Lawrence Tribe: Impeach Trump. But don't necessarily try him in the Senate.

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21. Fortunately, our leaders are smart enough not to follow Tribe's really bad suggestion

First, even Tribe isn't proposing that the House formally adopt articles of impeachment and then sit on them. Instead, he is saying the House should NOT impeach, but should adopt a "Sense of the House" resolution declaring Trump guilty of impeachable offenses. He thinks that would be stronger than censure and would keep the Senate from acquitting Trump. He's wrong. A "Sense of the House" resolution in lieu of actually voting on impeachment articles would be even more toothless than censure and would rightly be portrayed in the media (and crowed about by the Republicans) as a retreat by the Democrats from fulfilling what we have been claiming is a Constitutional imperative. And it would simply tee up the Senate to propose its own competing Sense of the Senate resolution saying Trump isn't guilty of impeachable offenses. It would, in other words, be both a massive public relations disaster and a huge waste of time.

Second,even if the House wanted to actually impeach but sit on the articles, it faces the following obstacle: historically (and procedurally), the next step after the House votes articles of impeachment is the adoption of a resolution directing the naming of managers for the Senate trial and the delivery of the articles to the Senate. Such a resolution is, in House parlance, considered "privileged" -- meaning it must be immediately considered. There would have to be a roll call vote regarding the resolution, even if it was just a vote on motion to 'table' the resolution. That would force House Democrats, who had just voted to impeach, to go on record as opposing sending the articles to the Senate. Again, this unprecedented move would be a public relations and political disaster -- the media would point out that this has never been done and the Republicans would pound away at the message that the Democrats lack the courage of their convictions, want to deny Trump his "day in court", and have been engaged in a sham process.

Fortunately, however, Pelosi is much smarter about these things than Tribe. Having given her public blessing to the adoption of Articles of Impeachment and having cited the House's constitutional responsibility to hoo so, she's not going to allow that process to be derailed by a silly Sense of the House approach.