Brief History of the Case

In 1984, district judge Harry E. Claiborne was convicted for falsifying his income tax returns and sentenced to two years in prison. In 1986, Claiborne was impeached by the House of Representatives and tried and convicted by the Senate, thereby removing him from office and terminating his judicial salary. This was the first instance in which the Senate tried an impeached official who had already been convicted in a criminal court.

When Claiborne entered prison on March 16, 1986, he did so with the intention of returning to the bench in two years’ time. He did not resign his judiciary post, and continued to receive his salary of $78,700 a year. This placed the U.S. Congress is a difficult position. Clearly, Claiborne was no longer fit for office, and yet the Constitution allowed only one method for removing a federal judge—impeachment.

Whether or not tax fraud rose to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” or whether a convicted felon could be allowed to remain on the federal bench, were not questions discussed at great length. After only a few hours of debate, the House Judiciary Committee reported articles of impeachment. Four articles were passed unanimously by the full House on July 22, 1986. The Senate received those articles on August 6, 1986.

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1957

In the conclusion to an extremely embarrassing situation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was one of the first of many such incidents in which African diplomats were confronted with racial segregation in the United States.

While the matter might appear rather small relative to other events in the Cold War, the continued racial slights to African (and Asian) diplomats during the 1950s and 1960s were of utmost concern to U.S. officials. During those decades the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for the “hearts and minds” of hundreds of millions of people of color in Asia and Africa.

In the conclusion to an extremely embarrassing situation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was one of the first of many such incidents in which African diplomats were confronted with racial segregation in the United States.

While the matter might appear rather small relative to other events in the Cold War, the continued racial slights to African (and Asian) diplomats during the 1950s and 1960s were of utmost concern to U.S. officials. During those decades the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for the “hearts and minds” of hundreds of millions of people of color in Asia and Africa.

Source: history.com