With the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump approaching, we’re sharing a past program featuring Joshua Matz—co-author (with Laurence Tribe) of To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center. Matz explains his belief that the creation of the impeachment power was a “gamble” taken by the framers who hoped to impeach rogue presidents, and impeachment is not a “white knight” that can save our democracy. He shares insights from his book including scenarios in which he thinks impeachment must be used, as well as times when impeachment can harm the country more than help it, and gives informative historic examples of both situations. He sat down with Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen just after the release of his book in 2018.
FULL PODCAST
PARTICIPANTS
Joshua Matz is an expert in constitutional law, civil rights, and presidential impeachment. He served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York. In 2012, Professor Matz and Professor Larry Tribe published The Constitutional Inevitability of Same-Sex Marriage. Two years later, they co-authored an award-winning book about the Supreme Court, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution. In May 2018, Professors Matz and Tribe published their second book together, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- The articles of impeachment against President Clinton and President Nixon
This episode was engineered by Dave Stotz with editing by Jackie McDermott and produced by Jackie McDermott and Tanaya Tauber.
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