I am interested in hearing Dershowitz's argument. From what I've heard from his comments he almost thinks impeachment should never be used. I had this discussion with one of my friends last night who, while supports Trump being impeached, is worried we will see more impeachments. We very well might and I actually don't have a problem with that. According to the Federalist Papers impeachment is a necessary check on the Executive. The division of impeachment between the House and trial in the Senate is meant to be that the House might be more eager to impeach while the Senate would take a far more circumspect view about it. Bill Clinton's impeachment was pretty much what the Framers thought might happen and why they divided it.
Yeah the reason why they say it’s a political process is because the framers made it that way so in theory if a Party used it for politics it would pay a price from the voters the next go around. So the question of whether or not it’s used in the future mostly depends of voters becoming more divided and tribal to the point where there is no swing voters who will have the power to influence whether they should or should not impeach.
Rep. Amash brought this up during his vote for impeachment. Anyone who has read the Federalist Papers or followed the history of impeachment should know "Abuse of Power" is one of the main things impeachment is for. I would say that abuse of power was the basis of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and the articles that were drawn up for Nixon. This is why I'm interested in hearing Dershowitz's arguing because it sounds like he is arguing impeachment should never be used.
I'm listening to Sen. David Purdue again trot out that the Senate is going to do things exactly like the Clinton impeachment and also again that the House process was very unfair and didn't give allow Trump to have witnesses. He seems to forget that during the Clinton impeachment in the House they only allowed one witness, Ken Starr. While in the Senate they did hear from witnesses.
some commentary on the restrictions: https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/polarization-and-the-media/ excerpt: First, the Republican majority would like to curtail as much drama as possible. Hence, fixed, government-controlled cameras fit the bill. Second, the Senate is still using rules from the Johnson impeachment as the basis of the current proceeding. As such, it is no shock that they are using the TV rules from the 1990s. . . . The issues of restrictions of access to Senators by reporters is more troubling if one is interested in thorough coverage. But, of course, that isn’t the goal of the majority and so curtailments are not a surprise. . . . There was a time when yes, Senators needed the local papers, radio stations, and TV channels to be the conduit of their messages back to their constituents. Now there are multiple means to accomplish this. Not only can Senators use social media for direct connections, the main conduit is clearly more partisan-based media platforms. The dust-up between Senator McSally (R-AZ) and a CNN reporter this week illustrates this.
