A long-time Answerbag/Answermug friend said "Impeachment is political not legal". How can't it be legal when the Constitution includes it?

Impeachment is political.  It's also legal.  Impeachment is a fancy word for saying charges of gross misconduct were made against a person in office.  Much like a person being charged for murder, impeachment isn't something to be taken lightly - neither by the accusers or the accused.

Impeachment is a political process. This is why both the House and the Senate get to make their own rules. Judges/prosecutors/defense/etc do not get to make their rules. 

The Supreme court has even ruled that they cannot overrule an impeachment because it is political and not a criminal/legal process.

I don't see that your long-time friend is making a useful comment---the impeachment can be both, and closer to a legal procedure than a political one.

Of course, the Republicans say it is an attempt to reverse the 2016 election.  Sorry, not true---the Senate can find him guilty and then not vote to remove him.

The US Constitution is both a legal and a political document.

Constitution---the body of doctrines and practices that form the fundamental organizing principle of a political state.

In some cases, such as the United States, the constitution is a specific written document. In others, such as the United Kingdom, it is a collection of documents, statutes, and traditional practices that are generally accepted as governing political matters.

Aristotle’s classification of the “forms of government” was intended as a classification of constitutions, both good and bad. Under good constitutions—monarchy, aristocracy, and the mixed kind to which Aristotle applied the same term politeia—one person, a few individuals, or the many rule in the interest of the whole polis. Under the bad constitutions—tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy—the tyrant, the rich oligarchs, or the poor demos, or people, rule in their own interest alone.

(https://www.britannica.com/topic/constitution-politics-and-law)

Having read some of the others answers here, I'd like to make a few comments.


Political vs. legal:  Of course impeachment is a political process. It could not be otherwise. The Executive Branch is the law enforcement arm of the government, and it is folly to expect it to investigate and prosecute itself. I suppose we could conceive of some sort of Internal Affairs Division of the government which would have the sole power to investigate and bring charges against government officials, but that would have to be implemented through some process, most likely requiring amending the Constitution.

What is impeachable? -- That, too, is determined politically. The Constitution's exact language is "Treason, bribery and  other high crimes and misdemeanors." Translating from the late-1700s English, treason and bribery had about the same meaning they do today. "Misdemeanors" had a meaning more akin to "felonies" today. So, if Trump did shoot an older white man in Hickston, Al, that would be grounds for impeachment (shooting a young black man on 5th Ave in New York City would only make him more popular with his base...).

"High crimes" is a bit more vague. The term "high" in this context refers to "high office." As noted above, expecting people in high office to investigate and prosecute themselves for abuses of power is silly. Hence, the Framers settled upon language they hoped would give Congress sufficient power to deter the Executive Branch from abuse, while not being so broad that Congress would impeach members of the Executive for trivial or purely political reasons.


What is impeachable, Part Deux -- It is not clear if the Framers had a particular boundary line in mind when they included the impeachment power in the Constitution. Some historians  and legal scholars have argued that the Framers intended impeachment to be used much more aggressively than it has been in reality, akin to the way parliamentary governments regularly dissolve and reorganize.

Others have argued that impeachment is supposed to be a very limited power, invoked only when an Executive officer's behavior broadly threatens the nation and/or the people.

Because the Constitution is relatively explicit on the process of impeachment, but vague on what actions can motivate it, in practical terms an impeachable offense is (in the words of former President Gerald R. Ford), "anything half the members of the House and two-thirds of Senators say it is."

Broader implications -- There is a tendency among some (many?) Americans to treat the Constitution as holy writ. I think that's misguided. The more one reads about how the Constitution came into being, and the many political debates which occurred around it and the many political compromises that went into its construction and ratification, the more one sees it as the best that could be done under the circumstances, not as an infallible dictation.

To its credit, the US Constitution has been adaptable enough to enable the United States to meet many challenges over time. But that has involved changing interpretation of the Constitution, and sometimes amending the Constitution, to meet those challenges. And, of course, since people differ on how the Constitution should be interpreted or amended, the actual policies which are ultimately implemented are, as always, the result of a political process.

It is certainly a "legal" thing ... but hyped politically.  Pro-Trump folks continuously feel anyone opposed to him are doing it for solely political purposes.  They are so numbed to his lies and crimes that they aren't seeing things clearly anymore.  THAT is very dangerous.