If you have been keeping up with US politics, then you know that Congress began impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. If you haven’t been keeping up with US politics, then you are in for a bumpy ride. But why would we be talking about the President and the CBD industry?
Since Congress began impeachment proceedings, the I-word has been on everyone’s lips. But how many people know what it entails? According to pollster Emily Ekin, most Americans do not understand the impeachment process.
Apart from not understanding the impeachment process, most people do not understand the effects of impeachment. This is no one’s fault because impeachment is a complicated process. Plus, impeachment happened on infrequent occasions. The most recent one occurred during the reign of Bill Clinton.
A lot has changed since that time, and one of the changes is the emergence of the CBD and marijuana industries. There are lots of puns I can make about how these two industries are getting higher, or they are budding, but I won’t.
These industries are some of the hottest at the moment and some people are afraid that impeachment could negatively affect them. We have looked at the facts, and here’s the truth about how impeachment will affect the CBD and marijuana industries.
What is Impeachment?
Despite what popular culture would have you believe, impeachment doesn’t mean that an official is automatically removed from office. It is a process through which a country’s law-making body brings up charges against a government official. When the charges are brought up, the legislative body investigates and concludes the charges.
Each country has its own rules on how the process should be conducted. To keep this article simple, we’ll look at the impeachment process in the US.
How Many US Presidents Have Been Impeached?
In US history, two presidents have been impeached. And no, Richard Nixon was not impeached.
1. Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson, the president who took over after Lincoln, was the first president to be impeached. When he took over as president, he was very unpopular with Congress.
Although Andrew Johnson was pro-union, he was sympathetic to the confederacy. He used his presidential powers to veto bills that he considered to be too harsh to the confederacy. One of the bills he vetoed was the Freedmen’s Bureau Acts. The act gave displaced southerners, including African Americans, access to services such as food and medical aid.
President Johnson’s most egregious act was replacing Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War appointed by President Lincoln. When he did this, Congress produced 11 articles of impeachment against him. Congress impeached President Johnson by a two-thirds supermajority, and the case moved to the Senate.
President Johnson is one of the luckiest presidents in US history. His presidency survived by a single vote, and he was not removed from office.
The impeachment of President Johnson set a very important precedent; that a president could not be impeached for political reasons. This precedent is the reason why there have been very few impeachment cases in the US.
2. Bill Clinton
Earlier, we mentioned that Bill Clinton had been impeached, but we didn’t get into details.
Unlike President Johnson, President Clinton was not impeached for misusing his presidential powers. He was impeached because he lied about the nature of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
When the case was taken to the Senate, they chose not to remove him from office. The senators reasoned that while President Clinton had done something terrible, it did not reach the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors.
The ruling helped to affirm the precedent that a president should not be impeached for political reasons.
3. What about Richard Nixon?
When people mention impeachment, the conversation eventually turns to Richard Nixon. That’s why most people are shocked when they learn that President Nixon was not impeached.
The defining moment of Richard Nixon’s presidency was the Watergate Scandal. Five men broke into the DNC offices with a plan to obtain information that could help President Nixon’s reelection efforts. They took pictures of campaign documents and planted listening devices in telephones.
The five men were later arrested by the FBI, who then made a significant breakthrough in the case. They discovered that there was a link between money found on the burglars and funds used by Nixon’s campaign team. Once this link was found, more investigations were carried out that revealed the full extent of the scandal.
The scandal was so far-reaching that it even involved the Supreme Court. The court ruled that Nixon had to turn over his tape recordings to investigators. The tapes were a smoking gun, and Nixon knew that his time as president was done. However, Nixon chose to go out on his terms. Instead of waiting for Congress to impeach him, he resigned from the presidency.
His vice president, Gerald Ford, took over the presidency and pardoned Richard Nixon.
4. Did any other president face the threat of impeachment?
Over the years, several other presidents have faced the threat of impeachment, with the most famous being John Tyler. President Tyler chose to veto legislation passed by his party, which decided to kick him out of the party.
Once they kicked him out, they tried to force him to resign by threatening him with impeachment. However, Congress chose not to impeach him.
The Impeachment of President Trump
On 24th September 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress would begin an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. It was a moment that stunned the nation, and we are still experiencing the fallout of that historic announcement.
Different people reacted differently to the announcement. Allies of the president viewed the announcement as a politically motivated witch hunt, to use the president’s term. Opponents of the president saw this as two things. The first one was a victory against the president, and the second Congress was performing its oversight role.
Despite your feelings on President Trump, you can’t deny that this is a historic moment.
Why Did Congress Decide to Impeach President Trump?
Congress launched an impeachment inquiry into President Trump because of allegations made by a whistleblower. The whistleblower alleged that on a phone call with a foreign leader, President Trump made a shocking promise.
It later emerged that the foreign leader was President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. The whistleblower alleged that President Trump had offered President Zelensky a quid pro quo. President Trump wanted President Zelensky to investigate the Biden Family in exchange for military aid. The whistleblower further went on to allege that the White House was attempting to cover up President Trump’s wrongdoing.
These allegations were deemed serious and credible by the Inspector General.
What’s the latest in the impeachment inquiry?
By the morning of 9th October 2019, a significant event had occurred in the impeachment inquiry. The white house, through their lawyer, had sent a letter to Congress saying that they wouldn’t comply with the impeachment inquiry.
