Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Media, Politics

Turley and Toobin To Debate Impeachment In Dallas After Midterm Election

images-1The National Constitution Center and the Old Parkland Debate Series has announced that a debate will be held on November 12th between George Washington Professor Jonathan Turley and CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on impeachment.  The debate will occur a week after the 2018 midterm elections and many have called for the impeachment of both President Donald Trump and Judge Brett Kavanaugh following a Democratic takeover of the United States House of Representatives.  The debate question is: Resolved, the framers designed impeachment as a political, rather than a legal process.  Toobin will argue that the Framers intended impeachment to be a political judgment while Turley will argue that the Framers intended more of a legal judgment. Turley was the last lead counsel in an impeachment trial in the Senate and Toobin previously worked for Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.

The debate will be held Monday, November 12th from 5 to 6 pm and will be moderated by Michael Gerhardt, scholar-in-residence at the National Constitution Center.

To register for this event, please email Tanaya Tauber at ttauber@constitutioncenter.org.

77 thoughts on “Turley and Toobin To Debate Impeachment In Dallas After Midterm Election”

    1. He didn’t.

      Roosevelt spent only about 5 years and change in law practice, and only practiced law f/t for a couple of years. After the close of the Wilson Admnistration, he landed a job with an insurance company whose book was underwriting municipal bond issues. That and his stint in Wilson’s Navy Department accounted for most of his work history before 1933.

  2. Could you imagine if the Democrats impeached Trump and they weren’t successful. If the Democrats think Trump is obnoxious now, wait till he beats an unsuccessful impeachment attempt. Be careful what you wish for.

    1. Do you imagine that you are not imagining when you imagine that Democrats ought to be afraid of antagonizing Trump?

  3. They should be debating the “malicious prosecution” of candidate-cum-President Trump by Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller, the fraudulent “dossier” produced by Hillary and presented by Comey, Rosenstein et al., the criminal conspiracy by Hillary and Obama as Obama used a pseudonymous account to illegally e-mail Hillary using her illegal server while they both criminally mishandled classified material and James Comey for conducting a corrupt, fraudulent and criminally biased investigation of Hillary Clinton (if Comey had indicted Hillary, Comey would have convicted Obama)..

  5. From all I’ve gleaned over the years, impeachment is definitely a political–not a legal–process, and that is as it was intended by the framers. In essence, an impeachable offense is not necessarily an indictable offense and an indictable offense is not necessarily an impeachable offense. Simply put, and by original design, an impeachable offense is whatever Congress may say it is at any given time. The remedy for frivolous or otherwise unjust impeachment attempts is electoral backlash against the impeaching party. Thus, a party which impeaches must carefully weigh the political impact of any impeachment action. And that is by original design and intent. I covered this rather extensively in Part IV of my “A Patriot;s Call to Action”, revised edition 2013.

    1. Setting the conviction bar at 2/3rds of the Senate would also help to mitigate spurious attempts at impeachment. I would expect that to be a stumbling block for the Democrats concerning any impeachment attempt should they win the House.
      I’ll be looking forward to seeing Toobin and Turley debate this, much as I look forward to Toobin’s frequent interactions with Alan Derschowitz.

      1. The high probability of acquittal in The Senate might oddly encourage The House to lay articles of impeachment on the doorstep of The Senate so that The House can wash their hands of responsibility. (This would be an application of the so-called pretzel logic.)

  6. There is an implicit idea in this topic, that may play out in the future: If both houses of Congress flip parties with some regularity, we might see wholesale impeachments, removals and replacements of the federal judiciary from time to time. It might be equivalent to defacto election of federal judges.

    1. That’s a reasonable hypothesis. The penalty for conviction is removal from office–not a fine nor incarceration. The causes for Impeachment and removal from office could be criminal charges that might eventually lead to fines or incarceration after conviction at trial in a criminal court.

  8. Turley wins by KO in the 3rd round. In that regard, just finished a good bio of Rocky Marciano titled, Undefeated.

  9. Be late4 dinner

    Based on how most of the customers here reason, I’d say yes, he could get re-elected.

    1. They say there’s a first time for everything. And sometimes there’s a second time, as well. Would Trump conspire with Russia to defraud the United States two elections in a row? Well . . . If The Republicans refuse to convict Trump and remove him from office for having conspired with Russia to defraud the United States in his first campaign for President, then why the hell wouldn’t Trump just go back, Vlad, do it again? It would almost be like decriminalizing conspiracy to defraud the United States. But then, if the thing gets decriminalized, wouldn’t the loyal opposition party also be free to go back, Xin, do it again? Who’s better at interfering in a U. S. election: Russia or China?

