This morning I will be testifying at the House Judiciary Committee in the opening hearing into the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. My testimony is available below.
It has been roughly 20 years since I testified at the same hearing in the impeachment of President William J. Clinton and roughly 10 years since I was lead counsel at the last Senate impeachment trial (with my co-lead counsel Daniel Schwartz).
The hearing will be held at 10:00 am in 1100 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515. It is open to the public.
I have the pleasure of appearing with three esteemed academics:
Noah Feldman, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and Director, Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School
Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School
Michael Gerhardt, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at The University of North Carolina School of Law
Here is my testimony:
JT’s testimony to Congress: “…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.”
I’m still hoping they impeach just so we can see Joe and Hunter called to the stand, but it’s looking less likely by the day. The Dems won’t impeach because then the President gets to call witnesses and ask questions without the Dems making the rules and Independents have turned against impeachment so this political power play has already boomeranged.
Sad..our democracy is in peril. No foreign power shall interfere with our elections!!
JT’s BS that it was good enough for Clinton, but not Trump will be JT’s hypocrisy for all to see. And he will tie himself in knots to prove it, as he has on his site.
Turley is so busy kissing Trump’s behind that he can’t see the truth. He is desperately wanting to be in Trump’s inner circle of scumbags, he will say anything. What a complete jerk. He too is a Putin ass kisser.
Turley’s testimony certainly plays to Trump and there are many open positions in the President’s cabinet. These men are eyeing the lifelong perks that they get when they leave their position, ie lifelong F*I*V*E*S*T*A*R health care insurance, a six figure pension and all of the perks that come with having been on a President’s comments.
I think these hearings are significant as they make it abundantly clear who the enemies of the people are, don’t they Mr. Turley.
Yes, enemies of the USA people like the Nazi collaborator George Soros & friends that control a large portion of the electronic voting machines that have been rigging the vote for Dim/Rino azzholes for decades as they recently took out Kentucky & Virginia.
Oh, so now the Jewish Soros is a Nazi. You people are pathetic. As for voting machines, they should all have a paper backup in case of accusations like yours.
It’s a matter of public record that Soros and his father were in 1944-45 collaborators with the Arrow Cross regime.
That is BS, LIAR. Soros was 5 when AC was founded and 14 at its demise, you are closer to a nazi then he ever was.
Soros has admitted publicly to his activities during that year.
In Soros’s own words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSyczwuTQfo
At least this time YNOT had something to say other than an insult. It may have been one of his first attempts but as expected totally wrong.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/this-is-not-how-an-american-president-should-be-impeached-gop-witness-jonathan-turley-to-launch-trump-defense
I get so damn tired hearing there titles of nobility, they are are the problem, they such wealth from the bottom tier of the people and lie the them constantly. The pundents.
In other words, you don’t like anyone smarter than yourself; such a lonely existence,
Turley will be giving legal views.
The problem is this is a political power play — as was Mitch McConnell’s behavior in keeping a Supreme Court seat vacant for the better part of a year — something that cannot be supported by any reasonable interpretation of the advice and consent clause.
So there is not going to be a substantive legal analysis by the Judiciary Committee regarding what he says.
The problem is that neutrals/independents do care about the conditions which warrant the removal of a President…which is exactly what Turley is talking about. That’s why impeachment is failing.
The question of whether or not the Senate has to vote on whichever candidate the President nominates to the Supreme Court should be obvious: no they do not…just ask the ghost of Abe Fortas.The Senate has the right to withhold it’s consent however it sees fit.
That people “don’t care;” has nothing to do with this. Congressmen and Senators have taken an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. The witnesses have all stated that Trump have obstructed our Constitution and rule of law. Law enforcement officers are regularly fired for lying. They are regularly fired when they demand a payment at a traffic stop and they will let you off (bribery) whether the driver pays them or not. Soldiers are regularly court martialed when they use the military as cover for personal financial gain. Right now, a group of soldiers who were using the cover of the military to run drugs are being court martialed. Google it and you will find the details.
The President is not above the law so the laws that he has broken going back to the emolument laws in his first year is well recorded. If we give him a pass on breaking so many laws before and during his tenure as President, we are participating in upending our Democracy and setting in motion a monarchy or worse yet, a fascist dictatorship.
The independents do care about the law and that’s why they are opposed to impeachment. I’m still hoping the Dems go for it though.
With regard to your first paragraph, agreed. While this is a political power play, it is not a smart one.
With regard to your second paragraph, that’s absurd. Had McConnell abided by the advice and consent clause, there would have been a vote. And even then there is ample precedent that the vote should be based on legal competency, not voting down because you don’t feel like it.
Clines corners, New Mexico.
Kirk Pendergrass/Kirks Law corner…..
“If the House moves forward with this impeachment basis, it would be repeating the very same abusive tactics used against President Andrew Johnson. As discussed earlier, the House literally manufactured a crime upon which to impeach Johnson in the Tenure in Office Act. This was a clearly unconstitutional act with a trap-door criminal provision (transparently referenced as a “high misdemeanor”) if Johnson were to fire the Secretary of War. Congress created a crime it knew Johnson would commit by using his recognized authority as president to pick his own cabinet. In this matter, Congress set a short period for investigation and then announced Trump would be impeached for seeking, as other presidents have done, judicial review over the demand for testimony and documents.”
David Benson and others should carefully explain their positions. By doing so carefully they can find their own mistakes and won’t have to litter the blog with nonesense.
Jonathan Turley is dead wrong, but it would take a close to book length essay to explain why.
Expecting anything more than one or two short sentences from Benson is out of the question.
The strain and fatigue of writing more than a few words is too much for him.
