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"The Supreme Court has no role in impeachment, and cannot be appealed to in an impeachment," Raskin said during a press call organized by the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

"In fact, the Framers specifically rejected putting the courts in charge of impeachment," he added. "They wanted to leave it to the wisdom of Congress and to let bicameralism work its magic."

Raskin was responding to Trump's promise earlier in the day to challenge any Democratic impeachment effort in the high court. "If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only are there no 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors,' there are no Crimes by me at all," he tweeted

But Rehnquist, Raskin said, "was proud of the fact ... that he said he basically had no substantive role" in the process.

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"He just literally stood in the front of the room, presided over the trial, called on the different lawyers, called on senators who wanted to speak and so on. But that's it," Raskin said. "There's no provision in the Constitution for any kind of appellate tribunal to be formed in the Supreme Court. So if there are lawyers left in the White House, someone should explain that to the president."

"It went to questions of private conduct and not public conduct," he said of the Clinton episode. "On the GOP standard we would have impeached Trump a long time ago for his hush money payoffs to his various mistresses in a way that violated campaign finance law."

Applying another historic reference, Raskin noted that it took months of investigations and public hearings into the Watergate scandal to bring the public — and in turn, Republicans — behind the idea of ousting President Nixon. It's that model that Pelosi and Democratic leaders are now adopting — while leaving impeachment on the table.

"There's lots of reasons to think about doing it, and lots of reasons not to think about doing it, and it's way too early to make that call even though the media just wants a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down," Raskin said.

"The public is just waking up to the enormity of the presidential misconduct that's contained in the report," he added. "That's what the hearings are about."

Raskin laid out a list of areas where he says the administration is acting unlawfully, including its refusal to turn over Trump's tax records and, more recently, the president's vow to fight " all the subpoenas " being issued by Democrats in the course of their various investigations.

"No Democratic president, and no other Republican president, has ever dared to say that Congress cannot obtain information from the administration," Raskin said. "People have different privileges that they can attempt to assert, and that's going to be settled as a matter of law or negotiation and compromise. But everybody owes Congress sworn testimony."

He added, "It is possible that we would have to hold people in criminal or civil contempt."

Mueller made clear he did not investigate "collusion," which is not a legal term, and he declined to exonerate Trump on the question of obstruction.

Raskin did not endorse the calls for Barr to resign, as some liberal groups are advocating, including the Jewish Democratic Council of America. But he said the attorney general has already lost all credibility in the eyes of Democrats.

"In some sense, Attorney General Barr has already resigned as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States," Raskin said.

"He has no credibility left, quite simply, because he has been acting as a paid federal criminal defender of the president of the United States," he added, "and that is a disgrace to the legal profession."