Constitutional Impeachment Debate getting into the Minds of the Framers or... the Weeds?, Erick Kraemer

Both Republicans and Democrats brought constitutional scholars before the judiciary committee to give their expertise about the president's conduct and whether it met the standard for impeachment.

The scholar brought by Republicans argued a slippery slope where every president going forward would face such charges. The scholars brought by Democrats argued that soliciting foreign interference in American elections is precisely impeachable conduct considered by the Framers of the Constitution.

While Democrats arguing intent of the framers and Republican's arguing effects on public policy should, on its face, be amusing to many in the legal community--does it move the needle for the most important finders of fact: voters in 2020?

Constitutional scholars armed with thesauruses and well-honed argument likely won't translate to convincing a largely divided public to switch teams. It nevertheless makes for interesting reading.

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...the House Ways and Means Committee, lawmakers and the scholars they invited sparred over history and precedent as they prepared to embark on the third impeachment of a sitting president in American history. Invoking arguments between the framers of the Constitution and impeachment precedents dating to monarchical England, the scholars dissected the quality of the evidence before the House and how to define at least one possible impeachment charge, bribery. The three law professors invited by Democrats said that Mr. Trump’s behavior was not only an egregious abuse of his power for personal gain, but the textbook definition of the kind of conduct that the nation’s founders sought to guard against when they drafted the impeachment clause of the Constitution.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/trump-impeachment.html