University of North Carolina Law School professor Michael Gerhardt will testify Wednesday at the House Judiciary Committee that President Donald Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses, according to a prepared version of his opening statement published by PBS.
Gerhardt is one of three Democrat “expert” witnesses invited to testify on the first day of impeachment inquiry hearings in the committee. Republicans were allowed to invite one.
In his statement, Gerhardt will claim that “the record compiled thus far shows that the president has committed several impeachable offenses, including bribery, abuse of power in soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader to benefit his political campaign, obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice.”
He will add: “When we apply our constitutional law to the facts found in the Mueller Report and other public sources, I cannot help but conclude that this president has attacked each of the Constitution’s safeguards against establishing a monarchy in this country.”
In 1999, following the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, whom the Senate declined to remove from office, Gerhardt wrote an essay in the Maryland Law Review arguing that future impeachments should be more bipartisan:
[M]embers of Congress should agree, at the very least, to have bipartisan support before authorizing congressional subpoenas or investigations. … Bipartisan agreement to investigate is essential to avoid abusive practices. … At the very least, members of Congress should require committee chairs and ranking minority members of committees to agree before initiating investigations or issuing legislative subpoenas.
Today, Gerhardt seems to have changed his mind.
In his prepared remarks, Gerhardt disagrees with the White House’s characterization of the current impeachment proceedings as “partisan” and a departure from past procedures.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.