On Monday's edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe excoriated his former colleague Alan Dershowitz's argument that President Donald Trump's conduct cannot be impeachable without specific crimes.

"We've got a president who was shaking down a foreign government for his own benefit, for his own re-election. He was using taxpayer money to do it," said Tribe. "He is engaged in the kind of abuse that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, any of our framers would have said requires that we end the presidency, especially when the abuse goes to meddling in the next election. And when Alan Dershowitz or anybody, although I don't know anybody else who really does it, comes up and says, well, it's an abuse but it's not a crime or crime-like, and therefore we can't remove him for it. That really — that's disgusting. There is no basis in the Constitution or in our history for that."

On Monday's edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz went on the defensive as Cooper and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin confronted him with his prior statements that impeachment doesn't require a criminal act for President Bill Clinton — which he now says is required for President Donald Trump.

"Back then you said that it certainly doesn't have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president, who abuses trust, and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don't need a technical crime," said Cooper.

"Well, that's true. You don't need a technical crime. That's my position today," said Dershowitz. "I've said right from the beginning you need criminal-like behavior akin to bribery and treason."