JONATHAN TURLEY: HIS FINEST HOUR

"One can oppose President Trump’s policies or actions but still conclude that the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate, but in some respects, dangerous, as the basis for the impeachment of an American president. My personal and political views of President Trump, however, are irrelevant to my impeachment testimony, as they should be to your impeachment vote. My only concern is the integrity and coherence of the constitutional standard and process of impeachment. 

President Trump will not be our last president and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come. I am concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger. 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. That does not bode well for future presidents who are working in a country often sharply and, at times, bitterly divided. 

There is no higher constitutional structure than the impeachment of a sitting president and, for that reason, an impeachment must have a wide foundation in order to be successful. The Ukraine controversy has not offered such a foundation and would easily collapse in a Senate trial. It is easy to fall in love with lines that appeal to one’s moral approval. In impeachments, one’s feeling about the subject can distort one’s judgment on the true meaning or quality of an argument. We have too many happy warriors in this impeachment on both sides. What we need are more objective noncombatants, members willing to set aside political passion in favor of constitutional circumspection. 

If we are to impeach a president for only the third time in our history, we will need to rise above this age of rage and genuinely engage in a civil and substantive discussion. Impeachment was never intended to be used as a mid-term corrective option for a divisive or unpopular leader. To impeach a president on such a record would be to expose every future president to the same type of inchoate impeachment. 

Both sides in this controversy have demonized the other to justify any measure in defense. We have forgotten the common article of faith that binds each of us to each other in our Constitution. However, before we cut down the trees so carefully planted by the Framers of the constitution, I hope you consider what you will do when the wind blows again . . . perhaps for a Democratic president. Where will you stand then? I get it. You are mad. The President is mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My Republican friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog is mad . . . and Luna is a golden doodle and they are never mad. We are all mad and where has it 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. It is not wrong because President Trump is right. It is not wrong because the House has no legitimate reason to investigate the Ukrainian controversy. It is not wrong because we are in an election year, but this process concerns the constitutional right to hold office in this term, not the next. No, it is wrong because this is not how an American president should be impeached." - Jonathan Turley. 

ICHEOKU says excerpts from his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on impeachment hearing. He is one cool, calm and calculated customer and he showed that he truly earned his academic credentials and it showed. Probably the only grown up among the four witnesses who testified with no scintilla of bias; just his fair opinion. ICHEOKU says was intrigued and happily delightful with his matured and carefully chosen words in pursuit of a united peoples of America.