Impeachment: An American History
by Jeffrey A. Engel
View on GoodreadsJeffrey Engel, Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali, and Peter Baker's joint historical treatment of the four impeachments preceding the second Trump impeachment — Andrew Johnson, Nixon (resignation in lieu), Clinton, Trump 1 — and what each says about the constitutional mechanism's actual function.
Core ideas
- The four authors split the four presidents (with Engel writing the constitutional-design overview); the cumulative argument is that impeachment was designed to be hard but operational, and has functioned mostly as a political pressure tool rather than a removal tool.
- The Nixon case is the only one where the mechanism worked as intended — and it worked because the political coalition that needed to break with him did so, not because the constitutional design forced it.
- The book was written before the second Trump impeachment but reads as foreshadowing — the pattern of partisan calculation overriding evidentiary record is identified as the recurring failure mode.
Published2018
Pages368
ISBN9781984843500
ReadDec 2024
