What Is Impeachment For? - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, Justice, and the Courts

Episode: What Is Impeachment For?

Date: January 7, 2020
Host: Dahlia Lithwick
Notable Guest: Neal Katyal (Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States)

Episode Overview

This episode of Amicus grapples with the central question: "What is impeachment for?" Host Dahlia Lithwick introduces announcements about upcoming coverage on the critical importance of voting and American democracy in 2020. The episode’s focal point is a thought-provoking conversation with Neal Katyal, who discusses the constitutional purpose of impeachment in the shadow of President Trump’s conduct and the urgent political moment.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Relevance of Impeachment Amidst an Impending Election

Neal Katyal counters the argument: "Why impeach when an election is so close?"
- Logical Reason: Impeachment is necessary if a president has cheated in an election—waiting for another election to “fix” things is illogical.
- Historical Reason: The founders anticipated the need for impeachment specifically as a check when an election couldn’t.
Quote [02:22]:

"The allegation against the president is really simple, that he cheated in the 2020 election. He tried to get help from a foreign government, and he got caught. So to say, wait for that 2020 election to decide things is kind of like if Dalia and I are playing a game of Monopoly and she accuses me of cheating, and I say, well, let's just figure out whether I cheated by playing another game of Monopoly. I mean, it doesn't make any sense."
— Neal Katyal

2. Impeachment in Constitutional Design

The Philadelphia Convention of 1787: Katyal outlines how debate over impeachment unfolded.
- Early on, some founders (e.g. Elbridge Gerry) downplayed impeachment’s necessity, thinking elections themselves were accountability enough.
- However, leading figures (like Hamilton and Madison) insisted on impeachment for betrayal of the public trust, notably involving foreign interference.
Quote [03:40]:

"What if you have a president who fundamentally betrays the American trust? Are we supposed to wait and just let that happen? What if Madison said one of those presidents has help from a foreign government and so then actually even Elbridge Gerry changes his mind and says, absolutely, that's what we need impeachment for."
— Neal Katyal
- Textbook Impeachment Case:
  Katyal stresses that the scenario where a president seeks help from a foreign power for electoral gain was precisely what the framers envisioned impeachment to address.
Quote [04:35]:

"It is literally the textbook definition of what impeachment is. A president who goes and seeks help from a foreign government to help him in his election. That is front and foremost what the founders had in mind when they thought about impeachment."
— Neal Katyal

3. Impeachment and the Strength of the Presidency

The founders debated whether a powerful executive would need sufficient checks.
As Alexander Hamilton noted in The Federalist Papers, they sought both a vigorous presidency and the means to remove a president who abused those powers.

4. The Ongoing Threat to Democracy

Dahlia Lithwick highlights the stakes of the 2020 election, suggesting that issues of election law, foreign interference, and the mechanisms of accountability (like impeachment) are intertwined—and that these topics will be the heart of Amicus’ upcoming coverage.

Memorable Moments & Quotes

The Monopoly Analogy for Impeachment:
- “To say, wait for that 2020 election to decide things is kind of like if Dalia and I are playing a game of Monopoly and she accuses me of cheating, and I say, well, let's just figure out whether I cheated by playing another game of Monopoly." (Neal Katyal, [02:38])
Founders' Foresight:
- “What if you have a president who fundamentally betrays the American trust? Are we supposed to wait and just let that happen?” (Neal Katyal, [03:45])
Historical Context:
- “It is literally the textbook definition of what impeachment is... That is front and foremost what the founders had in mind.” (Neal Katyal, [04:35])

Important Timestamps

[00:04] – Dahlia Lithwick introduces the upcoming Slate live event on election threats in 2020.
[02:22] – Neal Katyal discusses logic and history of impeachment, including the Monopoly analogy.
[03:40] – Reflection on the debates at the Philadelphia Convention around impeachment and foreign influence.
[04:35] – Concluding insight: seeking foreign help in an election is the archetypal impeachable offense.

