Democracy’s Ultimate Sanction—Impeachment: Process and Purpose

Reflecting on impeachments, one Constitutional Convention delegate famously declared, “A good magistrate will not fear them. A bad one will be kept in fear of them.”

But when is it appropriate to impeach a president, and should it be done? In their timely new book, To End a Presidency, Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz take us inside democracy’s ultimate sanction — the power of presidential impeachment — from its complex past to its role in today’s fractured political world. Hear from these constitutional authorities when they sit down with another expert on impeachment, former US Representative Elizabeth Holtzman, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who voted to impeach President Nixon, and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin.