Schmuel Klatzkin in The American Spectator:

There is no precedent for a former official being tried and barred from office after returning to private life. It was attempted once, with a secretary of war in Grant’s Cabinet. But since the man was acquitted in the Senate, no precedent was established. But even had a precedent been established, a Cabinet officer is not someone elected by the People.

And what is being proposed now is a trial to be held before the Senate of someone who will be a private citizen. It clearly won’t be for the purpose of removing him from office. More importantly, it will deprive the People of their right to elect a person of their choosing to public office.

Nowhere does the Constitution say or suggest that one can impeach and try someone who is not in office. Nowhere does it grant Congress the power to remove a person’s right to run for office except as part of the process of removal from office.

The Senate has no right to act as a judiciary body to try a private citizen, only to remove someone’s hands from power. And most certainly the Senate was never given the power by the People to tell them they may not elect this private citizen if they so choose.

To hold this trial would be to undo the protection the Framers had set in place in their careful recrafting of impeachment. It would usurp a power that was never delegated to Congress by the Constitution by trying a private citizen before the Legislature and, without benefit of judge or jury, to deprive him and the People of their rights. If a law has been broken, the only place to try a private citizen is in a court of law. The process of trial before the law was firmly and finally removed from the legislative branch by the Framers.

And lurking behind this all is the goal of denying the People the right to have the person of their choosing in office. It is hard to think of any act more undemocratic.