  10. If thorough background checks, intelligence tests, and mental stability tests were required prior to filing for or appointment to public office, there would be no need for impeachment.

      1. You know that Obama, because of his background and associations, at the very least would have been flagged, and almost certainly not granted a security clearance to work even as an entry-level government employee, right?

        1. Why is that, Bob? I notice you don’t even try to explain. And don’t tell us it’s because Obama knew Bill Ayers. They weren’t that close and Ayers was closer in age to Obama’s mom.

          1. I live by two rules. One: don’t complain. Two: don’t explain.
            And here you are complaining to me that I did not explain it to you. Why do I need to explain? Do your own research. There’s plenty out there to discover if you’re interested.

            Unfortunately, the media sycophants were not interested in reporting on much of it (even though they knew it) in the fear that it might stall and derail Obama’s meteoric rise if the voters were made fully aware of Obama’s close ties over decades of his life to anti-American extremists – that includes Bill Ayers, but is not limited to him, btw. Obama is also an admitted illegal drug user — cocaine, for example. Drug use is always flagged in background checks.

            But alas, we have the internet. And we have books written by authors who actually did bother to do the research to properly vet Obama and his background for those who were interested in becoming informed.

          2. Peter Shill, how do you know the extent of the relationship between Bill Ayers and Obama?

              1. Yes, there is a lot more to be said about this portion of Obama’s life. A lot has been obscurred. Peter Shill doesn’t know squat.

    3. Samantha, Winston Churchill was bipolar. Would you have excluded him from holding public office?

  11. It is a stretch to call this a debate, since Toobin is involved. I dare say Professor Turley could phone-in his part in it and win hands down.
    I remember when Toobin became a legal contributor on tv years ago….he was riding mommy’s coattails. She was the very accomplished and revered news woman Marlene Sanders.
    At least there are some wonderful restaurants in Dallas for the professor to enjoy! And the November weather in Big D is enjoyable.

    1. He started out as an intern at The New Republic. After he completed law school, he landed a clerkship with a federal judge. He resigned after a year when he was recruited to join Lawrence Walsh’s interminable (and ultimately rancid) investigation of the Reagan Administration. Walsh overstaffed his office and overpaid neophytes like Toobin and Toobin whiled away the hours writing a book on company time. Walsh tried to scotch publication of the book with federal laws on handling confidential information. Its a reasonable inference that what irritated him was what the book revealed about his skills as a manager. The book was published around 1989 and that (as well as his association with Martin Peretz) was his entree (or part of it). Of course, had he been a defender rather than an antagonist of the Reagan Administration, he’s have been relegated to the subcultural press. See Fred Barnes on this point: by the time Toobin was seeking employment in journalism, the mainstream media were going out of their way to avoid hiring identifiable conservatives. (Being a veteran of the Pacifica News Service, Mother Jones and skeevy publications like Out was fine and dandy, however).

  12. The starting point for the debate is Article II, Section 4:

    “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”

    The enumerated transgressions all are legal, with established legal meanings. Yes, there is some ambiguity in “high Crimes” (how high?), but putting aside the adjective, note that the noun indicates “Crimes”. “(high) Misdemeanors” really doesn’t widen the meaning, since misdemeanors are just a subset of crimes.

    I think we can predict that Toobin will be dismissive of original intent, as generally are progressives, in order to achieve a desired result at the moment. The problem, of course, is does he want to set the table for the next Democratic President to be Impeached based on Republicans despising his or her policy preferences? If Impeachment were to become used politically by antagonists to reverse the last Presidential election, wouldn’t that undermine majority rule in setting the priorities and policy directions of the nation? Wouldn’t that undermine Article II and the 4-year Presidential term, and waste energy on negativity?

    Is there anything more than wishful thinking behind the idea that impeachment as a political choice, once demonstrated, would only be used on Republican Presidents?

    I wouldn’t want to be Toobin in this debate.

    1. pbinca

      Ever heard of U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Republican? You must not be aware of his position on the subject.

      “Is there anything more than wishful thinking behind the idea that impeachment as a political choice, once demonstrated, would only be used on Republican Presidents?”

