For the opening day of House impeachment proceedings before the Judiciary Committee, four legal scholars have been called in to testify concerning the the history, intent, and importance of impeachment. Those witnesses are:
Noah Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Pamela Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School and constitutional expert for PBS.
Michael Gerhardt, the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at UNC.
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School and a familiar face on television.
As with the public hearings before the House Intelligence Committee, there will be opening statements, one or more rounds of questioning by staff, and then five minutes offered to each member of the committee.
Wednesday, Dec 4, 2019 · 8:37:21 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Honestly, I wish I had a very, very loud buzzer I could press whenever a Democrat chooses to wander into some personal story rather than ask questions of the witnesses. If they were using their time to push back on the BS that the Republicans are peddling, that would be one thing. But these little mini-biographies because the cameras happen to be on…
Look, the Republicans are terrible, but at least they’re not doing that.
Wednesday, Dec 4, 2019 · 8:56:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries does a good job of bringing together testimony from William Taylor with statements from Pamela Karlan.
Then Jeffries produces what may be the best moment of the day by calling back to the last election — the 2018 election where the “Will of the People” produced a House not beholding to Trump.
Wednesday, Dec 4, 2019 · 9:16:03 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Rep. Eric Swalwell blows away the value of Turley’s claims in defense of Trump by showing out that he made the exactly same arguments in defense of a judge a decade ago … a judge who was ultimately impeached on every count.