Not so fast!
A Harvard law professor who wa🐓s a pro-impeachment witness called by Democrats now says that President Trump might not technically be impeached if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declines to send the articles 𒉰to the Senate.
“The Constitution doesn’t 🔜say how f🔥ast the articles must go to the Senate. Some modest delay is not inconsistent with the Constitution, or how both chambers usually work,” Noah Feldman wrote in a .
But, he added, the speaker has to eventuallꦑy forward them to the Senate for the proceedings to be legitimate.
“Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution🌜: The House must actually send the a🔯rticles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial,” he continued.
“If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say he wasn’t truly impe🎉ached at all.🌜”
Pelosi would be taking a huge risk by not sending the articles to the Senate, and the upper ch🥀amber would not be acting in accordance with the Constitution if it did not hold a fair trial, Feldman added.
“For the House to vote ‘to impeach’ without ever sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial would also deviate from the con🎃stitutional protocol. It would mean that the president had not genuinely been impeached under the Constitution; and it would also deny the president the chance to defend himself in the Senate that the Constitution provides,” he wrote.
“Once the articles are sent, the Senate has a constiౠtutional duty to hold a trial on the impeachment charges presented. Failure for the Senate to hold a trial after 🐈impeachment would deviate from the Constitution’s clear expectation.”
Pelosi said Thu🤪rsday that she was in no rush to send the articles to the Senate because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had not reveale🦹d how a trial would be conducted, and she wanted to ensure that it would be fair and not result in an automatic acquittal.
McConnell has said he was working han🤪d-in-🅠glove with the White House while devising strategy for a Senate trial, rejecting Sen. Chuck Schumer’s call for top administration officials to testify.
The California Democrat said she was hoping for a “fair process” in the Senate but didnౠ’t express high hopes in McConnell — bashing him as “the 🥂grim reaper.”
The Kentucky Republican fired back that Pelosi had “🐎cold feet” and didn’t want to send the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — to the Senate because her case was weak.
But Pelosi sounded defiant, tellin🐟g the AP that Trump was “impeached f♍orever” regardless of what the Senate does or does not so.
“He just got impeached. He’ll be impeached for🅷ever. No matter what the Senate does. He’s impeached foreꦬver because he violated our Constitution,” she said.
“If I did nothing else, he saw the power of the gavel there. An🥂d it wasn’t me, it was all of our members making their own decision.”
Feldman told the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month that Trump’s actions in Ukraine and subsequent refusal to cooperate 🦄with congressional investigators were legit grounds f💧or impeachment.
“The essential definition of high crimes and misdemeanors is the abuse of office. The framers considered the office of the presidency to be a public trust. Abuse of the office of the presidency is the very essence of a high♑ crime and misdemeanor,” he told lawmakers.
“Beyond the case of abuse of office for personal gain, the framers understood that abuse of office could take a variety of other forms. Other forms of abuse of office include the use of the office of the presidency t🐟o corrupt the electoral process or to compromise the national interest or national security.”
Trump’s accusers charge that he abused his power when he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelཧensky to investigate Democratic primary candidate Joe Biden and his son while Trump was withholding a promised White House meeting and crit📖ical military aid for the US ally.
Republic♑ans defending Trump argued that he was wary of corruption in Ukraine and said that since most of the US aid was ultimately released, no harm was done.
Meanwhile, lawmakers who control Trump’s fate ꧅left Washington for a holiday break on Friday with no agreement over how they will handle the Senate trial to consider his impeachment charges in January.
No matter the outcome, Democrats have ensured that Trump will go down in hi♌story as one of only three presidents to be impeached, following Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 as he faced impeachment.