Introduction by Committee Chairman John Henry
Tonight’s speaker is well known to you all. Bruce Fein's accomplishments speak volumes. His lifelong dedication to the United States Constitution — and the power of the ideas that lay behind that document — puts him in a category all his own.
The principal idea -- the idea of separation of powers -- is the foundation on which the framers built our Constitution. Separation of powers – which I believe is the world’s greatest political invention -- is a big deal because it is the only way to prevent tyranny. Our founding fathers knew what tyranny is. They were oppressed by the British empire & they wanted to make damn
sure that Americans would never lose their liberty. The framers gave the impeachment power to Congress to prevent an imperial presidency.
The first 10 presidents honored the Constitution and the American republic flourished. Sadly, in the 1840’s, our republic began to metamorphize into an empire. We began to undermine the rule of law as Congress turned
a blind eye to more than 150 impeachable offenses over 36 presidencies, empowering the strong to do what they want and the weak to accept what they must. As Congress repeatedly failed to use its impeachment power, the president accumulated extraconstitutional power. Make no mistake: the greatest crisis in American history is this breakdown of separation of powers.
Our Vice Chairman, Bruce Fein, has a unique standing to speak about our Constitution’s separation of powers. That is why I asked Bruce to compile a full list of presidential offenses over the last 180 years. Tonight, Bruce is going to help us understand how Congress leaving these offenses unpunished leads back to the law of the jungle. If not now, when? If not us, who?
Even though he looks like he just graduated from college, Bruce has spent over 550,000 hours of his life devoted to reading, writing and speaking on tonight’s subject. Bruce is the living embodiment of James Madison and we are lucky to have him here tonight.