Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight an analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. We begin consideration
Speaker 1: of two articles of impeachment against President Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: It was a historic week for the nation as the
Speaker 1: House Judiciary Committee debated articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: two articles charging him with abuse of power for asking
Speaker 1: Ukraine to investigate Joe Bidenweil withholding aid as leverage, and
Speaker 1: obstruction of Congress for stonewalling the House's investigation. Trump trying
Speaker 1: to downplay the impeachment at a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: This is the lightest impeachment in the history of our
Speaker 1: country by far. It's not even like an impeachment. My
Speaker 1: guest is Harold Crant, a professor at Chicago Kent College
Speaker 1: of Law. So, Harold, President Trump is calling this impeachment light.
Speaker 1: Is that historically accurate? Colling not I. An impeachment is
Speaker 1: an impeachment, and it's a constitutionally based measure from which
Speaker 1: the Congress can determine the appropriateness of an officer to
Speaker 1: continue in that position. And whether there are ten articles
Speaker 1: of impeachment or two is in this case, whether they're
Speaker 1: based upon treason or based upon abuse of office. It's
Speaker 1: all the same constitutional means and check and balance to
Speaker 1: make sure that someone's food for office. The Democrats really
Speaker 1: kept these articles of impeachment narrow. What do you think
Speaker 1: of their strategy? The first surprise to me was that
Speaker 1: nothing about the Muller investigation and Russian influence into the
Speaker 1: prior election was included. I actually agreed with that decision
Speaker 1: by no, it's controversial, and I think it's controversial because
Speaker 1: not think it's Republicans, but because the Democrats some felt
Speaker 1: that they had some kind of loyalty or duty to
Speaker 1: not in that direction, given all that had gone on
Speaker 1: and all that the president reportedly did to obstruct the investigation,
Speaker 1: that there would be something about that episode in our
Speaker 1: history included. So that's the first surprise. Clearly, anti Plosi
Speaker 1: didn't want that. She felt that the members of the
Speaker 1: public were turned off by the Russian investigation, by the
Speaker 1: moral reported, by the fact that nothing really happened with it,
Speaker 1: and so I think she made a safe political call
Speaker 1: to exercise that whole chapter from the impeachment proceedings. But
Speaker 1: the second interesting angle is the fact that no crime
Speaker 1: specifically was mentioned in the abuse of power article of impeachment.
Speaker 1: And I think that the goal of the Democrats there
Speaker 1: was to try not to say that this is illegalistic,
Speaker 1: but to say that the whole Ukraine quid pro quo
Speaker 1: was an abuse of authority, abuse of loyalty to the country,
Speaker 1: to the fighting forces of Ukraine and their competition against Russia,
Speaker 1: and that what you call it briber, theft of honor
Speaker 1: services or a campaign violation, The point is it's an
Speaker 1: abuse of authority and you don't want a president putting
Speaker 1: a personal gain above that of the country. So that
Speaker 1: was their angle. But that does open up a window,
Speaker 1: if you will, a crack for the Republicans to say, look,
Speaker 1: the Democrats haven't even said that the whole Ukraine episode
Speaker 1: is tantam out to a specific crime, And what they're
Speaker 1: saying is, come on, now, you may not like what
Speaker 1: the president did, and it's you know, maybe unclear, but
Speaker 1: if it's not a crime, why are you thinking that
Speaker 1: you should push for impeachment for it? Impeachment should be
Speaker 1: for something like a high crime and misdemeanor, trees and bribery,
Speaker 1: something of that sort, and knew the Democrats have not
Speaker 1: even labeled what the president did with any specific crimes.
Speaker 1: So that's the terrain, and I certainly understand the Democrats strategy.
Speaker 1: I think Republicans are turning it around as most effectively
Speaker 1: as they can. And the real question is where the
Speaker 1: public that they care one way or the other about
Speaker 1: how the Democrats have positioned this or how the Republicans
Speaker 1: have responded. So, going into the Senate trial, which appears
Speaker 1: inevitable right now, does Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have the
Speaker 1: power to determine what happens there. He does in the
Speaker 1: sense that absence something happening in the near future, the
Speaker 1: votes seem to be there to support the president. The
Speaker 1: process is something that you can go a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways on. I mean, maybe they'll be witnesses or
Speaker 1: probably won't be witnesses, but that's something that McConnell will
Speaker 1: decide in the best interests of his party, and most
Speaker 1: people think that it's in the best interests of his
Speaker 1: party not to have witnesses, because if you have a
Speaker 1: parade of Republicans pointing a figure at the president that's
Speaker 1: likely to undermine support for the president. Though obviously President
Speaker 1: Trump has said that he'd love to see Hunter Biden
Speaker 1: testify before the Senate um as well. But I think
Speaker 1: that the Democrats should take them up on that. If
Speaker 1: they allow John Bolton to testify, who's the Republican who
Speaker 1: probably was outside because of his disagreement with the foreign
Speaker 1: policy choices of the President, that they would be willing
Speaker 1: to have Hunter Biden there as well. So it's a
Speaker 1: process determination. There's nothing in the Constitution about it. It's
Speaker 1: really up to the Senate to create that that process,
Speaker 1: and my guests at this point is it will be
Speaker 1: streamlined because the Republicans are confident they have the votes
Speaker 1: to um equip the president of these two articles of impeachment.
