Alexander Hamilton has been cast in a starring role in impeachment debate

WASHINGTON - Alexander Hamilton wrote 11 essays in the Federalist Papers about the powers of the presidency, including two specifically about the power of impeachment. He's certainly a legitimate source to cite when debating what the framers intended when they drafted the Constitution.

But the orphan from the West Indies who became our first treasury secretary has also become something of a historical celebrity since the last impeachment fight 21 years ago, which helps explain why his name is coming up in the public debate much more than it did last time.

The musical bearing Hamilton's name, which debuted on Broadway in 2015, remains a culturally resonant sensation. It's helped the man who never became president - spoiler alert: he was killed in a duel - overshadow fellow Founding Fathers who did, including his "Federalist" co-author James Madison and arch-rival Thomas Jefferson.

A group of more than 700 historians and scholars publishedan open letterlast night urging the House to impeach President Donald Trump. It's no coincidence that the letter mentions Hamilton six times. The signatories include public intellectuals such as Robert Caro, Ken Burns and Ron Chernow. Chernow wrote the 818-page biography of Hamilton that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to create the hip-hop show that dramatically transformed public perceptions of the Founding Father.

"As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, impeachment was designed to deal with 'the misconduct of public men' which involves 'the abuse or violation of some public trust,'" says the letter, which was organized by the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy. "Collectively, the President's offenses, including his dereliction in protecting the integrity of the 2020 election from Russian disinformation and renewed interference, arouse once again the Framers' most profound fears that powerful members of government would become, in Hamilton's words, 'the mercenary instruments of foreign corruption.' . . .

"Hamilton understood, as he wrote in 1792, that the republic remained vulnerable to the rise of an unscrupulous demagogue . . . President Trump's actions committed both before and during the House investigations fit Hamilton's description and manifest utter and deliberate scorn for the rule of law and 'repeated injuries' to constitutional democracy. That disregard continues and it constitutes a clear and present danger to the Constitution."

Hamilton's name appears 35 times ina 658-page report formally recommending impeachment that was released earlier Monday by the House Judiciary Committee. "Advocating that New York ratify the Constitution, Hamilton set the standard for impeachment at an 'abuse or violation of some public trust,'" the report says. "And in Federalist No. 68, Hamilton cautioned that the 'most deadly adversaries of republican government' may come 'chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.' . . . Rather than assume the Framers wrote a Constitution full of empty words and internal contradictions, it makes far more sense to agree with Hamilton that impeachment is not about crimes. The better view, which the House itself has long embraced, confirms that impeachment targets offenses against the Constitution that threaten democracy."

After Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would move forward with articles of impeachment, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., began his news conference by noting that she did not quote Hamilton. "I listened to Speaker Pelosi give us historical references, but one that she skipped was Alexander Hamilton when he wrote: 'There will always be the greatest danger, that the decision to use the impeachment power would be driven by partisan animosity instead of real demonstrations of innocence or guilt,'" McCarthy said. "This is the day that Alexander Hamilton feared and warned would come!"

To make sure his point wasn't lost, as McCarthy wrapped up his presser, he returned to Hamilton. He even referred to him by his first name. "The most important part here is, Alexander Hamilton, Founding Father, was concerned and warned us that this day could come," McCarthy emphasized. "We hope that, at any time, whoever has this power in this country, that they never repeat what Alexander warned us would come."

Previously, both the majority and the minority reports from the House Intelligence Committee invoked Hamilton.

"Such a fervor to impeach a political opponent for purely partisan reasons was what Alexander Hamilton warned of as the 'greatest danger,'" wrote the staff for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

"Hamilton explained that impeachment was not designed to cover only criminal violations, but also crimes against the American people," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in the preface of his report.

Members from both parties also quoted Hamilton during last week's House mark-up to debate the articles of impeachment before advancing them to a vote on the floor.

"Impeachable offenses as Alexander Hamilton explained are 'abuses of public trust, injuries done to society itself,'" said Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I. "High crimes, in other words, are abuses of power committed against the people. This is exactly what President Trump has done."

"Alexander Hamilton said the greatest danger of impeachment would be depriving a president of due process," said Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas. "Democrats are making the founders' worst nightmare come true."

Trump retweeted a video clip Ratcliffe tweeted of himself making this point.

