TURLEY: 'Fast and Furious' impeachment looks like a rush to a failed case
By Jonathan Turley, opinion contributor
The Hill
12/07/19 01:00 PM EST
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
The day after the first House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the panel would move immediately to draft articles of impeachment, with a vote expected within two weeks. The most discussed crime is now obstruction of Congress, based on the Trump administration seeking to block witnesses. Democratic lawmakers in the hearing repeated the words of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in rejecting claims of immunity like a mantra, “Presidents are not kings.”
[...]
The House is about to impeach Trump for blocking witnesses while, at the same time, saying the record is overwhelming based on the testimony of many of those very witnesses. That record is composed of roughly a dozen witnesses, including many officials who are still working in the executive branch. None of those witnesses have been disciplined or fired for opting to testify. In addition, Trump released transcripts of his controversial phone calls, which ordinarily would remain privileged and nonpublic information. Finally, while the obstruction claims against Nixon were made in conjunction with established crimes, the array of crimes alleged against Trump, like bribery, extortion, and obstructing justice, lack key elements of those crimes. This impeachment would be based more on obstructing the investigation and less on the alleged crimes themselves.
Instead of explaining the abbreviated period of investigation, Democrats have falsely claimed that this is actually a longer investigation than the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. That is not correct, though in my testimony before the House Judiciary Committee I stressed that, with regard to President Johnson, it depends on how you count the days. In order to claim that this is actually a longer investigation, Democrats use the date of the passage of impeachment resolutions instead of the underlying investigations to measure time.
The record in this case is as short as the timeline. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee quoted me as saying that the record is “wafer thin” and held up two binders to prove there is an extensive record for impeachment. To be clear, I testified that this record was comparatively not actually wafer thin. However, the mere fact that Jackson Lee could hold up the relevant record in two binders is precisely the point. If she were to show the record in the Nixon or Clinton cases, she would have had to drive a semitruck into the committee room. Of course, none of this matters. Pelosi will get a fast impeachment, and there is no shortage of fury. Ultimately, “Fast and Furious” amounts to little more than a rush to a failed impeachment.
