# Zoe Lofgren Democratic U.S. Representative from San Jose and Silicon Valley since 1995. Her work on impeachments spans five decades. She started as a congressional staffer while the House Judiciary Committee prepared articles against [[Richard Nixon]], and has served as a House impeachment manager three times, the last at Trump's first Senate trial. She also sat on the [[House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack]]. ## Background Born December 21, 1947, in San Mateo, California. She graduated from Stanford (1970) and Santa Clara law school (1975). After Stanford she worked for Rep. Don Edwards, a member of the Judiciary Committee during the [[Watergate Scandal]] impeachment inquiry. She then practiced immigration law in San Jose and served 13 years on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors before winning Edwards's seat in 1994. ## Impeachment record - **1973–1974** — Judiciary Committee staff work during the Nixon inquiry, in Edwards's office. - **2009** — House manager in the impeachment trial of U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent. - **2010** — House manager in the impeachment trial of Judge Thomas Porteous. - **January 2020** — One of seven House managers in the [[Trump First Impeachment]] Senate trial, her third time as a manager. ## House Administration and January 6 She chaired the Committee on House Administration from 2019 to 2023, the panel with jurisdiction over Capitol security and federal elections. So she held that gavel on January 6, 2021. Pelosi named her to the select committee that July. After the committee dissolved, she became its main defender against the Republican counter-investigation. When [[Barry Loudermilk]]'s December 2024 report urged an investigation of [[Liz Cheney]], Lofgren answered that members of Congress cannot be prosecuted for their legislative work, an argument from the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause. Since 2023 she has been ranking member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. ## KB significance She is the vault's longest continuous thread through the impeachment power, from the Nixon staff era to the Trump trial. She is also the clearest statement of the defense the committee's members rely on: Speech or Debate immunity for members, and since January 2025 Biden's pardons. Neither protects the witnesses, which is why the [[Cassidy Hutchinson News Log]] exists. ## Related - [[House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack]] - [[Trump First Impeachment]] · [[Trump Impeachments Timeline]] - [[Barry Loudermilk]]