Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe warned Democrats Tuesday they “have to shoot to kill” when pressing for President Trump’s impeachment.
“If you’re going to shoot him, you have to shoot to kill,” Tribe told CNN “New Day” host Chris Cuomo. “And that requires an overwhelming majority of a bipartisan kind. Otherwise you’re just going to nick the guy, and make him feel empowered and vindicated.”
Tribe was on CNN to discuss his new book To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, in which he states the call for impeachment must stem from abuse of “authority that we give to high officials like the president,” and not from “garden variety crime.”
Cuomo noted that Tribe’s book “comes with a note of political caution,” and that “Democrats shouldn’t be rushing down the road of impeachment.”
“But [impeachment] will be available only if we don’t use it loosely and ring the bell every time something looks amiss,” Tribe concurred. “You can’t be the boy who cried wolf and expect to have a viable impeachment power.”
Tribe then listed potential wrongdoings that Trump could commit that may not be federal crimes but could be grounds for his removal from office.
“On the other hand, if Donald Trump uses the powers of the United States government to cover up his own criminality, or to cover up the way in which he cooperated with Moscow in order to win the presidency — that may or may not qualify as an ordinary crime — but it is certainly an impeachable offense.”
[Opinion: Byron York: Democrats and the Trump impeachment trap]