Throughout this donnybrook, quoting Hamilton on Twitter has become fashionable for lawmakers across the ideological spectrum.

Hamilton's name is also being routinely dropped on all the cable news channels. Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who worked in Barack Obama's White House on regulatory policy, upbraided Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on MSNBC on Friday for saying on Fox News the night before that he's working hand in hand with the White House counsel to ensure Trump is acquitted."We might say, 'Senator McConnell, meet Alexander Hamilton,'" Sunstein told Rachel Maddow. "The Senate is supposed to be independent and impartial. The idea is not to closely coordinate with the person who is accused of committing an impeachable offense. . . . I'm quoting Hamilton. That was his authoritative account."

Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School, told Laura Ingraham on Fox News last Tuesday that Congress, not the president, is abusing its power by preparing to pass articles of impeachment that accuse Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. "There is nothing in the Constitution about abuse of power," Dershowitz said. "They are so vague and open-ended. They are exactly . . . what Alexander Hamilton said was the greatest danger."

Appearing on CNN at almost the same time, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., quoted Hamilton in Federalist 65.

"Our job was to do the fact-finding to determine whether or not there was the equivalent of an indictment, that the president should be tried as to whether or not this constituted bribery, if this was, in fact, an abuse of power," she said. "It was Hamilton who talked about the abuse of power being doing something that violates the public trust. When you put your personal interests above the American people's interest in trying to get dirt on one of your campaign opponents, that is putting yourself first."

Hamilton has also been appearing frequently on opinion pages. "This is precisely the kind of crisis Alexander Hamilton feared," former Republican senator Slade Gorton of Washington wrote in a New York Times op-ed endorsing Trump's impeachment. "Given the temptations a president might have in dealing with foreign powers, Hamilton's solution was equally clear: Congress should be involved," added Gorton, 91, who served three terms and lost his seat to Maria Cantwell in 2000. "The founders gave Congress the power to check a president accused of abusing the power of his office. They expected Congress to render its judgment on the facts. So, to my fellow Republicans who have been willing only to attack the process, I say: engage in the process."

"Alexander Hamilton had the foresight to warn us that impeachment would be prone to abuse rather than driven by 'real demonstrations of innocence or guilt,'" Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel wrote in her own op-ed for Fox News.

During the House Judiciary hearing with constitutional scholars, Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman even envisioned a scenario in which members of Congress would run into Hamilton in the afterlife. "We have to ask ourselves," Feldman mused. "Someday we will no longer be alive, and we'll go wherever it is we go - the good place or the other place. And we may meet there Madison and Hamilton. And they will ask us: 'When the president of the United States acted to corrupt the structure of the republic, what did you do?' And our answer to that question must be that we followed the guidance of the framers, and it must be that, if the evidence supports that conclusion, that the House of Representatives moves to impeach him."

Despite advocating for judges who rule based on the original intent of the framers, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., expressed disgust that law professors had the gall to speculate about what Hamilton and his compatriots might think about impeaching Trump. "I think we just put in the jury pool the Founding Fathers and said, 'What would they think?'" Collins snapped at Feldman. "I don't think we have any idea what they would think."

Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan quoted William Davie, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from North Carolina, to support the Democratic rationale for impeachment. "Hamilton got a whole musical," she joked, "and William Davie is just going to get this committee hearing."

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, the academic called by Republicans and a Madison biographer, said the Founders wouldn't have impeached. "We are living in the very period described by Alexander Hamilton: a period of agitated passions," Turley testified. "I get it. You're mad. The president's mad. My Republican friends are mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And Luna is a Goldendoodle, and they don't get mad. So, we're all mad. Where has that taken us? Will a slipshod impeachment make us less mad? Will it only invite an invitation for the madness to follow every future administration? That is why this is wrong."

Miranda said afterward that he was in meetings during this hearing, but that his phone fell off the table at one point because it was vibrating with so many messages about the shout-outs to Hamilton. "I was hoping this particular part of [Hamilton's] writing wouldn't be this relevant to our times, but here we are," the 39-year-old said in an interview that ran in the New York Post. "I thought [the show] would be popular with teachers, and I hoped it would appeal to hip-hop fans and musical theater fans alike."

He added: “I never anticipated how it would catch on with people in power and how often I hear politicians and people who work in D.C. quoting the show. It’s mind-boggling to me.”