Rudy Giuliani calls for Supreme Court to rule impeachment unconstitutional in deranged column

On Thursday, President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani penned a bizarre column in the right-wing Daily Caller, urging the Supreme Court to step in and rule impeachment "unconstitutional."

"House Democrats have put our constitutional government in grave danger by attempting to rewrite the carefully calibrated separation of powers under our Constitution and usurping powers not granted to the House," wrote Giuliani. "They have brought Alexander Hamilton’s nightmare of an entirely partisan impeachment to fruition and are making a mockery of fair proceedings."

Giuliani went on to argue that "abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not crimes of any kind, high or low," and that by claiming that his and Trump's scheme to extort Ukraine with military aid is abuse of power is an attempt "to undermine the president in exercising his constitutional power and duty to conduct the foreign policy of the United States and derives from a disagreement by the House Democrats in how this administration conducted foreign policy."

All of these claims are false. Trump is actually accused of trying to withhold military aid to further his personal political goals, not U.S. foreign policy. Additionally, Trump's conduct does raise the possibility he committed several federal crimes, and even if he hadn't, the Constitution does not require impeachable offenses to be crimes.

But all of this, Giuliani argued, somehow provided grounds for the Supreme Court to nullify the whole thing.

"The Constitution is silent on the Supreme Court’s role in an impeachment except to provide that it is presided over by the chief justice," admitted Giuliani. "However, the Constitution is also silent on the court’s power to declare federal and state laws and government action unconstitutional ... If this impeachment is not declared illegal it would remove the constitutional limitation of crimes on the power to impeach. It would allow the House to impeach for policy differences or political leverage. It would prevent a future president to raise any challenge to the most illegal, overbroad subpoena from any of the multitude of congressional committees and sub-committees. Congress would also create for itself a veto over a president’s conduct of foreign policy. Anytime it disagrees, it could charge abuse of power."

"Although there would be an immense amount of political benefit for Trump if there were to be a lengthy Senate trial, proving the vast crimes committed by Democrats during this baseless inquiry, it would be far better for the Supreme Court to reestablish the 229-year constitutional balance between our branches of government," concluded Giuliani. "Then, once again, we can be a government of laws."