Sunday School Extra Credit 1/19/19

All impeachment, nothing but impeachment, in our Extra Credit.

Let's dive right in, shall we, starting with Rep. Adam Schiff who spoke with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week.

We subpoenaed many of these witnesses. And because of the president's obstruction, they ignored those lawful subpoenas.

If you argue that, well, the House needed to go through endless months or even years of litigation before bringing about an impeachment, you effectively nullify the impeachment clause. You allow the president of the United States by delay, by playing rope a dope in the courts, to defeat the power of the impeachment clause.

The framers gave the House the sole power of impeachment. It didn't say that was given to judges who at their leisure may or may not decide cases and allow the House to proceed. So that is not the structure that the framers intended.

And I'll make one other point, George, which I think is a powerful one, and that is Donald Trump's Justice Department is in court saying the House cannot go to court to enforce its subpoenas. Well, they can't have it both ways, and neither should the senators accept it both ways.

The reality is, because what the president is threatening to do is cheat in the next election, you cannot wait months and years to be able to remove that threat from office.

Alan Dershowitz was also in the classroom; here's his main point.

Andrew Johnson was impeached in part for non-criminal conduct. And Curtis, who was the dissenting judge in the Dred Scott case and one of the most eminent jurists in American history, made the argument that has been called absurdist, namely that when you read the text of the Constitution -- bribery, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors -- other really means that crimes and misdemeanors must be of kin -- akin to treason and bribery.

And he argued, very successfully, winning the case, that you needed proof of an actual crime. It needn't be a statutory crime, but it has to be criminal behavior, criminal in nature. And the allegations in the Johnson case were much akin to the allegations here -- abusive conduct, obstructive conduct -- and that lost.

So I am making an argument much like the argument made by the great Justice Curtis. And to call them absurdist is to, you know, insult one of the greatest jurists in American history. The argument is a strong one. The Senate should hear it. I'm privileged to be able to make it. I have a limited role in the case. I'm only in the case as of counsel on the constitutional criteria for impeachment. I'm not involved in the strategic decisions about witnesses or facts.

But I will make a strong argument that Justice Curtis was correct and that Congress was wrong in impeaching for these two articles.

Rep. Jerry Nadler was on Face the Nation, offering

There is ample evidence, overwhelming evidence. Any jury would convict in three minutes flat that the president betrayed his country by breaking the law. The GAO, the General Accountability Office, just came out this week and pointed out that withholding money from Uk- from Ukraine that Congress had appropriated is against the law. But we didn't need them to tell us that.

And the reason he did that was in order to extort a foreign government to- to smear his political opponents for his personal benefits and to help try to rig the 2020 election as he worked with the Russians to try to rig the 2016 election. The same pattern. So, there is no question that working with a foreign- working with a foreign power, trying to extort a foreign power to interfere in our election is about as bad as you can imagine.

The main fear the framers of the Constitution had, why they put the impeachment clause in the Constitution, was they were afraid of foreign interference in- in our domestic affairs. The second thing they say that he broke no law is absurd. Abuse of power is the central reason for the impeachment clause in the Constitution. It's all over the Federalist Papers. It's all over the debates in the constitutional convention. There is no question about it. 

Dershowitz also visited CNN's State of the Union, as did Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, one of the House impeachment managers. First, Dershowitz.

If my argument succeeds, there's no need for witnesses. Indeed, there's no need for even arguments, any further arguments. If the House charges do not include impeachable offenses, that's really the end of the matter, and the Senate should vote to acquit, or even to dismiss.

Now, that motion is not going to be made. It was made in the Clinton case. Remember, I was involved in the Clinton case. I was a witness for Clinton. I consulted with the Clinton team.

I was also -- expressed very strong views about the Nixon impeachment. I had been consistent in my views on impeachment since the 1970s. That's more than I can say for some of my other academic colleagues, who seem to be making their arguments based on partisan considerations.

I'm a liberal Democrat who -- making this argument in a nonpartisan way.

Here's Rep. Jason Crow.

I have always had a fantastic relationship with Speaker Pelosi, and she has done a really great job over the past year navigating the House through a very difficult, very challenging time. She has led in a very thoughtful way.

And I think what the selection of these managers show is that politics doesn't play a part. The speaker has wanted to put a team together that represents the diversity of this country, the diversity of the caucus who can bring the case, make the case regarding national security, abuse of power and all of the things that the president did and make the case in a good way.

He also said that

We can talk about the hypotheticals all day long, about which witnesses to call, when to call them, whether or not to they have witnesses or documents or documents that corroborate the witness, and all of the hypotheticals, but all of it is going back to the Senate allowing witnesses and a Senate allowing documents. That is the Senate's decision, because the jurors in this case, the senators are both the trier of fact, but they also establish the rules. So it is time for them to establish fair rules.

We'll close with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who visited the Fox News Sunday classroom.

There is the impeachment process and then, of course, there's the removal trial that takes place in the Senate. And Speaker Pelosi's decision, which was the right one, to temporarily, for a short period of time, hold those Articles of Impeachment, have created the space for us to have a discussion about a fair trial.  And in that space, what we've seen is John Bolton has come forward to say he's willing to testify before the Senate. Lev Parnas has come forward to say he is willing to testify before the Senate.

We've acquired additional information in terms of correspondence between the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense, which says that the president was the one who directed the aid be withheld from Ukraine. We've had five Republican senators say that a fair trial should involve hearing from witnesses. And we've also seen that the non-partisan Government Accountability Office has concluded that the White House broke the law. That's additional information that I would think senators who believe in a fair trial would want to hear.

A couple of notes:

• Chris Wallace called out Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her pen-handing-out ceremony and smiling faces of people who received one of the darn things as not being in keeping with what Pelosi has said was her approach - solemn, sober, and without joy. He's right to do that, and this was just one more example of the tone-deafness of the leadership of the House.

• Nadler correctly mentioned, in reference to a question about Hunter Biden being called, that Biden "has no knowledge of the accusations against the president," which is true. Anyone on the Senate side suggesting he be called would be absurd. Jeffries echoed that thinking, saying that the standard for calling witnesses is "relevance to the central allegation in this case," that being Trump pressuring Ukraine. 

• Lindsey Graham (R-Trump) says "Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and the whistleblower, we can look at those allegations of misconduct outside of impeachment." Not sure exactly what he's going to be looking at there, particularly with Hunter Biden's job, and the whistleblower doing his job, whether or not he every worked with or for Joe Biden - because as far as I can tell, no one has yet proven that anything the whistleblower said was untrue or a violation of any rules of conduct. 

• There were a couple of references to potential rules that the Senate hearings will run twelve hours a day, from 1PM to 1AM, with each side allowed two days - 24 hours - to make their respective cases. To that, I can only ask, what the hell is Mitch McConnell afraid of, that he thinks the trial should be held when no one's watching? I can only wonder if he's trying to exhaust the Senate into voting to end this quickly...   

• Add in what appears to be extremely restrictive rules for the media, including not even allowing CSPAN cameras to broadcast the hearings, are only adding to the sense that this is not at all about making sure history is documented for posterity, it's about allowing one person -- the impeached one - all the access he needs, the hell with "the enemy of the people" and the people themselves. Again: what are they afraid of?

See you around campus.