Impeachment watch: Over 500 legal scholars say Trump committed 'impeachable offenses'

More than 500 legal scholars from prestigious institutions including Harvard and Yale wrote an open letter saying that there is “overwhelming evidence” that Donald Trump committed “impeachable offenses” and that Congress is well within its power to impeach him if they so choose.

“There is overwhelming evidence that President Trump betrayed his oath of office by seeking to use presidential power to pressure a foreign government to help him distort an American election, for his personal and political benefit, at the direct expense of national security interests as determined by Congress,” the scholars wrote in the open letter, published on Friday. “His conduct is precisely the type of threat to our democracy that the Founders feared when they included the remedy of impeachment in the Constitution.”

The letter states that because Trump’s actions involved corrupting an election — which is the only way voters can punish a president — that his offenses are the definition of impeachable.

“Put simply, if a President cheats in his effort at reelection, trusting the democratic process to serve as a check through that election is no remedy at all,” the letter says. “That is what impeachment is for.”

This is not the first time hundreds of experts have signed onto a letter saying Trump betrayed the Constitution.

In a letter earlier this year, more than 800 former federal prosecutors said former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report showed Trump would have faced “multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice” were he not president.

Here’s what else is happening in impeachment news:

• The House Judiciary Committee is holding its second public impeachment hearing on Monday, in which the Democratic counsels on both the House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary Committee will lay out the evidence supporting why they believe Trump should be impeached. The GOP counsel will also lay out his reasoning of why he believes Trump should not be impeached. The hearing begins at 9 a.m. EST.

Come back tomorrow for more impeachment news.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.