Rep. Alcee Hastings, who was impeached and removed from office in 1989, is the second-ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, which is setting the rules for the “impeachment inquiry” into President Trump, reports Breitbart News.
Hastings was removed for bribery, one of the causes enumerated in the Constitution’s Impeachment Clause. At the time, the New York Times wrote that “the Senate today removed Federal District Judge Alcee L. Hastings from the bench by convicting him of eight impeachment articles, including one charging that he had conspired to obtain a $150,000 bribe.”
Democrats, who control the majority on the House Rules Committee, rejected all 17 amendments proposed by the Republican minority on Wednesday.
In one telling exchange, Hastings argued that due process rights did not apply to the president during impeachment, which he likened to the grand jury stage of a criminal trial.