Actually, no. It doesn’t turn on what the word “president” means at all. The command of this passage is that the president SHALL be removed on impeachment and conviction. It says nothing whatsoever about whether a former president, having already left office, is subject to...
...Senate trial, having been impeached while still in office. It actually says nothing either about whether a non-official is subject to impeachment at all. All it says is that if impeached and convicted a president SHALL be removed.
Where does the Constitution answer the question of who is subject to impeachment? It actually doesn’t. We infer that only officials are, though there may be some room to debate that around the edges. But the Constitution says only three things—none of them direct—about what...
...happens if an impeached official leaves office.

This first is that punishment may not extend beyond removal and disqualification. This actually suggests to me that an impeachment is not mooted by an official’s leaving office.
The second is that the House—not @ByronYork—has sole power of impeachment. This means that the House of Representatives in the first instance gets to decide the jurisdictional question of the applicability of the impeachment power to soon-to-leave-office officials.
The third point is that Senate—and again, not @ByronYork—has the sole power to try those impeachment. So again, the power to ratify or rebuke the House’s position is textually committed to a specific actor.
In short, @ByronYork is misreading the passage he’s citing, and he’s not reading the other key passages. Taken together, they are indecisive on the key substantive question, though I think they lean against Byron’s view. They are, however, quite clear on whose decision this is.
That’s all I got.

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More from @benjaminwittes

22 Jan
It appears that I have been banned from Facebook—again!
I confess this time I am utterly at a loss. Was it hosting @RosenJeffrey to talk about peaceful transitions of power?
Or was it hosting @Timodc and @SarahLongwell25 to celebrate #InaugurationDay?
Read 7 tweets
14 Jan
If you're going through the motions with a seething rage coursing through your veins, #YourMusicOfTheDay is this particular performance of "furie terribili!" from one of my favorite Handel operas, the crazy-ass "Rinaldo." Katherine Watson is all of us.
It will literally take you 3 minutes and 24 seconds, and I promise it will make you feel good.
Read 4 tweets
6 Jan
I tweeted this thread about Merrick Garland earlier today, not knowing that Lisa Monaco would—in fact—be named his deputy attorney general.
I recommended this course specifically in one of the tweets in the thread and am delighted that the Biden transition was apparently thinking along similar lines. Today's events at the Capitol offer a good illustration of why this is a good idea. So here's a thread about Lisa.
As I said in my original thread, Garland seems to be the perfect attorney general nominee for a variety of reasons which I won't repeat here. He lacks one thing: *recent* executive branch national security experience. The Justice Department has changed a lot since his service.
Read 12 tweets
6 Jan
A thread with some thoughts on Merrick Garland, whom Politico is reporting has been selected as attorney general by President-elect Joe Biden... /1/
politico.com/news/2021/01/0…
Garland is principally famous outside the D.C. legal world for having been nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama in 2016 and having been shamefully blocked by Senate Republicans for nearly the entire year. This is a shame. And his treatment ithen is not the reason /2/
why he is the perfect choice for Biden for attorney general. Indeed, his martyrdom on this point actually complicates the picture a little bit; while Republicans generally refrained from attacking him, the very fact of the nomination and their stonewalling of it makes ... /3/
Read 22 tweets
4 Jan
#YourMusicOfTheDay is the Brahms Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40, the greatest performance of which I know is this one from the Marlboro Festival with Rudolf Serkin, Myron Bloom, and Michael Tree:
Movement II:
Movement III:
Read 4 tweets
1 Jan
.@scottjshapiro, who has only fewer than eight as many Twitter followers as I have, just gave an important Powerpoint presentation of his New Year's resolutions.
@Klonick is above having New Year's resolutions.
I have three:
(1) Always to mention how many more ...
...Twitter followers people (particularly repulsive people) have than @scottjshapiro.
(2) Never to mention @HawleyMO's name without reminding people that he sought to overturn a clear presidential election result.
And (3) To stop pretending that all Covid victim deaths...
...are equally tragic. There are innocent victims of Covid are very non-innocent victims. I mean to start distinguishing very actively between the two. Don't @ me. Or do. I don't care.
Read 4 tweets

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