Impeachment,
a procedure for removing government officials for malfeasance or criminal activity, is based on the English process in which the House of Commons brought charges against a powerful aristocrat or government official and the House of Lords conducted the trial and rendered the verdict. Although political motivations almost always underlay impeachments, the proceedings were judicial and significant evidence of wrongdoing was required for conviction. Since impeachment played an important role in the seventeenth-century struggle between Parliament and the Stuart monarchs, it became identified with liberty against overbearing executive power.... ...
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