The Patriot Post® · Impeachment Inquisition: Prof. Turley Hammers Dems
The Democrats’ impeachment charade continued Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, as four constitutional scholars opined over whether President Donald Trump deserves to be impeached. Three of the professors were called by the Democrats and, predictably, argued that Trump’s “crimes” are indeed impeachable. But the fourth actually got it right — this whole fiasco is insane.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at least waited until Thursday morning to instruct the Judiciary Committee to proceed with drawing up articles of impeachment. President Trump “abused his power for his own personal political benefit,” she declared, which “strikes at the very heart of our Constitution.” To hear such melodrama from a Democrat is as amusing as it is pathetically hypocritical. But they have a Christmas deadline to keep.
So, back to the hearings. Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman claimed that the Founding Fathers “would identify President Trump’s conduct as exactly the kind of abuse of office, high crimes and misdemeanors that they were worried about. And they would want the House of Representatives to take appropriate action and to impeach.” Please. In any case, Feldman is hardly a source for unbiased analysis — he’s been calling for Trump’s impeachment for the past three years. A mere two months after Trump’s inauguration, Feldman was demanding his impeachment because he disliked one of Trump’s social-media messages. He also claimed Trump should be impeached over his use of the constitutional pardon power.
Leftist professor Pamela Karlan, who also has a history of repeatedly clamoring for Trump’s impeachment even prior to his taking office, demonstrated her profound anti-Trump bias by claiming that the president sees himself as a king as the setup for a lame and rehearsed joke about why he named his son Baron.
However, the one witness who turned the hearing on its head was the only one called by Republicans — George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley. A Clinton supporter and a Democrat, Turley reiterated that he’s not a Trump backer while he presented the most reasoned, non-biased opinion regarding this impeachment fiasco. He challenged the Democrats’ entire rationale for impeachment, noting that, unlike all prior impeachment proceedings in U.S. history, no case for an actual crime has been established.
“If the House proceeds solely on the Ukrainian allegations, this impeachment would stand out among modern impeachments as the shortest proceeding, with the thinnest evidentiary record and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president,” Turley argued. He then observed, “We are all mad. Where has that taken us? Will a slipshod impeachment make us less mad or will it only give an invitation for the madness to follow in every future administration? That is why this is wrong.”
Turley also blasted Democrats for abusing their power, the very thing they’ve charged Trump with doing: “President Trump has gone … to the courts. He’s allowed to do that — we have three branches, not two. If you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power. You are doing precisely what you’re criticizing the president for doing.”
In their desperation to remove Trump from office with this ridiculous impeachment gambit, Democrats are doing grievous damage to themselves and our governmental institutions. No wonder they have lost the attention and concern of the majority of Americans, as demonstrated by the fact that more Americans are doing online searches for a “controversial” commercial for an exercise bike than for impeachment testimony. Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed four more of Trump’s court nominees Wednesday, so at least something worthwhile was taking place on Capitol Hill.