Former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial ended just 38 days after the Capitol was invaded. This speedy process was unprecedented in many ways, not least of which was the crucial role that legal blogs played in “crowdsourcing” the trial’s key constitutional question.

The Jan. 6 Capitol attack raised immediate calls for Trump’s impeachment. But with just two weeks remaining in Trump’s presidency, the completion of a Senate trial during his term in office was always unlikely. Before Congress could even return to the ransacked Capitol and resume counting the electoral votes on the night of the rampage, scholars and reporters had already flagged the impending question: Can the Senate try and convict an impeached official who is no longer in office?