An Impeachment Primer, with Kim Wehle, Professor of Law

On Tuesday, White House Counsel Patrick Cipollone wrote a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and three Democratic committee chairmen making both legal and political arguments opposing the current impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Cipollone contends, in part, that the president did nothing wrong in his now infamous phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine last summer, so an impeachment inquiry is illegitimate.It will come as no surprise that there are many who disagree with that contention.The White House is refusing to supply documents and witnesses requested by the committees' investigators unless the full U.S. House of Representatives holds a vote to authorize the inquiry, which so far, Speaker Pelosi has refused to schedule. The transcript of that presidential phone call and text messages between diplomats involved in the Ukraine affair -- as well as public statements by the President himself — have plunged the nation into a full-blown constitutional crisis that deepens by the day. Today on Midday, a conversation about the impeachment process with Kim Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the author of a terrific book called How to Read the Constitution, and Why. Kim Wehle joins Tom in Studio A. This program was livestreamed on WYPR's Facebook page and you can watch the video here.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.