JessFR
Bluelight Crew
sure, but the circumstances are a little different.
nixon resigned and congress dropped its impeachment. but criminal charges were still possible hence ford's pardon.
alasdair
Correct.
Congress isn't the body in charge of interpreting the law. They can't decide if a president has broken the law in the criminal sense. That would require a court, in which the president would have a right to a lawyer and a jury.
And so they aren't deciding if the president has broken the law, they are deciding if he is guilty of crimes against the people in the political sense, and needs to be removed from office.
Actual legal charges can then follow.
But impeachment is a purely political process, it doesn't require evidence beyond that that the senate feels it needs to render its verdict. And what constitutes a crime is pretty much whatever the house of representatives considers to be a crime. There is no right to a jury, and the president can't pardon it. But the upside is you can't be put in jail over it, you can't be fined over it, and you can't be executed over it.