Summary: Takeaway for Listeners

Impeachment is not just a partisan tool or an act of desperation near an election; rather, it is a fundamental constitutional check envisioned specifically for cases involving abuse of power and foreign interference.
The founders built the concept of impeachment into the very DNA of the presidency to guard American democracy from precisely the threats being debated today.
Upcoming Amicus coverage will continue to explore these threats and the tools Americans have to address them.

For extended insights and more of the live Aspen Institute conversation, listeners are encouraged to check out the full episode or subscribe to Slate Plus.

Transcript

A (0:04)

Hello amicus listeners. This is Dalia Lithwick popping in with not just one, but two exciting announcements. Announcement number one, I wanted you all to be the very first to know about an exciting project we have been actually working on hard here at Amagus and about how you can be a part of it. So there's a lot going on right now. 2020 is completely overwhelming and we're just days into the new decade. But I am trying still to stay laser focused, to pay attention. What really matters, and this year more than any other maybe in our lifetime, is about who counts. And what that means is election and census and voting. Our question is this. Can American democracy survive the 2020 election? No small ask. So look, starting later this month, election law professor and friend of this show, Rick Hassan, will be joining us for a special series as we try to find answers to these existential challenges. And you can join us for the special series finale in Washington, D.C. on February19. We are going to have a live and off the cuff discussion on the threats to the 2020 election and how to combat them while there is still time. If there is still time, Rick and I will be joined by former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and the director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, Dale Ho, among other amazing guests. You're going to be hearing more about this in the coming weeks. And you know, I don't do a lot of live shows, but I'm very psyched about this one and I wanted to give you a chance to hop online, grab your tick right away. Go to slate.comlive to get your tickets. I am so looking forward to seeing you all there. Got that? It's slate.com live for tickets to maybe the most important conversation on voting that you'll hear this year. Now announcement number two, and that is that there is a fascinating conversation about impeachment going on right now in the Slate plus members only feed for this show, I spoke with Neil Kadial, he's former acting Solicitor General of the United States, all about his brand new book, the Case Against Donald Trump. It is an incredibly timely and useful book and it was an illuminating conversation. So here's a little snippet of what we talked about in front of a live audience at the Aspen Institute this past week.

B (2:22)

Why am I advocating for this when the election is so close? I guess two things. One, just simple logic and another historical the simple, logical one is this. The president, the allegation against the president is really simple, that he cheated in the 2020 election. He tried to get help from a foreign government, and he got caught. So to say, wait for that 2020 election to decide things is kind of like if Dolly and I are playing a game of Monopoly and she accuses me of cheating, and I say, well, let's just figure out whether I cheated by playing another game of Monopoly. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Given the central allegation here. The more historical answer is that this actually came up in the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. So during that long, hot summer, they deferred a lot of the questions about impeachment to the end. They wanted to know first kind of what the contours of the presidency were going to look like. And actually they settled on a really strong presidency. And maybe we'll even take a question about the, the full extent of the President's powers with relation to what happened in the strike in Iraq. But you know, the founders did, you know, as Hamilton said in the Federalist Papers, they wanted an executive with secrecy and dispatch, a strong president who could act quickly. But then they said toward the end of the Philadelphia convention, boy, if the President is that strong, we need to have some check on a president that acts outside of the scope of his powers and betrays the American trust. And you know, some founders, like Elbridge Geary said, we don't need to do that because they said exactly what you just heard Dalia say. Gehry said, well, there'll be a concert, there'll be reelections. At that point, there wasn't the constitutional amendment that said there'd be two term presidential elections. So it was contemplated presidents could run and run again and the like. And what Gary said is, because they're always going to be running for reelection, they'll be disciplined themselves and the election will discipline it. And others like Hamilton and Madison said, uh, what if you have a president who fundamentally betrays the American trust? Are we supposed to wait and just let that happen? What if Madison said one of those presidents has help from a foreign government and so then actually even Elbridge Gerry changes his mind and says, absolutely, that's what we need impeachment for. It is literally the textbook definition of what impeachment is. A president who goes and seeks help from a foreign government to help him in his election. That is front and foremost what the founders had in mind when they thought about impeachment.