'In this country, no one is king': UNC School of Law professor testifies at Trump impeachment hearing
WASHINGTON (WTVD) -- UNC School of Law professor Michael Gerhardt was one of four testifying witnesses at the Judiciary Committee's first impeachment hearing Wednesday.
Gerhardt has testified more than a dozen times before Congress including as the only joint witness in the Clinton impeachment proceedings in the House; speaking behind closed doors to the entire House of Representatives about the history of impeachment in 1998; and serving as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for seven of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices, according to his UNC faculty page.
Gerhardt joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2005 and serves as the Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence. He focuses on constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress.
READ: Gerhardt's opening statement
"The record compiled thus far shows the president has committed several impeachable offenses," Gerhardt said in his opening statement. "Our hearing today should serve as reminder of one of the fundamental principles that drove the Founders of our Constitution to break from England...the principle that, in this country, no one is king."
Gerhardt read a quote Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, made during the Clinton impeachment, "The day Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day he was subject to impeachment, because he took the power from Congress and he became the judge and jury." Gerhardt said that was "a perfectly good articulation of why obstruction of Congress is impeachable."
"If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning." "I stand with the Constitution, and I stand with the Framers, who were committed to ensure that no one is above the law."
The other witnesses included Pamela Karlan of Stanford University, Noah Feldman of Harvard University and Johnathan Turley of George Washington University.