The White House also prevented Gordon Sondland from testifying before congressional committees. Gordon Sondland is a wealthy hotelier and one of the major donors to the Trump campaign team. Donald Trump appointed him as the US ambassador to the EU.
Leaked text messages showed that he was closely involved in the White House’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government. The Democrats subpoenaed Gordon Sondland because they believe he possesses vital information.
With this latest action, both the White House and Congress are gearing up for a long, drawn-out fight.
What is the Likely Outcome of All This?
At the moment, it is hard to predict what will happen in the impeachment inquiry. New information may come up, and it could potentially change the course of the entire inquiry. Therefore, it’s safer not to make any guesses and to let the chips fall where they may.
Impeachment and the CBD Industry
At this point, you might be wondering what the impeachment proceeding has to do with the CBD industry. Before we wrote this article, we were wondering the same thing. We thought that the CBD industry would be insulated from the shockwaves that would ripple from the impeachment proceedings.
It turns out that we were wrong. A lot of industries in the US and around the world would be affected by an impeachment.
Take a look at “Will CBD Oil Make Me Fail My Drug Test?” for an inside look at the differences between getting tested for THC against CBD.
CBD Stocks and Impeachment
Since Nancy Pelosi announced the beginning of the impeachment inquiry, CBD stocks have taken a beating.
On the same day that Congress began the impeachment proceedings, the stock price of GW Pharmaceuticals fell to $118.66. This was the lowest it had been in 6 months.
The stock price of Tilray, another CBD company, also fell when news of the impeachment proceedings was announced. The stock price fell to $26.73, which was the lowest it had been in almost a month.
Both Tilray and GW Pharmaceuticals are listed on NASDAQ, so it might seem that this is a problem that only affects CBD companies listed in the US. We also found that it also affects CBD companies in other countries.
Aurora Cannabis is a CBD company which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. When the impeachment inquiry was announced, it registered its lowest stock price in 6 months, $6.29.
The prices of all 3 CBD stocks rallied when President Trump said he would release the transcript of his call with President Zelensky. However, once the transcript was released, the stock prices took a further dip. We do understand that correlation is not causation, but we can’t ignore the facts on the ground.
Impeachment is hurting the CBD industry. When the prices of stocks across an entire industry fall, investors begin to lose faith in that industry. The general public also begins to lose faith in that industry.
Another impact of a declining stock price is that less money is invested in the industry. This would be catastrophic for the CBD industry because it would limit the amount available for research into CBD. This research is the backbone of the CBD industry.
At the moment, the CBD industry hasn’t reached that point, but things might change as the impeachment inquiry drags on.
Check out the “Most Recognized CBD Companies in the World” for a look to see if these CBD companies would be affected by impeachment proceedings in the U.S.
CBD Legislation
The impeachment could also affect the CBD industry by limiting legislation on CBD. The impeachment could do this in four ways:
1. Taking over the schedule of Congress
At the moment, impeachment is the only thought in the minds of most members of Congress. For most congress members, this is the first time that they are coming into contact with impeachment outside a history book.
Every member of Congress is interested in outshining their colleagues because these impeachment proceedings might be a career-defining moment. Because of this, other items on the legislative agenda will take a back seat.
This means that laws that might be beneficial to the CBD industry will take even longer to pass through Congress.
2. Less bipartisan support for the CBD industry
Few things can unite both Republicans and Democrats. And for a while, it seemed that the CBD industry was one of those things. Members of both parties consistently spoke about the benefits of CBD, and there was bipartisan support for CBD legislation.
However, as the impeachment process drags on, the two parties are becoming more and more polarized. This feeling of polarization is bound to get worse regardless of the outcome of the impeachment inquiry. The parties are seeing eye to eye on fewer issues. And the feeling in Washington is that each side is trying to get an edge over the other.
With such a polarized atmosphere in Washington, it is hard to imagine the Democrats and Republicans working together on any issue. The lack of bipartisan support may be the death of several bills that could benefit the CBD industry.
The lack of support isn’t only limited to the House of Representatives; it could also extend to the Senate. The Democrats control the House of Representatives, whereas the Republicans control the Senate. If the Democrats pass a CBD law in the house, Republicans might stonewall it in the Senate. This has happened several times before. Senate Republicans refused to vote on some of the legislation passed by House Democrats.
3. Presidential veto
If President Trump survives the impeachment inquiry, he will understandably have a bone to pick with Democrats. The president might choose to veto any legislation put forward by the Democrats to spite them.
For any CBD legislation to avoid a presidential veto, it needs to be passed by a veto-proof majority. In the current political climate, it is difficult to envision a situation where Democrats and Republicans work together to ensure the veto-proof majority.
4. The state level
At the state level, it’s even more challenging to gauge the effect of impeachment on the CBD industry. What we believe is that whatever happens at the state level will closely mirror whatever happens at the national level. There is going to be less bipartisan support for any issue, including support for the CBD industry.
Impeachment is one of the most strict processes that a country can undertake, and it is never done lightly. That’s why there are very few cases of impeachment in history. Impeachment has the potential to irrevocably change the course of a country’s economy and history.
That’s why stakeholders in the CBD industry will be closely monitoring the impeachment proceedings. We will be observing them as well, and by the end, we’ll let you know how much impeachment will have affected the CBD industry.
Thank you for reading! Be sure to check out similar articles to improve your CBD knowledge like “Reasons Behind High Price of CBD & Its Products” or even “7 Things to Consider When Shopping For CBD Oil“.
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