Republicans Win Impeachment Rules To Benefit Trump

FEATURING ALAN HIRSCH – After a grueling 12 hours of debate over rules between House impeachment managers and President Donald Trump’s legal team on Tuesday, going into the early hours of Wednesday morning, Republicans by and large won.

Exercising his tight grip on power, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the most modest of concessions to Democrats in order to appease some of the moderate Senators in his party. As of now there will be no new documents subpoenaed and possibly no witnesses called in for a Senate impeachment trial over Trump’s fitness to remain in office.

If the most likely scenario is Trump’s eventual acquittal is it worth spending all this time going through the motions of impeachment?

Alan Hirsch, Instructor in the Humanities and Chair of the Justice and Law Studies program at Williams College, is the author of numerous works of legal scholarship and many books including Impeaching the President: Past, Present, and Future and For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights.