impeachment

A panel of lawmakers voted to dismiss petitions to impeach Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron on Tuesday, though the final decision lies with the full Kentucky House of Representatives.

The decision caps off nearly two months of closed-door meetings of the Kentucky House Impeachment Committee.

Rep. Jason Nemes, a Republican from Louisville and chair of the committee, announced they voted to dismiss the petitions late Tuesday night.

“The committee has found that none of the allegations made against the governor nor the attorney general rise to the level of impeachable offenses,” Nemes said.

  Both of Kentucky’s U.S. senators voted to acquit Donald Trump on charges that he incited the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Yet Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell capped off his vote with a winding explanation of why the former president should be blamed for the insurrection, but shouldn’t be convicted for it.

“President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day, no question about it,” McConnell said during a speech on the Senate floor.

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.”

A legislative committee dismissed a petition to impeach Republican state Rep. Robert Goforth, who was indicted for allegedly strangling and threatening to kill his wife last year. 

The Kentucky House of Representatives Impeachment Committee is still reviewing petitions against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

But on Thursday night, the panel heard testimony from two law professors who argued state law doesn’t allow for the impeachment of legislators.

Paul Salamanca, a law professor at the University of Kentucky, said it was a matter of constitutionality.

The Republican committee reviewing impeachment petitions against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has dismissed two of the cases but is still asking the governor to respond to one of them.

The committee is also still reviewing petitions filed against Attorney General Daniel Cameron and state Rep. Robert Goforth, both Republicans.

Three grand jurors from the Breonna Taylor case filed a petition to impeach Cameron last month, alleging he misled the public about the case and misrepresented the grand jury’s actions.Six of Goforth’s constituents called for him to be removed following his indictment for allegedly assaulting and threatening to kill his wife last year.

Republican Rep. Jason Nemes is the chair of the committee, which the state House of Representatives formed after receiving the initial citizen petition calling for Beshear to be removed because of his role responding to the coronavirus pandemic in Kentucky.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is criticizing three grand jurors from the Breonna Taylor case for anonymously filing an impeachment petition against him.

In a response to the petition filed with the Kentucky House of Representatives on Friday, Cameron’s office called the effort a “mockery of the solemn constitutional process of impeachment” and defended his handling of Taylor’s case.

Three unnamed grand jurors from the case filed the petition to impeach Cameron last week, saying the attorney general misled the public about evidence he presented and charges he recommended against officers involved in the raid on Taylor’s apartment.

In Cameron’s official reply, Deputy Attorney General Barry Dunn dismissed the petition as a “sign of the times,” where the country has experienced “a once-in-a-century pandemic, political vitriol on all sides, cancel culture, mass unemployment, cities burning, spiking crime, a continued assault on the rule of law, and simply put, difficult circumstances all around.”

The impeachment petition filed against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear continues to drag through the legislative process while petitions against Republican officials haven’t been heard yet.

After meeting for two and a half hours behind closed doors, the Kentucky House of Representatives Impeachment Committee emerged to say that one of the four citizens who filed the petition against Beshear earlier this month wanted to be removed from it.

Rep. Jason Nemes, a Repubilcan from Louisville and the committee’s chair, said the committee took no action except deciding to send Beshear a letter “seeking a little bit of additional information.”