Noah Feldman, Columnist

If Trump's Impeached, Then Why Can't a Senate Trial Start Now?

New theories on when impeachment happens make no sense when followed to their logical constitutional conclusion.

December 22, 2019 at 3:25 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

The rules concerning impeachment are clear.
Photographer: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

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Call me old fashioned or naïve, but I think my job is to explain what the U.S. Constitution actually means, no matter who likes it or doesn’t. That led me to explain recently that under the Constitution as it was understood by the framers and as it still should be understood today, impeachment isn’t complete when the House of Representatives votes to impeach.

Constitutionally, impeachment becomes official when the House sends word of that impeachment to the Senate, triggering a Senate trial.