impeachment 
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SOURCE: Open Democracy
2/9/2021
Trump’s Impeachment Trial Already Shows How Far US Democracy Has Been Undermined
by Jim Sleeper
Institutional deadlock in Congress indicates a deeper and far more worrying threat to rational debate among American citizens.
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SOURCE: The Bulwark
2/12/2021
What Good Is Impeachment, Anyway?
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky
The Constitution sets forth an expectation that Congress will check the power of the executive, through impeachment if necessary. The fact that it has failed to do so in th past doesn't excuse inaction in the present.
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SOURCE: Politico
2/13/2021
‘This Acquittal Sends Three Dangerous Messages to Future Presidents’
Politico's roundup of expert opinion on the failure of the Senate to get the supermajority needed to convict Trump includes thoughts from historians Mary Frances Berry, Geoffrey Kabaservice, Keisha N. Blain and Allan J. Lichtman.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/16/2021
Convicting Trump would have Required Accepting a Half-Century of Republican Guilt
by Steven M. Gillon
Senate Republicans could not convict Donald Trump without also accepting their party's collective blame for the politics of white male resentment and Christian nationalism that the party has cultivated for decades before MAGA.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
2/16/2021
Congress Must Invoke the 14th Amendment to Stop Trump from Running Again
by Tom Coleman and John C. Danforth
A former Congressman and former Senator, both Republicans from Missouri, demand that Congress invoke the 14th Amendment's provisions on insurrection to bar Donald Trump from holding office in the future.
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SOURCE: Bill Moyers
2/16/2021
When a Trial is Not a Trial
by James D. Zirin
Attorney James Zirin, author of a book on Trump's history of litigation, critiques the second impeachment trial as a sham.
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/9/2021
Would the Founders Convict Trump and Bar Him From Office?
by Eli Merritt
"Today’s Republican senators must at least be willing to break with their party and disappoint some of their constituents — and, yes, perhaps lose their jobs in coming elections — to serve the larger interest of protecting the nation."
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/10/2021
Impeachment Trial May Hinge on Meaning of ‘Incitement’
Although Trump's second impeachment trial may ultimately be decided by political considerations, the legal question of his culpability for incitement hinges on the question of when speech crosses a line to encouraging action and whether an impeachment trial is governed by different standards of proof than a criminal trial.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
2/9/2021
January 6 Was Just One Day in a Sustained Campaign
by Richard H. Pildes
A constitutional law professor argues for a broad perspective in the Senate trial; the questions at stake for the rule of law and Trump's accountability for a months-long effort to undermine democracy are too important to focus only on January 6.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
2/9/2021
Trump’s Lawyers Lost the Day
by David Frum
David Frum argues that Trump's lawyers ignored history, contradicted their own arguments, and made it impossible for Republican senators to claim any motive other than political expediency when they vote to acquit.
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SOURCE: MSNBC
2/9/2021
Trump Probably Won't Speak at His Impeachment Trial. That May be a Good Thing
Columnist Hayes Brown suggests that there's enough evidence Democrats can bring against Trump without giving him a public platform to espouse conspiracy theories. German authorities came to regret giving Hitler such a platform in 1924, as summarized by historian Volker Ullrich.
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/8/2021
The Trump Trial Wouldn’t Have Been Possible Without This Impeachment
by Richard White
The impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap on 1876 seemed to have settled the question of whether an official's impeachment can be tried after they leave office in the affirmative. Today's Republican Party is ignoring the message.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
2/7/2021
The Constitution Doesn’t Bar Trump’s Impeachment Trial
Attorney Chuck Cooper argues that the Senate's discretionary power to bar a convicted officer from holding office in the future means that it is perfectly permissible to try Trump even though his term in office has ended.
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2/7/2021
The Constitution Forbids a Post-Presidential Impeachment Trial
by William G. Hyland, Jr.
A biographer of George Mason argues that, by the text and original intent of the Constitutional impeachment power, Donald Trump's exposure to trial ended when he left office and the Senate trial set to start on February 8 is unconstitutional.
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SOURCE: Freedom Forum
2/3/2021
A First Amendment Case that May be the Key to Trump's Impeachment Trial
by Tony Mauro
A First Amendment researcher offers a brief primer on Brandenburg v. Ohio, a case which Trump's legal supporters argue shields his January 6 rhetoric from criminal sanction because it was not purposefully aimed at inciting "imminent lawless action" – a claim critics say is blatantly contradicted by the subsequent actions of a mob a mile away from where Trump spoke.
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SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel
2/4/2021
Senate Must Punish Trump For Capitol Riot: Commentary
by David Marks
"Inciting lethal violence against the government, based on lies and selfish goals, has grave consequences. And considering the likelihood that some angry devotees will continue to be violent in the wake of Trump’s ongoing unwarranted assertions, legal action is obligatory."
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/30/2021
Only Accountability Will Allow the U.S. to Move Forward
by Mitch Landrieu
Full accountability for the Capitol Riot is essential lest white supremacists and other extremists take the lesson that their actions are accepted and permitted. The white supremacist massacres of the post-Reconstruction period show that moving on without accountability is impossible.
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SOURCE: Lawfare
1/22/2021
A Practical Path to Condemn and Disqualify Donald Trump
by Philip Zelikow
The standard of proof required for the Senate to bar Donald Trump from holding office under the 14th Amendment only demands that Trump gave aid and comfort to enemies of the Constitution, not that he participated in an insurrection. As his own words demonstrate that he did, this path should be followed.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/25/2021
Trump Impeachment After Leaving Office is Nothing – in 9th-Century Rome they Put a Pope’s Corpse on Trial
by Frederik Pedersen
A church synod in Rome in 897 AD tried Pope Formosus for transgressing the customs of the papacy. This required exhuming his corpse as he had been dead for seven months, and resulted in cutting off three fingers from the right hand and throwing the rest into the Tiber.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
1/22/2021
Yes, the Senate Can Try Trump
by Keith E. Whittington
The debates at the constitutional convention over the impeachment power don't give any suggestion that that power would be limited to current government officials.