As recently pointed out by Alan Dershowitz, the kangaroo court proceedings being pushed through by Congress are violation of constitutional prohibition against "bills of attainder". Which are explained here:
law.cornell.edu/constitution-c…
law.cornell.edu/constitution-c…
2/ in the past, prohibition against legislatures purporting to exercise judicial authority without observing usual forms of evidence have been interpreted strictly by US courts. Seems obvious - why haven't Trump's lawyers done something about it?
3/ Read language carefully: bill of attainder clause said to "prohibit all legislative acts, “no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial".
4/ "NO MATTER WHAT THEIR FORM". So even though Shumer has dressed up the Dem proceeding against someone no longer in office as an "impeachment", it is by its very nature a "bill of attainder".
5/ to my knowledge (based on quick review), there has only been a single such proceeding in history of US (West Humphreys almost 150 years ago), the constitutionality of which doesn't seem to have been addressed. Not much of a precedent.
6/ here is key citation in article on "bills of attainder" law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/t…
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