By Michael McDowell

With the question of impeachment in the air and a familiar adversary in the White House, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, may be a critical figure in bringing about the denouement of the Trump presidency.

Yet even as he once again assumes a starring role in national politics, for many Upper West Siders, Rep. Nadler remains “our Jerry”—a familiar face at the synagogue, a representative ready to engage constituents on Broadway, a patron of neighborhood restaurants (he likes Bella Luna, at 88th Street and Columbus; his wife Joyce prefers La Mirabelle, at 86th and Columbus; that evening, he had a table at Shun Lee).

Nadler is a formidable interlocutor who seems to recall the entirety of his political career; though he states that he does not have a photographic memory, he possesses a remarkable command of names, dates, case law, and the byzantine particulars of legislative machinery. Known to be an avid reader, he may have already finished Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari’s “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” the book he said he was reading when he sat down with his district director Rob Gottheim and the West Side Rag for an interview at his New York offices earlier this month.

When we spoke, the Judiciary committee’s first oversight hearing was still a few days away. In that hearing, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s punchy attitude surprised the committee. “Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up,” he jabbed, as Nadler pressed him on the Mueller investigation.

The congressman smiled. After a brief back-and-forth about committee rules, Nadler continued his line of inquiry. “Answer the question please.”

In our interview, Nadler was emphatic that oversight of this administration is long overdue.

“I can’t think of a period in American history where you didn’t have oversight as in the last couple years. The Republicans, it’s not that they went easy on the administration, they ran interference for the administration. You have to do oversight of the administration in power, whomever it is at the time. Are they behaving honestly? Are they using appropriations properly?”

Those eager for censorious action, however, may be disappointed by Nadler’s judicious approach — one that has sometimes kept him from storming the barricades in the past.

In the late 1960s, Nadler determined he could not support sit-ins at Columbia, which he attended, because he thought protestors had “no right to forcibly prevent students and faculty who disagreed with [them] to go into the buildings—a civil liberties position.” Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had sought to close Columbia following the discovery of the academic institution’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

This sort of dynamic has played out in his career before. Although he organized an effective political machine in support of efforts like the Dump Johnson campaign in 1967 and the ‘Clean for Gene’ campaign for Eugene McCarthy, in 1968, Nadler declined to hold hearings to impeach President Bush in 2007-2008, when he chaired Judiciary’s Constitution Subcommittee.

“People were pushing me to hold hearings to impeach Bush and I refused to do so, in fact they were threatening me with a primary because I refused to do so, because I didn’t see that there was any possibility of a serious impeachment…all you’re going to do is take the oxygen out of the contest for the democratic presidential nomination.”

In 1998, during the impeachment of President Clinton, Nadler quoted Benjamin Franklin, who measured the magnitude of impeachment as such: a “substitute for assassination,” reserved only, in Nadler’s view, for “abuses of presidential power that undermine the structure or functioning of government or of constitutional liberty.”

Does he still feel the same way today?

“My perspective is exactly the same, then and now. Impeachment is a defense of the republic against the presidential aggrandizement of powers, against the destruction of the separation of powers, against the destruction of liberty. It is a defense; it is not a punishment. Impeachable offenses and crimes are a different question.”

Do Trump’s actions constitute impeachable offenses?

“It depends what they are. They may very well be. I have said that there’s really a three-part test for impeachment. Number one: did the president commit an impeachable offense? Number two, assuming he did, is it important enough? You’re not going to impeach a president for light and transient causes, even if technically you could. So, number two, is it really important? Do you really have to do this?”

He continued.

“James Wilson, I think, said at the Constitutional Convention, what if someone rigged the election for president? What if someone fraudulently procured the office? That would certainly be an impeachable offense. Although it’s a general rule that you should not be impeached for something you did before you’re president, if, before you’re president you do something to subvert or rig the election, or to fraudulently procure your election, that’s impeachable.”

The third part of the test?

“You don’t want to tear the country apart. It shouldn’t be partisan…Before you start the formal impeachment proceeding, you must have sufficient evidence of such gravity, of such weight, of deeds so terrible, that you believe that when all the evidence is laid out, a good fraction of the opposition voters, not of the senators necessarily, will say they have to do it.”

Do you think we’re going to get there?

“I don’t know,” Nadler answered, after a pause.

What about in the case of a Supreme Court justice, like Brett Kavanaugh?

“When we get time—the FBI background check was a farce. The [FBI] never interviewed the principals: you have 20 or 30 witnesses saying, ‘here I am, interview me, please,’ and they didn’t [interview them]. That was a farce. The Senate was willing to accept that farce, and that’s unfortunate, but they did. We have to look into this question, not with the view of undoing what the Senate did, which we can’t undo, but with the view toward making sure that the FBI cannot take instructions from the President, or a nominee, or the Senate Majority Leader, and not do a background check in a future situation.”

A year ago, Nadler told Upper West Siders that Trump “presents the greatest threat to constitutional liberty and the functioning of our government in living memory.”

Those familiar faces in the synagogue who wonder how we’re going to get through this, those constituents on Broadway who are concerned for the future of the country—what does he say to them now?

“We get through this by staying involved, being active politically, supporting civil rights and civil liberties and due process—due process above all else. Supporting the immigrants and all others who are being victimized by the administration, and getting involved politically at every level.”

This is a two-part interview. Stay tuned for the second installment tomorrow.