Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Watch This ‘Snarky, Bisexual, Jewish’ Law Professor’s Impeachment Testimony

Pamela Karlan, a professor of law at Stanford University, made waves on social media Wednesday with her testimony on the impeachment inquiry before the House Judiciary Committee.

Karlan, who has referred to herself as a “snarky, bisexual, Jewish” woman, spoke forcefully about how Donald Trump’s quest for a quid pro quo from the Ukrainian government was antithetical to American democracy.

“I see a pattern in which the President’s views about the propriety of foreign governments intervening in our election process are the antithesis of what our framers committed to,” she said at one point in her testimony.

Karlan’s opening statement, however, received the most attention on social media, especially when she responded directly to the opening statement of Rep. Doug Collins, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican.

Collins, himself a lawyer, suggested that the four constitutional scholars assembled by the Judiciary Committee would likely not have been able to read through Rep. Adam Schiff’s report on impeachment, or go through the testimony presented to Schiff’s Intelligence Committee.

Karlan disagreed.

“I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing,” she said. “I’m insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don’t care about those facts.”

You can watch Collins’ remarks in the video below.

Karlan was one of three Jewish constitutional scholars invited to testify Wednesday, alongside Noah Feldman of Harvard University and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.