United States
High crimes and misdemeanors is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other
high crimes and misdemeanors."
"High" in the legal parlance of the 18th century means "against the State". A high crime is one which seeks the overthrow of the country, which gives aid or comfort to its enemies, or which injures the country to the profit of an individual or group. In democracies and similar societies it also includes crimes which attempt to alter the outcome of elections.
The first impeachment conviction by the United States Senate was in 1804 of John Pickering, a judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, for chronic intoxication. Federal judges have been impeached and removed from office for tax evasion, conspiracy to solicit a bribe, and making false statements to a grand jury.
In the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the late 1990s for perjury, the exact meaning of the term high crimes and misdemeanors became the subject of debate. A particular subject of debate is exactly what rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Some felt that the act of perjury, a federal crime, rose to that level. Others felt that this particular act of perjury, while illegal, did not reach that level because the lie was specifically in regard to a matter of personal infidelity and that the questioning that led to it was allegedly politically-motivated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors----
There has been a lot of talk around the net about impeachment, IF President Obama were to invoke the 14th Amendment.
In my opinion even the idea and the talk of impeachment is RIDICULOUS.
'To impeach' means to 'bring forth charges'.
There would be NO charges to bring forth, it is NOT a crime for a president to 'use the U.S. Constitution'.
I have asked, on many websites, several times over the past couple of weeks "What would the charge be?"
and I have not received even one answer to my question.
I believe that I have not received an answer because there is NO answer since there would be no pertinent charge.