Jonathan Turley who was one of the lawyers at the Dem’s impeachment hearing is trying to talk some sense to the Dem’s. Will they listen?

Jonathan Turley: This Committee Is Dangerously Close To Establishing A “No Confidence” Standard For Impeachment

Posted By Tim Hains

December 4, 2019

During a line of questioning with GOP Rep. Tom McClinton, Republican legal expert Jonathan Turley expresses concerns that justification put forward for impeachment by House Democrats lack “limiting principles” and could lead to the creation of, “effectively, a ‘vote of no confidence’ standard” for presidential impeachment.

“I’m not sure what ‘attempting to abuse office’ means or how you recognize it,” Turley said. “But I’m pretty confident that nobody on this committee truly wants the new standard of impeachment to be ‘betrayal of the national interest.'”

“If that is going to be the basis for impeachment, how many Republicans do you think would say that Barack Obama violated that standard? That is exactly what James Madison warned you against. That you could create, effectively, a vote of no confidence standard in our Constitution,” he said.

REP. TOM MCCLINTOCK: Professor Turley, this impeachment has been predicated on rather disturbing legal doctrines. One Democrat asserted that hearsay could be much better evidence than direct evidence. Speaker Pelosi and others have said that the president’s responsibility is to present evidence to prove his innocence. Chairman Schiff asserted and we heard a discussion from some of your colleagues today that if you invoke legal rights in defense of criminal accusations, ip-so-facto that is obstruction of justice and evidence of guilt and what does that mean to our American justice system if these doctrines take root in our country.

JONATHAN TURLEY: What concerns me the most is that there are no limiting principles that I could see in some of the definitions my colleagues have put forward and more importantly some of the impeachable offenses I only heard about today. I’m not sure what “attempting to abuse office” means or how you recognize it. But I’m pretty confident that nobody on this committee truly wants the new standard of impeachment to be “betrayal of the national interest.” If that is going to be the basis for impeachment, how many Republicans do you think would say that Barack Obama violated that standard. That is exactly what James Madison warned you against. That you could create, effectively, a vote of no confidence standard in our constitution.

TOM MCCLINTOCK: Well, then are we in danger of abusing our own power of doing enormous violence to our constitution by proceeding in this matter. My Democratic colleagues are searching for pretext for impeachment since before the president was sworn in. On this panel, Professor Karlan called President Trump’s election “illegitimate” in 2017 and implied impeachment was a remedy. Professor Feldman said over a tweet he made in March of 2017 and that’s just seven weeks after the inauguration. Are we in danger of succumbing to the maxim of Louis Carroll’s Red Queen, “Sentence first, verdict afterwards.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: This is part of the probe of how your view of the president can affect your assumptions, your inferences, and your view of the circumstantial evidence. I’m not suggesting that the evidence, if it was fully investigated, would come out one way or the other. What I’m saying is we’re not dealing with the realm of the unknowable. You have to ask. We’ve burned two months in this House, two months, that you could have been in court seeking a subpoena for these witnesses. It doesn’t mean you have to wait forever. But you could have gotten an order by now. You could have allowed the president to raise an executive privilege —

TOM MCCLINTOCK: Let me — I need to go on here. The constitution says that the executive authority should be vested in a President of the United States. Does that mean some of the executive authority or all of it?

JONATHAN TURLEY: Well, obviously there are checks and balances on all of these but the executive authority obviously rests with the president. But these are all shared powers. And I don’t begrudge the investigation of the Ukraine controversy. I think it was a legitimate investigation. What I begrudge is how it has been conducted.

TOM MCCLINTOCK: I tend to agree with that. The constitution commands the president take care that the laws be faithfully enforced and that does, in effect, make him the chief law enforcement officer in the federal government, does it not?

JONATHAN TURLEY: It is commonly expressed that way.

TOM MCCLINTOCK: So if probable cause exists to believe a crime has been committed does the president have the authority to incline into that matter.

JONATHAN TURLEY: This is where I think we would depart, I’ve been critical with the president in terms of crossing lines with the Justice Department and I think it has caused problems and it is not appropriate but we confuse what is inappropriate with what is impeachable. Many people feel what the president has done is obnoxious, contemptible, but it is not synonymous with impeachment.

TOM MCCLINTOCK: Let me ask a final question. The National Defense Authorization Act that authorized aid to Ukraine requires the Secretary of State and Defense and certify the government is taking actions to make defense institution reforms for purposes of decreasing corruption. Is the president exercising that responsibility when he inquires into a matter that could involve illegalities between American and Ukraine officials?

JONATHAN TURLEY: That is what I’m referring to as “unexplored defenses.” Part of the bias when you look at the facts is you ignore defenses. You say those are just invalid but they are the defenses, the other side’s account for actions and that hasn’t been explored.

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