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1. A quick thread on why the power to impeach, and then try, a president is vested in the House and Senate, and not the Supreme Court.
2. Madison actually proposed placing it in the Supreme Court, or "or rather a tribunal of which that should form a part.” But others objected. Gouverneur Morris warned the justices were "too few in number and might be warped or corrupted."
3. Roger Sherman “regarded the Supreme Court as improper to try the President, because the Judges would be appointed by him.” A vote found two states in favor of Madison’s proposal, and nine opposed.
4. In Federalist 65, Hamilton echoed these arguments, and added more. The Court might lack “the credit and authority” to rule against an impeachment brought by the elected representatives of the people in the House, or "so eminent a portion of fortitude” as to convict.
5. Moreover, should the president or another officer be removed, he would then face potential criminal prosecution—and that would put the Court in the position of having to rule twice on effectively the same charges, raising questions of basic fairness.
6. But there’s one more, which ties to "the nature of the proceeding,” and so tells us something essential about how the framers thought about impeachment.
7. Impeachment "can never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutors, or in the construction of it by the judges, as in common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security,” Hamilton wrote.
8. Put simply, impeachment is not just a legal proceeding—it places "awful discretion” in the hands of Congress. That’s because Congress *is supposed to* exercise its judgment, looking at "the abuse or violation of some public trust."
9. Hamilton was clear-eyed about this, understanding that impeachment would arouse partisanship. But he also understood it couldn’t be parsed as a matter of statutory violations, which is what the courts do. It was at once more capacious and more consequential. 
This is what the president fails to grasp when he says he’ll turn to the Supreme Court to establish that there are "no 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors,' there are no Crimes by me at all.” If it were simply a matter of crimes, we might have vested the power in the judiciary.
11. But impeachment is a question of “high crimes and misdemeanors”—that is, of violations of the public trust. And that’s a matter for Congress; Donald Trump cannot save himself by appealing to the Supreme Court.
12. I wrote about impeachment—and why many Americans, including the president, have failed to grasp its actual role—here: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