      1. Ford’s Impeachment drive against William O. Douglas eventually died in committee. It did drag on a bit too long, though. And Ford’s notion of what constituted an Impeachable offense included the allegation that Douglas had conducted a sexual affair with his second wife while still married to his first wife. Of course, Ford also thought that the fact that Douglas had divorced his first wife was also an Impeachable offense.

        They say Gerry took to the field without his foobaw helmet at least one time too many. And those were the old style leather helmets in Gerry’s foobaw days.

  13. His scholarly chops are close to nil, his time in private practice has been limited to summertime as a law student, and his work as a clerk and a prosecutor is 25 years past. He was famously underemployed when he was on the staff of Lawrence Walsh, attending trials and working on a book on company time, a fine example of one of the problematic aspects of the independent counsel law. I guess his media gigs pay well.

    If Wiki is accurate, his wife didn’t serve papers on him after he fathered a ba*tard child by his mistress. She’s either abnormally forgiving or…..

    1. Toobin’s a TV lawyer as in “he plays one on TV.” His ethics are suspect, just ask former IC Lawrence Walsh about his sticky fingers around the office or his personal use of office time. As for his morals, why I’d say they they are “flexible,” thus scant support for all his legal-clad moralizing. I have no idea of his debating skills or constitutional knowledge, his writing being limited to pop drivel about OJ or National Inquirer quality stuff about the Supremes.

    2. Tell us again your arguments about being pro-life, Tabby.

      ===
      https://jonathanturley.org/2018/10/11/pro-life-executions-iowa-republican-calls-for-prosecutions-for-women-who-get-abortions-including-capital-punishment/comment-page-1/#comments

      “Thorsen says: October 11, 2018 at 10:30 AM
      Tabarrok routinely denigrates the lives of the others on these forums yet does not bat an eye in his arguments to the contrary.

      This is why our nation is so mucked up: lack of intellectual rigor and introspection

      Reply
      Tabarrok to the Pillory says: October 11, 2018 at 10:58 AM
      1. If anyone’s curious, Thorsen lies about me.

  14. Why discuss an impossibility? The Senate is not going blue and even if the bill of impeachment makes it out of the House (which might not go blue either), it’s got all the chance of survival as a feather in a hurricane. Better breath served by talking about something important. Like say, the occupancy rate of angels on the head of a sewing pin. As for whether it’s a political or legal process, who cares? That like debating whether a fatal bite from a tiger is worse than a fatal bite from a lion. In the end and to the recipient, it matters not at all. And to we mere observers, it matters even less.

    1. Apparently there’s some sort distinction drawn in Nixon v. United States, from 1993, (not to be confused with United States v. Nixon, 1974). The Nixon at issue (Walter Nixon?) was a federal judge who committed perjury in front of a grand jury, or some such thing. Anyway, The House impeached him, but The Senate removed Nixon from office without “trying” the case nor without a 2/3 vote of The Senate. The Supreme Court unanimously decided that they could not review Nixon’s removal from office without violating the separation of powers. And then The Court added something or other about Impeachment being a “political” question in which the Judicial branch could not interfere. There’s probably more to it than just that. Go figure.

      1. L4D:
        Impeachment is a political lynching in legal clothes with the Chief Justice there as window dressing. If the town goes along the politician is out; if more of his friends show up before they smack the horse’s arse (an apt analogy),he survives but the neck scars leave him mortally wounded. Not really that intricate or mysterious.

        1. Well, now, let’s not be so quick to deprive our host of his livelihood. For the sake of pecunious argument, let’s say that there might be some “legal questions” raised by the list of Impeachable offenses. You know: Treason, Bribery and Other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.They would not be the so-called justiciable legal questions. But still the sort legal questions the debating of which could prove remunerative for our host, though probably not as entertaining as “a political lynching”.

        1. Thanks for the fact check, Mr. Osuchowski. I plead guilty by reason of mental defect. And here’s the proof for that affirmative defense:

          L4D said, “The Senate removed Nixon from office without “trying” the case nor without a 2/3 vote of The Senate.”

          The defense contends that the double negation in the phrase “nor without a 2/3 vote” is logically equivalent to the phrase “with a 2/3 vote.” The defense cites the President of the United States, Donald John Trump as precedent for the cancellation of one mental defect by another mental defect, when Trump said that what he really meant to say at his press conference with Putin in Helsinki was that [paraphrased] “I see no reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” as opposed to what he actually said [paraphrased], “I see no reason why it would be Russia.”

          Even so, it is vital for fact checkers everywhere to keep the doubly-negated mental defectives on their toes at all times and in all places. L4D truly appreciates the favor.

