,
9 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
1. Even if—like Pelosi—you believe that no amount of evidence, no shift in public opinion, could possibly move sufficient votes in the Senate to remove the president, the process of impeachment still delivers five discrete constitutional benefits: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
2. The process of impeachment safeguards the constitutional order in five distinct ways. First, it redirects the conversation away from a president’s provocations, and toward his debilities. Presidents discover previously unimagined capacities for public restraint.
3. Second, it paralyzes a wayward president’s ability to advance the undemocratic elements of his agenda. Impeachment puts the president’s own job on the line, raising the stakes of unconstitutional acts, and absorbing his attention.
4. Impeachment is also a vital tool of discovery and discernment. It surfaces new facts. Just as important, the process helps separate wild, conspiratorial allegations from well-evidenced charges. That benefits all sides of the debate.
5. The fourth benefit of impeachment is that it defuses the potential for political violence. This was the rationale Ben Franklin offered at the Constitutional Convention. Trump has warned “the people would revolt” if he were impeached. History suggests the opposite.
6. The fifth benefit of impeachment is that, even when it fails to remove an unfit president, it foregrounds the question of his fitness—and if the public is persuaded, it turns against him.
7. Andrew Johnson was impeached, tried—and ultimately acquitted. But impeachment frustrated his efforts to preserve a “white man’s government,” forced him to defer to Congress on Reconstruction, and denied his bid for a second term.
8. In 1976, Elliot Richardson—who resigned as attorney general rather than shut down the Watergate probe—wrote in The Atlantic, "Watergate has been redemptive … I see gain for this country in the reassertion of old ideals and the renewal of government processes."
9. This is the ultimate case for impeachment: that the proper response to lawlessness, unconstitutional conduct, and the undermining of institutions is the defiant reassertion of process and procedure I wrote about it, here: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
