Prof. Laurence Tribe was on AM Joy this morning making his case to the moribund House leadership that it is their duty to commence impeachment hearing against the lying SOB in the White House and if the Senate remains recalcitrant in doing what is right, explain to the public that they are stopping short of referring it for trial and proceeding with censure.
Raw Story has the rest of the video and more text:
“Explain how the House might be able to act if the Senate refused to take up and start an impeachment trial, or would otherwise simply build in an acquittal,” Reid asked him.
“What the House could do, Joy, is fairly straightforward and they have done it before. They could have factual conclusions,” said Tribe. “The way the Judiciary Committee did when it concluded Nixon completed offenses. It wasn’t just like an indictment. An indictment is basically an accusation referring to someone else for trial. But the House of Representatives is quite capable of reaching a verdict. That is what I proposed it should do.”
“Now in the process of the hearings the House might educate the public and finally Mitch McConnell might give in and the whole thing might go in a direction that Nancy Pelosi, I think quite rightly, says is not very likely,” said Tribe. “But who’s afraid of the big bad turtle here? We don’t have to worry about what McConnell is going to do, the Senate will do…
...“My sense is that after a full hearing where the president and his lawyers would be invited to make a presentation, of course they would say no thanks, but they would have a full opportunity,” said Tribe. “And it would be a kind of trial, not exactly a trial, it is only the Senate that has the power to try impeachments. But you don’t have to be afraid of what the Senate would do. If the Senate is in the president’s hip pocket, then you can simply stiff the Senate and say we find that the president created high crimes and misdemeanors, but we’re not going to do you the favor of tossing you what looks like an indictment so you can shred it in the McConnell shredder.”
The House, after all, is an independent body,” Tribe added later on in the segment. “It is the people’s House, and they should stand up to their duty under the Constitution.”
I think Mr. Tribe is exactly right.
Even if the Senate won’t do its duty, the House should.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
To receive articles of mine not published elsewhere become a patron on Patreon.
Please follow me on Twitter @durrati
[cross-posted to PolitiZoom]