OPINION:
Professor Jonathan Turley, a legal expert opining at the unremitting congressional inquisition that is the impeachment hearings, said: “I am concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and abundance of anger. If you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power. You’re doing precisely what you’re criticizing the president for doing.”
Mr. Turley’s reasoning is thoughtful. Subsequent legal “expert” testimonies tendered, such as that of Stanford Law School Professor Pamela Karlan, reek of wrath and irrationality.
Recall that President Bill Clinton committed perjury and lost his law license. Yet he was not convicted in a Republican-controlled Senate. President Trump has been relentlessly assailed for various felonies, but unlike in Mr. Clinton’s case, the evidence for them persists as amorphously vague.
Impeachment is not a casual affair. If we allow this to continue, a future Democratic president may be treated likewise. Is the current impeachment enterprise destined to birth a new Third World American governing aberration simply because a political party was unwilling to accept defeat in a legitimate presidential election?
TONY FAVERO
Half Moon Bay, Calif.
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