In a legal brief submitted this week, one of the sources cited by former President Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers is a 2001 article by Brian C. Kalt, a University of Michigan law professor. Attorneys Bruce Castor, David Schoen and Michael T. van der Veen use Kalt’s article to argue against Trump’s second impeachment — and according to a Twitter thread by Kalt, they have taken his arguments out of context “badly.”
Kalt’s 2001 article dealt with late impeachment. Trump, following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, was impeached late in his presidency for incitement to insurrection — too late, according to his impeachment lawyers. But Kalt, noting that the brief “cites my 2001 article on late impeachment a lot,” explains, “The article favored late impeachability, but it set out all the evidence I found on both sides — lots for them to use. But in several places, they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly.”
Kalt, in his 2001 article, never reached the conclusion that a late impeachment was unconstitutional. But Castor, Schoen and van der Veen, according to Kalt, strongly suggest he did argue for this conclusion. Continue reading.