Francis Bacon.
But when I mentioned him in an earlier thread, nobody responded. I conclude that there is no wit here.
Pace yourself, Benson. You are not used to typing so much, and are in danger of overdoing it.
David Benson is the God Emperor of Making Stuff Up and owes me thirty-eight citations (one from the OED, one from the town ordinances and two from the Old Testament), an equation and the source of a quotation, after fifty-two weeks, and needs to cite all his work from now on. Francis Bacon is not listed among the University Wits.
Green chili chili testimony today.
Around page 17 JT writes:
“The problem is that the House has not bothered to subpoena the key witnesses who would have such direct knowledge.”
But isn’t the point that the key witnesses have refused to appear, “stone-walling” the investigation?
And besides, the current record makes an ample “probable cause” for impeachment, the “key witnesses” can be forced to testify at the actual trial.
They did subpoena key witnesses, but many of them obeyed Trumps order not to testify…so who exactly do you mean by “key witnesses”? Consider this: if you’re innocent, why not allow testimony? why not make documents available?
Good luck, Jonathan! Quite an honor to be chosen out of all experts on the law in the U.S.! You richly deserve this opportunity. Try to make the law understandable to your average bear. You are good at that.
JT – break a leg!
“Full of sound and fury …”
If Democracy can’t survive in America then how can it survive? Too many of us never thought of our self as an American – not Patriotic or anything. You just thought of yourself as a ME. A ME that tells you what to think. A ME that tells you “I will tell you what laws to obey – Justice for ME, none for THE”. And if you don’t like it, we will take your guns away!!
Don’t keep us in suspense…. Was Thomas Porteous still impeached unanimously in the House and then overwhelmingly convicted on all four counts – one also unanimous, two others nearly so? Or did Congress apologize for not recognizing your genius 10 years ago?
I presume that’s why you name dropped him – and Schiff – earlier but failed to mention the Porteous outcome…
You seem angry and unable or unwilling to separate a lawyer from his client. Angry and ignorant is no way to go through life, son.
Yes.
It does make me angry that people – even alleged legal experts whose specialty is supposed to be constitutional law – mistake the one constitutional remedy available for a head of state that abuses his power for self-serving ends for the remedies our country has for the remaining ~329,999,999 of us.
It further angers that such alleged experts all but claim that insanity and/or mental defect is a valid defense…. as if one cannot convict a POTUS his power in service of stupid conspiracy theories so long as said POTUS “truly believes” said delusional conspiracy theories.
Even King George III submitted to a regency when he went loony…
Linking a lawyer with a client is spurious. The lawyer is representing the client as best he or she can so that there is due process.
In this instance, Turley has no client. He is giving his views.
“Twenty-one years ago, I sat here before you, Chairman Nadler, and other members of the Judiciary Committee to testify on the history and meaning of the constitutional impeachment standard aspart of the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.”
*******************
Twenty-one years later and still the same cast of charlatans. That’s the permanent Swamp in a nauseating nutshell.
Break a leg, JT.
That so much of this prosecution is lacking, and the probability of a conviction in the Senate is effectively non-existent, any reasonable prosecuting or district attorney at the state, federal, and local level having a case that is unwinnable for whatever reason would look at the resources that will be wasted and find a way out of pressing charges or at least offering a very attractive plea bargain. When a case is weak regardless of having an unsympathetic jury, the continuing of the prosecution lends credibility to the counter-argument that the prosecution is vexatious–that is, the prosecution is a punishment in of itself.
At least it could be said from the perspective of the average person, somewhere in the world, they at least are bequeathed a respite from being attacked by politicians who are now fully invested in condemning the president. While unfortunate for President Trump he does however at least publically display almost defiance toward his attackers. If the president can take it, then some poor, unconnected civilian living under the rule of a leader the U.S. Government doesn’t like can be less worried that some military misadventure will be unleashed by Congress in its never-ending penchant to have an enemy that must be defeated at any cost. Or in our country we can experience a pause where less politicians focus themselves on further eroding our liberty, or taking our property. That is the only tangible resultant good that comes from this endeavor.
With most in Congress I suspect that each member effectively has an enemies list, whether it is conservatives, environmentalists, veterans, welfare recipients, the wealthy, liberals, Christians, Muslims, women, men, gays, etc. Rather than serving all Americans equally, they claim to cater to one or more groups expressly at the expense or to the denigration of others. But added together I’m sure that every American is included somewhere on at least one member’s shit list. So effectively we are collectively all the “bad guy” to them as a whole.
We should at least be thankful that during this hearing Congress is temporarily leaving us alone.
We should at least be thankful that during this hearing Congress is temporarily leaving us alone.
The damage this US House of Representatives and MSM have done to Americans is catastrophic on levels for which we have no diagnostic instruments or labs. Anxiety, depression, paralysis, alienation, distrust, greed, fear, hatred, wrath, pride…… Primum non nocere was cast off carelessly while pride has been at full throttle. Many great nations and empires have fallen insidiously from within while blaming others from without. The enemy has always been us.
🏋🏾♂️ time
I appreciate your recognition of the greatest internal enemy my beloved republic has ever faced, and your support in forever eradicating this disease from our governmental institutions. I’m proud that you’ve recognized that the criminogenic antics of the day glo bozo and his klown-kar cabal of (thankfully) incompetent buffoons is the existential threat to the vitality of the last, best hope of earth. I, and we, appreciate your undying support in these trying times.
this is to “bernie is my guy” esty
Where were you when it came to Benghazi? This is legit if the Senate is not up to the task that doesn’t mean the House should’nt do their job. People need to be held in account for their actions. Who is the bigger crybaby, you or the orange baboon?