Speaker 1: Two Republican senators told CNN that McConnell is expecting to
Speaker 1: hold a final vote to acquit Trump instead of holding
Speaker 1: a vote on dismissing the articles of impeachment. Is that
Speaker 1: purely so that Trump can say he was acquitted? Is
Speaker 1: there any difference there? I don't, I think so. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a procedural wrinkle as you suggested. I think the
Speaker 1: question begind of the day is will the Senate vote
Speaker 1: with two thirds majority to affirm or to convict on
Speaker 1: the impeachment articles presented by the House, and whether they
Speaker 1: decided to dismiss them or to acquit. It really comes
Speaker 1: down to the same thing, is that they are deciding
Speaker 1: not to remove the president from office. The expectation from
Speaker 1: the beginning has been that Trump will be impeached in
Speaker 1: the House, but not convicted in the Senate. And as
Speaker 1: you know, no president has been removed from office in
Speaker 1: our history. Were the Framers wrong to mandate sixty seven
Speaker 1: votes to remove a president a barrier that hasn't been
Speaker 1: reached in the nearly two d fifty years of our
Speaker 1: nation's history. Well, it's worth repeating that the Framers didn't
Speaker 1: understand about political parties, had no way for telling that
Speaker 1: they would play such a huge role in American politics.
Speaker 1: Have they understood the dynamical political parties, perhaps they would
Speaker 1: have devised a different procedure, but that's not to say
Speaker 1: that the procedure is lacking in force. The impeachment specter,
Speaker 1: if you will, they cause federal officers as well as
Speaker 1: the president to act more responsibly while they're in office.
Speaker 1: And as you pointed out, we've really only had two
Speaker 1: presidents impeached in our history. Both were not removed from office,
Speaker 1: but proceeding against President Nixon could lead him to resign
Speaker 1: so that he would not be removed from office. So
Speaker 1: I think the fact that it hasn't been used that
Speaker 1: much doesn't suggest that it doesn't have some still vital
Speaker 1: role to play in our separation of powers and structure,
Speaker 1: and I think it may well do. The wild card
Speaker 1: in this is that the Supreme Court is deciding this
Speaker 1: week likely whether to take the two text cases against
Speaker 1: Trump ordering him to divulge his taxes, And if they
Speaker 1: decline to take up those cases, those tax returns will
Speaker 1: have to be delivered immediately on one case to the
Speaker 1: prosecutor's New yorkular case to the House. And what if
Speaker 1: the President frump continues to flout judicial orders. That would
Speaker 1: then open up the House for a another impeachment article.
Speaker 1: And I think that the some Senate memories will start
Speaker 1: peeling off at that point and saying you can't have
Speaker 1: a president who is above the law. And it's one
Speaker 1: thing to have the president ignore what Congress requests that
Speaker 1: seems to be typical government in fighting. But it's another
Speaker 1: thing that when the president ignores what a judge requires,
Speaker 1: So that's a wild card. It may not happen, but
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court will have to make that determination very soon.
Speaker 1: Chief Justice John Roberts frequently talks about how the Court
Speaker 1: is above politics. Well, now he is going to be
Speaker 1: presiding over the impeachment trial in the Senate. What's his role?
Speaker 1: Is it purely procedural? This is an open, untruged waters.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think that Chief Justice Roberts cares
Speaker 1: very deeply about the image and the incentity of the
Speaker 1: cord in our system of separation of powers. He's voted
Speaker 1: that way in several key cases. He's talked about that
Speaker 1: in lectures. I think he'll try to run a trial
Speaker 1: narrowly deciding procedural issues, try to channel the issues, try
Speaker 1: to make sure that it's a streamlined, efficient process. I
Speaker 1: think he would try to avoid assiduously any kind of
Speaker 1: situation which would cause him to seem to delve his
Speaker 1: own toe into the political waters in terms of setting
Speaker 1: one way or another way. And I think contempt would
Speaker 1: be always possible, but I think it's it's unlikely, and
Speaker 1: he would try to avoid that at all steps possible.
Speaker 1: I do think that, just to make a long answer short,
Speaker 1: he would try everything is disposal to be as neutral
Speaker 1: of an arbor as he could during the Senate trial.
Speaker 1: Thanks Harold, that's Harold Granted, professor at the Chicago cand
Speaker 1: College of Law. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg m