Since Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) suggested last October that if the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is elected as president, House Republicans should immediately commence impeachment proceedings against her, there has been growing acceptance of his proposal as a viable Plan B to prevent a Clinton presidency.

According to Brooks, Clinton, as secretary of state, committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” through careless handling of classified information.

Some analysts, such as Philip Bump, writing for the Washington Post, attempted to refute Brooks by arguing, based on the precedent of the 1873 impeachment proceedings against Vice President Schuyler Colfax, that officials cannot be impeached for crimes committed before they assumed current positions.

Bill Blum, writing for the Huffington Post, argued that the Colfax case is not a binding precedent for Congress.

But recently, discussions of the proposal to impeach Clinton moved from advocating for her impeachment if she is elected president to suggesting that she could be impeached even before the general election. And it is clear from comments and suggestions circulating in the right-wing anti-Hillary blogosphere that Republicans are taking seriously the seemingly outlandish suggestion that Clinton could be prevented from contesting the 2016 presidential election by impeaching her now.

Some anti-Hillary activists have even begun speculating about who would replace Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate if House Republicans impeach her before the November election.

The latest proposal to impeach Clinton before the general election appears to have originated in an article written by Andrew McCarthy, senior policy fellow at the National Review Institute, and published by the National Review on September 6.

McCarthy had gained notoriety for having advocated for the impeachment of President Obama and authored controversial books, such as How Obama Embraces Islam’s Sharia Agency.

His new radical proposal is being pushed with fervor despite the widely held belief that impeachment proceedings apply solely to incumbent government officials.

“The point of impeachment is to deny power to any person whose high crimes and misdemeanors have demonstrated unfitness for a high public trust.”

Hillary Clinton before Senate over Benghazi [Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/AP]

According to McCarthy, there is no basis for the widely held assumption that Constitutional provisions allow only for impeachment proceedings against an incumbent public office holder and that impeachable offenses are limited only to those committed during the official’s current tenure of office.

He argues that the Constitutional provisions contained in Article I, Section 2, which endows the House of Representatives with “Sole Power of Impeachment,” and Article II, Section 4, which elaborates on the grounds of impeachment, do not limit impeachment to incumbent officials and impeachable offenses to those committed during a current tenure.

According to McCarthy, not only could Clinton be impeached — if she becomes president — for offenses committed prior to her swearing in as president, but she could also be impeached before the general election as a way of disqualifying her from future office, including the presidency.

In McCarthy’s opinion, the intention of the “Framers” was to prevent persons who have shown that they are unfit for public trust to hold positions of authority and responsibility and gain a further opportunity to abuse power.

Thus, the Constitutional provisions allow the House of Representatives to commence impeachment proceedings against Clinton ahead of the election based on alleged “abuses of power as secretary of state.”

He gives a long list of Clinton’s offenses that are supposedly high crimes or misdemeanors.

Clinton is guilty of recklessness in the handling of classified information, obstruction of a government investigation, and destruction of thousands of government documents after Congress asked for them. She is guilty of “shocking failure to provide security for Americans stationed in Benghazi” and “failure to attempt to rescue them during a terrorist siege.”

She subsequently engaged in serial lying to Congress and families of Benghazi victims about what caused the terrorist attacks.

Clinton is also guilty of having used the Clinton Foundation to conduct a “pay-for-play enterprise” without regard to national security, according to her political opponents.

“The proceeding against Clinton would be based on her abuses of power as secretary of state… [and would] have the effect of disqualifying her for the presidency.”

Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidate [Photo by M. Spencer Green/AP]

“Impeachment stands as a condemnation of her performance in office… disqualification ensures she will never again have an opportunity to abuse government power.”

But in the event that she is not impeached before she is sworn into office, other analysts, such as John N. Hostettler, a former Republican congressman from Indiana, have urged Republicans to commence impeachment proceedings immediately after she enters the White House.

Under the U.S. Constitution, impeachment is only an indictment of a public office holder for a high crime or misdemeanor, but it does not necessarily lead to removal from office.

Analysts argue that the offense for which a public office holder is impeached need not be a crime, such as treason or bribery, or other misconduct serious enough to warrant jail time. An official need only be found guilty of negligence or dereliction of duty that results in serious violations of the public trust.

Evidence of widespread support for impeachment of Clinton among Republican voters comes from a recent Public Policy Polling survey that asked North Carolina Republican voters if they supported proposals to impeach Clinton.

Sixty-six percent supported impeaching the former secretary of state, while 24 percent opposed impeaching her, but 10 percent were uncertain.

Clinton has reacted to media reports about the growing clamor for her impeachment, describing it as “pathetic,” and “laughable,” and “totally ridiculous,” according to MSNBC.

She accused Republicans of pandering to “the most intense, extreme part” of the Republican base.

[Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Images]