For law nerds, the bored, the work-avoidant, I present a law review article from 2002 on late impeachment, which favors the constitutionality of the process.
Some interesting quotes:
Page 129:
“Instead, Specter indicated that if convicted, the ex-President would lose his perquisites:
‘President Clinton technically could still be impeached. And you say how can that happen, he's out of office! Because a president may be impeached for the emoluments of office, such as the substantial sums being spent on the library, such as the bodyguards, such as his pension.
Although Specter was correct (if lonely) in assessing that Clinton could still be impeached, he was wrong to state that Clinton's punishment upon conviction could include stripping him of his "emoluments." Federal law currently provides that a President who is impeached does lose his pension and other benefits, but only if he is impeached while in office.'"
Therefore, impeaching Clinton would not affect his emoluments.'
All of this means that if a malfeasing President is interested in
keeping his pension, he need only wait until the end of his term to commit his impeachable offenses. To avoid this sin of misincentive,535 Congress should change the law to make clear—prospectively—that an impeached and convicted President (or other official) does not deserve to reap millions in federal benefits, regardless of when the offenses and impeachment occur.”
Page 131:
“Without late impeachability, then, lame-duck officials are
situated in a way that allows them to perpetrate offenses against the United States with relative impunity. Any disincentives to such conduct that can be erected would improve this situation, and late impeachment is an obvious way to do just that.”
Page 135:
“Constitutional structure is also consistent with late impeachability. If the only purpose for impeachment were removal, then there would be no reason to conduct a late impeachment. But removal is not the only purpose of impeachment. Impeachment is designed as a deterrent to prevent offenses from occurring in the first place, and this deterrent effect would be severely undermined if it faded away near the end of a term. Moreover, convicted impeachees can be disqualified from future federal office, an important punishment that the offender himself should not be able to moot. Nor should the 'President be able to preempt a full investigation or full punishment; the Constitution forbids the President from using his pardon power to achieve these ends, and late impeachment is the only way to prevent an end run around this clear structural imperative. Although some opponents of late impeachment make allowances for these extreme cases by allowing some late impeachments, in reality, no constitutional basis exists for distinguishing between them.
Finally, precedent favors late impeachability. Admittedly, there is no wholly clear and binding authority. States construing similar provisions have come to mixed results. But the Senate, which, in the end, is the final arbiter of this question, has approved late impeachment. Senate opponents of late impeachment may have prevented convictions, but they have not prevented late trials, and they cannot alter the formal declaration of a majority of the Senate that officers can bc impeached after they have left office.
In practice, late impeachment may rarely if ever prove worthwhile to pursue. Then again, one can imagine several scenarios in which it might. Even if no occasion ever arises in which late impeachment is worthwhile to pursue, this would place late impeachment in the same class as rcgular impeachment—more important to have available than to actually use. No federal executive official has ever been impeached and convicted, either while in office or after leaving it, but every federal officer is appropriately constrained by the possibility of impeachment, and it is only with late impeachment that this constraint can be properly whole.”
