This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, April 24th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Impeachment needn't be a national nightmare, as it's been described.

And merely beginning an inquiry doesn't mean impeachment

is the next logical step.

According to Bob Bauer, former White House counsel to Barack Obama, the present conception

of the presidency itself is part of the problem.

We spoke earlier this month.

Impeachment is a substantial power that is handed to Congress. To the extent that it's been used in the past, do you think it's

been used substantially incorrectly or inappropriately? I have reservations for reasons we can discuss about the way

Congress went about the impeachment of Bill Clinton and then subsequently

the trial. I do think however the problem with the impeachment power is not

its over-utilization but its under-utilization which is a product of

conceiving it the wrong way and I think this experience that we're having in the current administration demonstrates

the extent to which this conception has, I think, deterred Congress from facing up to its

full responsibilities under the Constitution to consider at least impeachment inquiry where inquiry is appropriate.

To the extent Congress has not done enough impeachment, what are the standards that they have established for impeachment

that you think are too high or using the wrong standard perhaps?

I would distinguish, first first of all the question of

congressional inquiry from an ultimate or final congressional judgment about

whether to proceed with impeachment in the House and then with conviction in the

Senate.

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