Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe penned a Sunday column in support of House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiFive health care fights to watch in 2020 Congressional leaders, 2020 hopefuls condemn anti-Semitic attack in New York Figures to watch as White House mounts impeachment defense MORE’s refusal to submit House articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. Tribe declares this strategy is not just constitutional but commendable. That view may be half right on the Constitution, yet it leaves Pelosi all wrong on her unprecedented gaming of the system. The withholding of the articles is not only facially inappropriate; it shatters the fragile rationale for the House’s rush to impeach.
As a threshold matter, Tribe dedicates much of his column to a point on which I entirely agree. We both have criticized the position of Harvard professor Noah Feldman (who testified with me in the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing) that