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.”
A Star is Born. pic.twitter.com/X9EhDAN9aq
— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) December 4, 2019
You can watch Collins’ remarks in the video below.
What’s shocking to me is Rep Doug Collins is a lawyer
Had he remembered even one thing from law school it would’ve been that you do not, You Do Not, insult law professors by labeling them ignorant of the facts or law at issue
Well done Prof Pamela Karlanpic.twitter.com/clmPEraxo8
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) December 4, 2019
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 move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO