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America’s Impeachment Struggle

Podcasts Dec 18, 2019 Noah Feldman and Elmira Bayrasli

Donald J. Trump is the third president in US history to be impeached. Whatever the impact on his prospects for re-election in 2020, the more important question is what long-term consequences impeachment will have for US democracy.

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Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and one of the legal scholars who testified before Congress during the impeachment hearings for Donald J. Trump.

Elmira Bayrasli

Writing for PS since 2016
3 Commentaries

Elmira Bayrasli is the co-founder and CEO of Foreign Policy Interrupted and the author of From The Other Side of The World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places.

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Petey Bee Dec 19, 2019

A fine presentation of why Congress should not shy away from its duty to oversee the executive branch. Fulfillment of that duty is a long time coming, especially in light of the supine position adopted by Democrats when the Bush administration lied to their face and transferred a frightening amount of power to itself.

However, listening to this, one gets the impression that the impeachment inquiry is putting forth the best case they can make against Trump. I don't think they are.

The abuse-of-power charge walks Democrats into an absolutely vicious rhetorical trap. Republicans will claim that Biden did the same thing Trump is accused of doing. Now Biden had completely different reasons, i.e. not motivated by political rivalry. However, to discuss the fact that the reasons are completely different, requires stating what they are, opens them to criticism, which will require further explaining, and in the end it will change the subject from Trump to Biden.

The endgame is not just the possibility of a political setback (i.e. a second term of Trump), but a public that takes comes away with an entirely opposite view of what is presented here - that impeachment is a political tool.
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