Historian Douglas Brinkley said Tuesday on CNN that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), pushing a vote on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial was unconstitutional because he was no longer in office, was “foolhardy.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “I know you’re a presidential historian and an excellent one at that, Douglas, but what do you think of the argument that some of the Republicans are going to be making that this whole trial of the Senate is simply unconstitutional. You can’t have a trial like this of a former president?”
Brinkley said, “Well, that’s foolhardy. That’s typical Rand Paul talking nonsense.”
He continued, “If you took Rand Paul’s logic at face value, that means any U.S. president in his last three days could burn a White House, could create havoc, could empty the entire jail systems of America with a pardon, could set militia groups on citizens. That would mean any U.S. president in his last days in office would have carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to do and never face an impeachment trial. So, of course, the Founders didn’t want that.”
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