Thread by @YAppelbaum

1. This is a thoughtful response to my writing on impeachment from @ezraklein, and before you read the rest of this thread, take a moment and read it: vox.com/policy-and-pol…

@ezraklein 2. I want to focus on a couple passages, though, like this one: "As happened to Republicans in 1998, impeachment proceedings will shift the focus from the president’s misdeeds, which are grave, to the question of whether he should be ripped from office."

@ezraklein 3. You’ll hear this a lot. It shapes the thinking of House leadership, which was in Congress in 1998. There are lots of reasons, though, why 1998 is the least useful precedent here. The biggest is this: The House didn’t hold hearings!

@ezraklein 4. Instead of embarking on the sort of independent fact-finding process I’ve called for—staff interviews, evidence, public hearings—a lame-duck Congress heard from a single witness, Ken Starr, and then voted articles to the floor based on his report.

@ezraklein 5. That this largely backfired on the GOP was both predictable and predicted; it short-circuited the process, failing to build the sustained public case for what it was doing, or to examine the evidence and weigh testimony itself.

@ezraklein 6. That process matters. Ezra argues, fairly, that “the public does not lack for opportunities to examine the evidence for and against Trump.” But it’s also true that one scandal eclipses the next, only to be pushed aside by some new tweet or provocation.

@ezraklein 7. Hearings provide a way for Congress to sort conspiracy theories from red herrings from substantive charges; to focus public attention on what *it* thinks matters most; to ask not just whether crimes were committed, but whether a president is fit for office.

@ezraklein 8. I don’t think the scattershot approach of separate committee hearings serves the same role, and I think past presidential scandals bear that out. But Ezra’s points are serious and well-argued, and deserve to be considered. My own case is here:
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…