Thread by @LuzMOrtiz

1. Question posed by Norman Eisen, Democratic Counsel, House Judiciary Committee. "Can you say a little bit more about what the framers concerns were about corruption of elections and betrayal of the national interest involving foreign powers and how they come into play here?"

2. Professor Pamela S. Karlan answers "So the framers were very worried that elections could be corrupted, they could be corrupted in a variety of different ways and they spent alot of time trying to design an election system that wouldn't be subject to that kind of corruption.

3. And there are a number of different provisions in the Constitution that deal with the kinds of corruption they were worried about....

4. If you become an American citizen, almost everything in this country is open to you. You can become chief justice of the US, you can become secretary of state, but the 1 office that's not open to you even though you are a citizen just like all of the rest of us, is the

5. presidency because of the natural born citizen clause of the Constitution. And the reason they put that in is, they were so worried about foreign influence over a president.

6. The other clause which, you know, probably noone had heard of, you know, 5 years ago, but now everybody talks about, is the emoluments clause. They were really worried that the president, because he was only going to be in office for a little while, would use it to get

7. everything he could, and he would take gifts from foreign countries not even necessarily bribes, but just gifts, and they were worried about that as well. So they were very concerned about those elections.

8. But it's not just them, and I want to say something about what our national interest is today because our national interest today is different in some important ways, than it was in 1789.

9. What the framers were worried about was that we would be a weak country and we could be exploited by foreign countries... We have become the shining city on the hill, we have become the nation that leads the world in understanding what democracy is.

10. And one of the things we understand most profoundly is, it's not a real democracy, it's not a mature democracy, if the party in power uses the criminal process to go after it's enemies....

11. It's also our national interest in promoting democracy worldwide and if we look hypocritical about this, if we look like we are asking other countries to interfere in our election. If we look like we are asking other countries to engage in criminal investigations of our

12. president's political opponents, then we are not doing our job of promoting our national interest in being that shining city on the hill."

13. Democratic Counsel, Norman Eisen, asks "Professor Feldman, anything to add?"

14. Professor Noah Feldman answers "Ultimately, the reason that the Constitution provided for impeachment, was to anticipate a situation, like the one that is before you today. The framers were not prophets but they were very smart people with a very sophisticated understanding

15. of human incentives. And they understood that a president would be motivated naturally to try to use the tremendous power of office to gain personal advantage, to keep himself in office, to corrupt the electoral process and potentially to subvert the national interest.

16. The facts strongly suggest that this is what President Trump has done and under those circumstances, the framers would expect the House of Representatives to take action in the form of impeachment."

17. @HouseJudiciary The People also expect the House of Reps to impeach Donald Trump for obstruction of justice and high crimes and misdemeanors that by definition includes abuse of power, betrayal of the national interest and corruptions of elections.

18. #ImpeachAndRemoveTrump #ImpeachableOffenses #Constitution #ImpeachmentHearings #BetrayaloftheNationalInterest #AbuseOfPower #CorruptionofElections #HighCrimesandMisdemeanors #ObstructionOfJustice #SaturdayThoughts #SaturdayMorning

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