“Mr. Cipollone’s letter presents the president as the judge of whether a congressional inquiry into impeachment is constitutional. That obviously can’t be right. Not only would that violate the principle of separation of powers; it also would effectively put the president in ultimate control of the impeachment process.”
Noah Feldman, New York Times

“[The] letter offers a more sophisticated twist on Trump’s Twitter feed, on which the president defended blocking Sondland’s testimony because ‘unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public to see.’ But charging that your opponents are mean isn’t a legal defense… Democrats have been warning with more and more urgency that the Trump administration’s response to an impeachment inquiry might represent obstruction of justice… [The White House] missive sprawls over eight pages, but its message can be boiled down to just five words: You’re damn right we’re obstructing.”
David A. Graham, The Atlantic

“The president does not get to decide which congressional actions are legitimate and, therefore, which congressional commands he accepts. If he has a specific claim that his circumscribed right to executive privilege should prevent the turnover of a particular document or the testimony of a particular witness, he should make a case-by-case argument. Instead, he has essentially claimed that he can ignore Congress if he so chooses. And, in true Trumpian fashion, he insists that his lawlessness is constitutionally approved while those legitimately endowed with the power to hold him to account are betraying the nation’s founding document. In fact, the Constitution unambiguously empowers the House to conduct an impeachment, and it grants the president no authority to impede it.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post

“It’s one thing for Republicans to argue that there was no explicit quid pro quo in Trump’s telephone conversation with the Ukrainian president. It’s quite another for them to agree that the president should be free to engage in witness tampering, destruction of evidence, and obstruction of justice, or that the legislative branch should be powerless to exercise its constitutional authority against the executive branch. Indeed, the more partisan the Republican, the easier he or she will find it to imagine that a corrupt Democrat at some point will occupy the White House. Should that dark day come to pass, wouldn’t they then regret having given Trump free rein?... By redefining the crisis as an existential debate over the limits of presidential power, Trump may be in danger of losing those Republicans who still think of themselves as constitutional conservatives.”
Geoffrey Kabaservice, The Guardian

Regarding the issue of a formal vote to launch an impeachment investigation, many argue that “holding a vote now may… limit the efficacy of the subpoenasalready churning through the justice system—or at least give Trump’s litigators an argument for starting over… If a vote is taken now, the president’s lawyers are likely to argue that the prior requests were thus not included in the impeachment inquiry… Such a vote may also limit the House investigators in what they can investigate… it is important that the House not limit itself to abuses of power already known, as all indications suggest the impeachable conduct will continue… Finally, a vote requires difficult political choices… many red and purple district Democrats may be waiting to see what evidence emerges from the House investigations before determining whether impeachment is warranted. A party-line vote now—or one with some Democrats voting against—gives Trump ammunition to call the investigation partisan and to further refuse to cooperate.”
Molly Claflin, Slate

“The Constitution makes it clear the House has the ‘sole’ discretion to impeach and the Senate has the ‘sole’ ability to hold a trial. In other words, impeachment is purely a function of the legislative branch; not the executive, and not the judicial… Even if Trump and Republicans keep hammering their argument about precedent, there’s no sign in the letter they will take Democrats to court to try to dictate how the inquiry plays out… That’s probably because they know the courts will likely stay out of it: In past cases challenging impeachments (mostly of federal judges), the courts have upheld Congress’s right to impeach and have a trial… In short, the White House’s precedent claims amount to a political ploy, not a legal one.”
Ella Nilsen, Vox

“Fifteen current Republican senators served in the House or Senate during the Clinton impeachment. All but one of those — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — voted either to impeach Clinton or to convict him and remove him from office. I’d challenge any of them to explain why they deemed Clinton’s behavior so bad and are so unmoved by Trump’s.”
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post