Chairman Nadler (D-NY) brought four law school professors before the House Judiciary Committee to opine on impeaching the President. None had voted for Donald Trump. Three were partisan shills; but one, Jonathan Turley, offered a common-sense opinion: “President Trump will not be our last president, and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for years to come.” Translation: your partisan anger and self-interest will invite Republicans to one day visit same upon a Democrat.
While acknowledging the President might have committed an impeachable offense, he faulted House Democrats for three patently partisan impulses:
- “Fast and narrow is not a good recipe,” because too many unknown facts undermine the validity of the case for impeachment.
- “You’re trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States,” requiring clear evidence of a demand for political favors in exchange for aid or a White House meeting.
- “If you impeach a president [by making] a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it’s your abuse of power;” therefore, stop the spurious claim that it’s obstruction of justice to refuse a congressional subpoena.
Professor Turley was spot-on: out-party anger was the driving force behind impeachment… as it was behind snarky Democrat comments about improving wages and employment. Their heavy hearts and prayerful deliberation talking points are obvious mis-direction, especially when Adam Schiff coached the whistle blower, and one law professor admitted her votes and money go exclusively to Democrats.
Time and again, common sense and context weaken the Democrats’ case. To wit, Speaker Pelosi invoked the founding fathers with a half-quote from the Declaration of Independence. “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them to another…” – – leaving it to we the people to fill in the blanks. Are Democrats dissolving political bonds to 63 million voters, the state of Mississippi, or just the Trump family?
Notably absent was the rest of Jefferson’s quote that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.” Democrats are not impelled because the President changed taxation without democratic representation or quartered soldiers in the homes of Democrats. No, the cause that impels House Democrats is a phone call in which two leaders opined about corruption.
House Democrats are so not interested in Turley’s advice – not when Schiff subpoenaed and published the phone records of House Republicans without notification. The Kavanaugh hearings and Trump-Ukraine inquiries prove Democrats have scuttled all pretense at collegiality, and it’s just a matter of time before they resort to dueling pistols at dawn – – after narrowly voting to impeach.
The guess here is Senate Republicans will re-visit partisan pain upon every witness Adam Schiff and Gerald Nadler interviewed in public or private (including both Bidens, the whistle blower, and Schiff himself). Senators Graham, Grassley, and Johnson were crystal clear: bring articles of impeachment and invite damnation upon many Democrats. These times don’t bode well for the future of Washington, but Jonathan Turley did forewarn Democrats.