Meet the Constitutional Law Scholars Who Will Help the House Figure Out Impeachment
The witness list includes Stanford Law's Pamela Karlan, Harvard Law's Noah Feldman, Michael Gerhardt from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Jonathan Turley, of the George Washington University Law School.
December 02, 2019 at 07:08 PM
6 minute read
The original version of this story was published on National Law Journal
The House Judiciary Committee has revealed the four constitutional law scholars who will kick off that panel's handling of the House's impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
Stanford Law School's Pamela Karlan, Harvard Law School's Noah Feldman, Michael Gerhardt from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Jonathan Turley, of the George Washington University Law School, will all be testifying at Wednesday's hearing.
The hearing is titled "The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment."
Several of the witnesses are no stranger to congressional testimony, as they have played the role of expert voices during prior hearings on Capitol Hill. However, the stakes are sure to be demonstrably higher Wednesday, in the midst of an impeachment proceeding that has already proven to be contentious and highly partisan.
Here's what you need to know about each of the witnesses who will help lay the groundwork for the next phase of the House's impeachment inquiry.
>> Pamela Karlan: Karlan is a well-known name in liberal legal circles. She's currently serving as the chair of the board of directors for the left-leaning American Constitution Society, and was the deputy assistant attorney general for voting rights at the Justice Department during the Obama administration.
Karlan has also argued before the U.S. Supreme Court several times, and is the co-founder of Stanford Law School's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
She is perhaps the least vocal about this current impeachment inquiry of all the witnesses on the panel, as it doesn't seem that Karlan has authored any columns outlining her stance on the inquiry or made any notable appearances about the proceedings so far.
Karlan was also a law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun, and previously taught at the University of Virginia School of Law.
>> Noah Feldman: Feldman is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard and a columnist for BloombergViews, where he has weighed in on impeachment.
In a column last month, the professor warned House Democrats against "allowing too much legal talk to obfuscate the fundamental wrongness of Trump's conduct: using the might of his office to pressure a foreign country to destroy the candidate he thought most likely to threaten his re-election."
He specifically urged Democrats to stay away from "legalism" during the public proceedings, or feeling as if they have to prove that Trump has violated a specific legal statute as evidence he should be removed from office.
"The very definition of an abuse of power is for a sitting president to use his office for personal, partisan gain. Using the presidency to get Ukraine to investigate Biden was—obviously—a brazen attempt to gain unfair advantage in the 2020 election," Feldman wrote. "That abuse of power is a high crime and misdemeanor. It merits impeachment. And legalism shouldn't be allowed to distract the public from it."
Before joining Harvard, Feldman was a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter and later taught at the New York University Law School.
>> Michael Gerhardt: Wednesday's hearing won't be Gerhardt's first stint as a witness during an impeachment proceeding, as he played a similar role during the Clinton impeachment. He was the only bipartisan witness who testified at that hearing, and also talked impeachment with the House behind closed doors, according to his UNC biography.
Gerhardt is the author of two books on impeachment: "The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis" and "Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to Know."
He has also been featured widely in media coverage about the current impeachment inquiry, weighing in on past proceedings and describing what a Senate trial could look like.
In an interview with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick last week, Gerhardt said that Trump has "dismissed the rule of law as being relevant to his life."
"Some of us who still take the Constitution rather seriously believe that those articles of impeachment that had been approved against Richard Nixon turn out to be relevant, as well, to the misconduct of President Trump," Gerhardt continued. "First, he has obstructed justice a variety of different ways. Second, he has asked the president of a foreign country—actually asked the presidents of a few different countries—to intervene in the next election on his behalf. And then third, he has refused to comply with more subpoenas than most people can count."
>> Jonathan Turley: Turley appears to be the Republican-called witness for this hearing. The GW Law School professor has previously defended the president on certain legal issues, including claims the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential race.
But Turley, like many Republicans, has publicly criticized how House Democrats have conducted their impeachment inquiry. In a column published by The Hill newspaper late last month, he described the ongoing proceedings as "an impeachment that seems designed to fail with an incomplete and conflicted record."
He pointed to Democrats failing to call prominent witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton or acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney in the impeachment inquiry.
"There may be an impeachable case to be made with Bolton, who teased about an undisclosed back story, but it will not be sustainable on this record," Turley wrote.
The law professor also made headlines in 2014, when he was hired as lead counsel in then-Speaker John Boehner's lawsuit against the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act.
Read more:
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllJudge Slashes $2M in Punitive Damages in Sober-Living Harassment Case
A Look Back at High-Profile Hires in Big Law From Federal Government
4 minute read'Appropriate Relief'?: Google Offers Remedy Concessions in DOJ Antitrust Fight
4 minute readThese Law Firm Leaders Are Optimistic About 2025, Citing Deal Pipeline, International Business
6 minute readTrending Stories
- 1'Largest Retail Data Breach in History'? Hot Topic and Affiliated Brands Sued for Alleged Failure to Prevent Data Breach Linked to Snowflake Software
- 2Former President of New York State Bar, and the New York Bar Foundation, Dies As He Entered 70th Year as Attorney
- 3Legal Advocates in Uproar Upon Release of Footage Showing CO's Beat Black Inmate Before His Death
- 4Longtime Baker & Hostetler Partner, Former White House Counsel David Rivkin Dies at 68
- 5Court System Seeks Public Comment on E-Filing for Annual Report
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250