Thread by @kewhittington

As we gird our loins for the start of the actual, honest-to-goodness impeachment hearings, a thread of some of the short impeachment-related stuff I’ve written over the last couple of years 1/n

Before the 2016 election, I joined with Neil Kinkopf for a commentary on the impeachment clause for @ConstitutionCtr 2/n
constitutioncenter.org/interactive-co…

After the Comey firing: “By not playing a sufficiently active role as watchdog against abuses from the executive branch, Republicans could wind up feeding a political dynamic that leads to a partisan impeachment that makes everyone worse off.” 3/n
lawfareblog.com/impeachment-sh…

An impeachment primer. 4/n
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

“If there is good cause to remove a sitting president who is capable of objecting to his removal, then the only proper course of action is to build the case that the president has committed impeachable offenses.” 5/n
vox.com/mischiefs-of-f…

“Let’s say that you or your political ally have engaged in some behavior that have people talking about impeachment. You find yourself in impeachment territory.” 6/n
lawfareblog.com/how-get-out-im…

“The impeachment itself becomes a vehicle for trying to establish the new normative commitments. The fate of the individual being impeached is less important than the message being sent.” 7/n
lawliberty.org/2017/05/22/wha…

“Even lawful actions, or actions within an officer’s authority, can be impeachable offenses. Context is everything.” 8/n
washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…

“If use of the impeachment power is an exercise in forward-looking, political judgment, then it is worth thinking carefully about what the downsides might be of refraining to pursue an impeachment inquiry in the face of impeachable offenses.” 9/n
lawfareblog.com/what-downside-…

“The pattern of the president’s missteps, however, cannot be readily ignored, as they have reached a point that can no longer be chalked up to mere inexperience.” 10/n
niskanencenter.org/possibly-impea…

“Four or more years of Trump’s tweets & speeches might well tend to inure our political culture to what might once have seemed beyond the pale of presidential rhetoric. It will likely require conscious and concerted effort to push back.” 11/n
vox.com/mischiefs-of-f…

“Though there might be circumstances in which new information would force Congress to revisit issues that had made an appearance during a presidential campaign, the bar for doing so should be very high.” 12/n
blog.harvardlawreview.org/president-trum…

“If Congress itself does not have the will to confront the White House, then Mueller should think twice before insisting that the courts step into the breach.” 13/n
lawfareblog.com/dont-subpoena-…

“Trump’s critics have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to presidential scandals. Their difficulty comes with establishing that any single scandal is sufficient to justify the president’s impeachment and removal.” 14/n
lawfareblog.com/should-congres…

“This raises the question of when the use of this particular remedy might be warranted. It is surely not the case that it is warranted whenever a government official commits something that might be labeled a high crime or misdemeanor.” 15/n
lawfareblog.com/when-impeachme…

“The members of Congress, in exercising their constitutional responsibilities, and the voters, in exercising their franchise, are best positioned to hold the president accountable for his actions.” 16/n
niskanencenter.org/reckoning-with…

“There are both legal and political reasons for thinking the Court would stay out.” 17/n
reason.com/2019/04/24/can…

“The Democratic members of Congress might well feel compelled ... to move forward ... even if the prospects of a conviction in the Senate seem slim, but they should at least understand what, if anything, they might be accomplishing by doing so.” 18/n
lawfareblog.com/should-house-i…

“To empower the justices to sit in judgment of whether Congress was using the impeachment power correctly would be to turn the Constitution on its head.” 19/n
lawfareblog.com/alan-dershowit…

“Since the Trump presidency is just one long excursion into unfamiliar oddities of the American constitutional system, we must now consider whether the Senate is constitutionally obligated to hold a trial if the House adopts articles of impeachment.” 20/n
niskanencenter.org/is-a-senate-im…

“Even now, there remains a narrow (albeit shrinking) space for a constitutionally conscientious legislator to refrain from impeaching Trump.” 21/n
washingtonpost.com/outlook/impeac…

“It might not be possible to impeach a ham sandwich in the House, but the accused has no expectation of a fair or bipartisan hearing in the lower chamber.” 22/n
lawfareblog.com/must-house-vot…

“At the extreme, the House can vote to impeach and the Senate can vote to remove officers who stonewall congressional investigations.” 23/n
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

“Despite what Trump’s supporters say, however, the president can commit an impeachable high crime without violating the federal criminal law.” 24/n
lawfareblog.com/must-impeachab…

Why not? Here’s a long one as well. “The hard questions surrounding Trump are political questions in the broadest sense. How grave are his offenses? What remedies are available to address them? How risky is it to leave the president to serve out his term?”
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…