As former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial gets underway next week, some people may wonder “Is the senate able to try an ex-president?” A local attorney says that is unclear in the constitution or the two cases that it has been tried. Williamsport Attorney Cliff Rieders says that one piece of the upcoming impeachment is how you read the constitution. It says that the senate can remove and disqualify a person from serving in an office. Rieders says the interpretation of the word “and” is key and it needs to be determined if you need to do both or can do either the removal or disqualification.
Rieders says impeachment does not disqualify other legal proceedings.
“The party convicted shall never the less be liable and subject to indictment, trial, and punishment according to law, so that the person removed from office can still be charged criminally. It’s not a free pass if in fact that person has done something criminal,” Riders said.
Rieders added that this was what led to the famous pardon of another president when Richard Nixon was removed from office.
“Richard Nixon, of course, resigned from office and one of the reason why President Ford said that he pardoned the president is that he didn’t want a spectacle of a trial. And clearly, there was likely to be a trial,” Rieders said.
He added that will be argued that there are other prior cases where someone was disqualified from office after they left office.
