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NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - President Donald Trump is hitting back against talk of possible impeachment after the Mueller report detailed his multiple efforts to obstruct the Russia investigation. In a pair of tweets, Trump wrote, "I did nothing wrong. 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."
But that's not how impeachment works, according to Professor Rebecca Roiphe of New York Law School. She said Trump's ignorance of the process is "extremely troubling."
The Constitution defines the impeachment process and leaves it entirely to Congress.
"Congress investigates and then they vote articles of impeachment, and if they vote articles of impeachment, then it goes to the Senate," Roiphe said. "At that point, there's a kind of trial in which it's determined whether or not the president actually committed those acts, and if so, then he's removed from office."
If the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives does impeach Trump, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts would ceremonially preside over the Senate's trial.
"High crimes and misdemeanors is actually a term of art," Roiphe said. "It doesn't mean criminal conduct under the current federal code. What it really means is abuse of power."
For all the president got wrong, Roiphe said Trump's implication that the Supreme Court, with its majority of five Republican appointees (including two of his own nominees), would help him was the most disturbing.
"We don't live in a world where there's just power," she said. "We live in a world where there are checks on those powers."
The primary reason the Democrats in the house haven't yet moved to impeach Trump, and may never do so, is because they know the Senate, controlled by the president's Republican allies, would not convict him.