat to our democracy”), Pelosi delayed the appointment of impeachment managers to transmit the articles to the Senate for some three weeks.  All that time, Pelosi and her repulsive henchmen have tried to force the Senate to continue in the impeachment trial, the shameful kangaroo court procedures used in the House.  The Constitution clearly delineates the duties of the Congress in impeachments.  The House has “the sole power” of impeachment for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.  The Senate has “the sole power” to try impeachments.  The Framers spent considerable time wrangling over impeachment.  George Mason suggested that an official could be impeached for “maladministration.”  The Framers rejected that as being too broad.  The fear was such language would turn impeachments into votes of no confidence whenever the Legislature disagreed with a president’s actions.  Sound familiar?  In Federalist 65,  Alexander Hamilton, writing as “Publius,” wrote that impeachment should result from “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”  Nancy Pelosi and company have already violated this principle, impeaching the President for “abuse of power.”  That’s not the same thing as abuse or violation of the public trust.  In other words, the mere exercise of a constitutionally authorized power cannot be an abuse or violation of the public trust because the Constitution demands that the President take such actions.  One such power that the Constitution invests in the President is that “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”  This duty necessarily includes taking actions necessary to see to it that those who may have violated the law, whether in this country, or for instance, in Ukraine, are brought to justice.  Logically, an abuse or violation of the public trust must stem criminal activity or from some action by a President which is outside his constitutional authority.  Think of Il Duce Obama, “I have a pen and a phone.”  There is nothing like that in this case.  The Senate is invested with the sole power to “try” impeachments.  We hear a lot of talk on TV about the “trial in the Senate,” and about the President “being convicted.”  At first blush, one might get the impression that the impeachment trial is just like any other trial in a court; but it’s not.  The Constitution provides that the Chief Justice of the United States shall preside when a president is impeached.  However, the Chief Justice presiding over an impeachment trial does not have the same authority to control the proceedings as does a judge in court.  Chief Justice Rehnquist said it best after the Clinton impeachment trial, “My job was to do nothing, and I did it very well.”  What that means is that the Senate is in charge of the proceedings.  Senators can ask the Chief Justice to rule, but the Senate can vote to change any rulings he makes.  Chief Justice Rehnquist did a bit more than “nothing” in 1999.  He did make an important ruling that clarified the roles of the Senators, sustaining Senator Harkin’s objection to the Senators being referred to as “jurors.”  In a court trial, the judge is the judge of the law and the jurors are the judges o the facts.  Not so in impeachment.  Rehnquist ruled that the Senate is not simply a jury, it is a court.  Senators are judges of both law and fact.  Thus, it is the Senate itself that decides on the procedures and makes the final decision.  Rehnquist’s ruling in the Clinton impeachment derived from an opinion he wrote in 1993 in Nixon v. United States.  No, not the Nixon you’re thinking of, Judge Walter Nixon, who was impeached for bribery.  Judge Nixon objected to the Senate’s appointment of a committee to hear evidence, and he wanted the Court to review the procedure.  Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, said no.   The Court upheld the Senate’s right to determine its own procedures, including the use of a trial committee.  In other words, the Senate makes its own rules.  And the Court ruled that the decision of the Senate may not be reviewed by any court because the Senate has “sole” power.  Senate Rule XI permits a committee of the Senate to take testimony and receive evidence.  Senators are permitted to ask questions.  Mere jurors can’t do that.  The Court made clear that an impeachment trial is  not the same as a criminal trial.  The Framers chose the Senate to try impeachments instead of the courts, because when an official is removed from office, the courts must try the criminal charges that caused the impeachment.  This kind of suggests that no president should be impeached for anything less than a crime of some kind.  The House alleges no criminal conduct by President Trump.  Indeed, until now, no president has been impeached for conduct that was not either a crime or a violation of an Act of Congress.  But there’s more.  Justice Rehnquist wrote that giving separate functions to the House and Senate “avoids making the same people both accusers and judges and guards against the danger of persecution from the prevalency of a factious spirit in either of those branches.”  The House has accused President Trump of impeachable acts.  The repulsive Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff (for brains), by demanding that the Senate seek out new evidence has perverted the process envisioned by the Framers.  To say nothing of the fact that the articles of impeachment are nothing more than a persecution derived from the prevalency of a factious spirit in the super-partisan House of Representatives, that passed the articles without even one Republican vote.   Hopefully, the Senate majority will see these articles for the sham that they clearly are, hopefully the Senate Republicans will act to preserve the Constitution, and not to pervert it, and will deliver the President a swift acquittal.