To be clear, I have no problem with an impeachment investigation. There are grounds for it. I can already hear the groans, but it is simply a fact that the committee is already conducting a de facto impeachment investigation. What we should object to is that the committee (a) has not been transparent about the inescapable fact that it is investigating whether Trump committed impeachable offenses, and (b) is insufficiently bipartisan to attract broad public acceptance for what it is doing. And a point worth underscoring: Enabling a committee to probe whether impeachable crimes have been committed would not obligate the House of Representatives to follow through with formal impeachment proceedings. It would simply put the committee’s investigation on firm constitutional footing.

In sum, it is apparent that the January 6 Committee is now effectively doing the impeachment investigation that House Democrats shirked from doing right after the riot. In principle, Congress surely has the constitutional authority to conduct an impeachment investigation even though Donald Trump is no longer president. But the committee the House has commissioned is not an impeachment committee. Legally, it has not been endowed by the House with authority to investigate whether impeachable offenses have been committed. And politically, it is an inappropriate vehicle, as currently constituted, for doing so.