  15. Beach beach bo beach..
    Banana fanna fo feach…
    Fee fi Moe reach…
    IMPEACH!

    If the first two a-holes are ever the same..
    You drop them both and blare their names…
    Like Trump, Fump, friggin F so Rump
    Or Brett, Frett, friggin F so Rett.

  16. Here is a bumper sticker phrase from the past which relates to the present day BS:

    Don’t Change Dicks In The Middle of a Screw
    Vote For Nixon in ’72!

    I had one of those bumper stickers on my car back in 1972. My dad liked it and my mom hated it. The bumper sticker got the debate going in our house.

    I had another good bumper sticker in 2016:

    Vote For Monica For She’s The Best.
    Dump Hillary Who Flunked The Test.

    1. Hillary flunked the DC bar exam. And Hillary just had her security clearances revoked, along with those of her closest aides. But she’s spinning it as her choice to voluntarily give up her clearance in a show of support and solidarity with sleezeball John Brennan who also had his security clearance revoked.

      1. I thought Hillary had worked as a public defender at some point and later as an attorney for the Rose Law Firm. So she must have passed the bar and gotten her license.

        2. TIN – she passed the bar in AK. She is no longer a member of the bar, as I understand it. Both she and Bill are not in good standing with the bar.

          1. Paul – I can’t imagine that the D.C. bar is all that difficult (unlike CA’s notoriously grueling bar exam). Could it be that Hillary was overly confident about her chances and didn’t bother with all of the review subjects? I’ve heard she so inclined……LOL.

            1. TIN – according to her book, where she finally outed herself, she blamed it on being away from Bill. She did take a review course, however the bar exam had changed two years before to add national questions and her reviewer was not up on that. Students who took the review with her and then studied the national section on their own or in study groups passed the Bar. She did not. My understanding is that the D.C. Bar exam was not high on the list of tough Bar exams at the time. Personally, I go with the second story.

  17. “Framers”: Yes. Those who wish to impeach both the President and the Supreme Court Justice are “Framers”. They tried to “Frame” Bret Kavanaugh with phony charges of sex assault when he was in high school. They have tried to Frame the President with allegations that he approves of sex assault.
    Let us oppose these Framers in an easy method. Vote them out of office. Frame Not Or You Shall Be Defamed As Well.

    But. The heck with democracy. Guns are quicker.

  18. Toobin is on the “yes, impeach him” side. Have you ever seen this yahoo on CNN? Turley shouldn’t debase himself by even being on stage with Toobin.

    1. Could not agree more. Toobin had an affair on his wife, got his mistress pregnant, denied paternity, fought her in court…the guy is a yahoo and then some. Perfect fit for CNN.

        1. Right. Except for the pregnant mistress, paternity denial, and child support court battle part. Other than that? Sure.

          1. Tbob

            So, unless it turns out that Trump did likewise, you’re okay with Trump’s morality…and lack of, right?

              1. So what was the result with the b@stard child? A DNA test would have solved things quickly and decisively.

  20. The debate question is: Resolved, the framers designed impeachment as a political, rather than a legal process.

    The obvious answer is yes–meaning both. IOW: Impeachment is a “political trial.” On the odd chance that folks don’t much like the phrase “political trial” being bandied about in the context of The Constitution of the United States of America, well . . . What else would you like to call Impeachment and removal from an Office of Public Trust under The Constitution? A cake-walk? An ice-cream social? Our Occasional National Pastime? Honestly, the debate question needs to be reframed as something other than a false dichotomy. Pshaw!

      1. See the issue of judicial review of Impeachments decided in the negative in Nixon v. United States from 1993. I’m guessing that Turley might argue that impeachment can’t be a “legal process” if it’s not subject to judicial review or, as Turley would say, non-justiciable. All the same, the notion that a “political trial” is not a “legal process” strikes me as a tad fetishistic. “The Law shall not be sullied by association with ‘politicians’,” or words to that effect. Well from where else is the law supposed to come? From Gawd Almighty?

      1. The Republicans attempted, but failed, to commit suicide in The Impeachment of President Clinton. And he was a lame duck president at the time, anyway. I’m not so sure that an Impeachment and acquittal of Trump would strengthen Trump’s bid for reelection in 2020. But it might be really interesting to find out for sure. Can Trump become the first president to be reelected to a second term of office after having been Impeached, but acquitted, during his first term of office? How should I know?

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