A reader writes:
Regarding this question–I’ve wondered the same thing.
It’s useful to consider the first use of impeachment against a President–that of Andrew Johnson. There, there was no act of wrongdoing or corruption on the part of the President–simply a legislature which wished him out of office, and so manufactured a power struggle between the branches –passing a law prohibiting the President from dismissing his Cabinet members without the consent of Congress, despite no requirement for such in the Constitution. The act was designed to protect Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, an Abraham Lincoln appointee whom Johnson had inherited upon assuming the Presidency after Lincoln’s assassination. President Johnson sacked Stanton anyway, and was impeached for it. He survived removal from office by a single vote.
Ironically, the faction in Congress that attempted to oust Johnson was known as… the Radical Republicans.
The Dish 