WATCH: Debate Moderator Traps Carolyn Maloney Into Answering Supreme Court Impeachment Question After Absurd Dodge

Rep. Carolyn Maloney tried to dodge a question about impeaching Supreme Court justices, but sharp debate moderator Rebecca Lewis trapped her into answering.

Maloney faced off against Democratic congressional candidate Suraj Patel and Rep. Jerry Nadler — who is currently the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — at a debate hosted by WPIX Tuesday night in the race for New York’s 12th congressional district.

One standout moment was when the candidates were asked: Should Supreme Court justices who voted to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade with their 5-4 decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — who also told Congress during their confirmation hearings that Roe was settled precedent, and that they would respect stare decisis — should be impeached for lying under oath.

Nadler, for better or for worse, was a firm “no,” saying “I don’t think I’m going to push for anybody to be impeached. I don’t think the evidence is clear enough.”

“And just to be clear, that’s a no in favor of impeaching any sitting Supreme Court justices,” Lewis clarified, to which Nadler replied, “Yes, that’s a no.”

Maloney saw Nadler’s response as her “eject” button. Asked the same question by Lewis, Maloney said “I, if the chairman is not for it, the way the system works, you’re never going to be able to accomplish it. So, I would put my energy into something I could accomplish.”

Rep. Maloney then ticked through some of those actions, and that was that. Until Lewis, who covers state politics at City & State, pointed out just one of the things about that answer that was absurd:

REBECCA LEWIS: If you win this election, Mr. Nadler will no longer be the judiciary chair. How would that impact your thought process around potential Supreme Court justice impeachment? 20 seconds.

REP. MALONEY: Well, it depends who was the chair. If the chair is willing to pursue impeachment, I would certainly support it. I would certainly support it. I’m not a member of that, of that committee. But people clearly lied to the public. They overturned precedent itself, 50 years of precedent. Personally, I was shocked. I never believed they would really do it. It was wrong and it needs to be corrected.

Nadler then doubled down on his response, telling Lewis, “Very simply, the evidence is not there to to to do an impeachment. Yes. They said they would respect precedent. Yes, they said Roe is established precedent. But precedent has been overcome before and they never gave a direct statement that they would never overcome the precedent. So there’s no impeachable offense.”

Mr. Patel similarly said, “I have to agree, as a fellow attorney with Congressman Nadler, that these people were smart enough to dance around, perjuring themselves in front of Congress. And therefore, I do not see an evidentiary basis for impeaching the Supreme Court justices that lied to us because they were clever about it.”

But all three candidates agreed the number of justices on the Supreme Court should be expanded in order to change the ideological balance.

Watch above via WPIX.