The president has dismissed the rule of law as being relevant to his life.

And some of us who still take the Constitution rather seriously believe that those articles and impeachment that had been approved against Richard Nixon turn out to be relevant to the misconduct of President Trump.

It is a rare case where you have such a defined group who would experience immense immediate hardship

if they are no longer eligible for relief from deportation and the ability to work.

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the law, the rule of law, and the Supreme Court and justice.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and I cover those things for Slate. And this week has truly been one for the books. If you are watching gavel-to-gavel impeachment coverage, plus clocking the Democratic debate, plus keeping up with goings on in the federal judiciary, or probably very tired. But we thought we would just cannonball right in with an initial discussion of what we've seen so far in the impeachment process with Professor Michael Gerhardt and what's coming next. And then we're going to go in a deep dive. Ooh, I like this aquatic theme. Then there's a deep dive after the cannonball on the DACA case that was argued two weeks ago at the Supreme Court, and we will be talking to Janet Napolitano.

This week and last brought testimony in the House Intelligence Committee's open hearings on whether the president abused the powers of his office by allegedly withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of Burisma,

the Bidens, and a debunk theory that Ukraine, more so than Russia, apparently interfered with the 2016 elections.

These names, Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill, George Kent, Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker, they have all come to blur together in our minds in the dozens of hours of testimony.

But we thought it would be useful to pull back a little and figure out what it all meant and what happens next.

Joining us to do that is Michael Gerhard.

He teaches at the University of North Carolina School of Law with a focus on constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress. He's the author of six books, including leading treatises on impeachment appointments and presidential power. He's 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 Supreme Court justices. He has been watching these

hearings awfully closely as a contributor to CNN, and it's been a very long week, and we appreciate him making time. So Michael Gerhardt, welcome to Amicus.

Thanks for having me. Let's dive in if we could, and it seems to me just watching the testimony of the last week and a half that this has been a remarkably consistent story, including from the GOP's own witnesses like Volker and Sondland, the story that's been told feels very airtight and consistent.

What is your sense, just initially, of the import of the accumulated testimony, the layers upon layers of corroboration of the same

essential story? I agree. I think what we've been hearing from witness after witness has

corroborated the whistleblower

report to begin with. And perhaps more importantly, really is consistent over time. The witnesses

...