Showing posts with label Jonathan Turley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Turley. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

The Grinched Impeachment Inquiry

The House Judiciary Committee’s July hearing featuring Special Counsel Robert Mueller was a circus under the chairmanship of tubby Jerry Nadler.  The is-it-or-isn’t-it-impeachment debacle forced Speaker of the House Pelosi to change horses midstream and hand the reins over to smarmy Adam Schiff where he tortured the investigation.
While President Trump is in London for a NATO summit dealing with crucial national security issues, Schiff insists he’s doing “potentially irrevocable” damage to the system of checks and balances and is an existential threat to the Constitution.
From the House Republicans Report of Evidence in the Democrats’ Impeachment Inquiry:
The Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is not the organic outgrowth of serious misconduct; it is an orchestrated campaign to upend our political system. The Democrats are trying to impeach a duly elected President based on the accusations and assumptions of unelected bureaucrats who disagreed with President Trump’s policy initiatives and processes. They are trying to impeach President Trump because some unelected bureaucrats were discomforted by an elected President’s telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They are trying to impeach President Trump because some unelected bureaucrats chafed at an elected President’s “outside the beltway” approach to diplomacy. 
The sum and substance of the Democrats’ case for impeachment is that President Trump abused his authority to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, President Trump’s potential political rival, for President Trump’s benefit in the 2020 election. Democrats say this pressure campaign encompassed leveraging a White House meeting and the release of U.S. security assistance to force the Ukrainian President to succumb to President Trump’s political wishes. Democrats say that Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the President’s personal attorney, and a “shadow” group of U.S. officials conspired to benefit the President politically. 
The evidence presented does not prove any of these Democrat allegations, and none of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor. 
[SKIP] 
The Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, is merely the outgrowth of their obsession with re-litigating the results of the 2016 presidential election. Despite their best efforts, the evidence gathered during the Democrats’ partisan and one-sided impeachment inquiry does not support that President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival to benefit the President in the 2020 presidential election. The evidence does not establish any impeachable offense. 
But that is not for Democrats’ want of trying. 
[SKIP] 
Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff, and House Democrats seek to impeach President Trump—not because they have proof of a high crime or misdemeanor, but because they disagreed with the President’s actions and his policies. But in our system of government, the President is accountable to the American people. The accountability to the American people comes at the ballot box, not in the House Democrats’ star chamber.
Starting today, Nadler gets a second chance to be the leader of the would-be hanging party and has scheduled four lawyers who are constitutional scholars, three of whom already support impeachment.  Jonathan Turley will appear as a witness on behalf of Republicans.

Unless you are hoping to get continuing law education credits, your decision to watch this sham, requires a pillow and woobie.  This will most assuredly be a coma-inducing snooze fest.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Whatfinger News.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

The Rise Of An American Űber-Presidency

(L-R) Jonathan Turley, Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School; Elizabeth Price Foley, Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law; Simon Lazarus, Senior Counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center; and Walter Dellinger, partner at O'Melveny & Meyers
For four hours and 36 minutes the House Committee on Rules heard testimony on the lawsuit contemplating the authority to initiate litigation against The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer and his rise as an über-president.

Jonathan Turley, constitutional scholar and professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University testified that, “…impeachment has never been the focus of those who are critical of the constitutional violations committed by President Obama…Impeachment is an extraordinary remedy that comes at great cost to the country.”

In his opening remarks to the committee Turley hauntingly concluded:
“After years of eroding legislative authority, the decision of this body to take a stand and seek judicial review is a welcome change. The Obama Administration has advanced constitutional arguments on presidential power that can only be described as both extreme and largely devoid of limiting principles that characterize our constitutional system.  The Administration has tended to not only minimize the authority of Congress but the authority of the courts in interbranch relations.   It is hard to imagine a convincing argument for non-action in the face of such assertions.” 
“In his last State of the Union, President Obama pledged to effectively govern alone, a pledge that he has largely fulfilled.   What insular victories may be accomplished in these two years will pale in comparison to the long-term costs for this institution and for the Constitutional system as a whole. Despite our petty failings and partisan impulses, a single system of governance has brought us through wars, depression, civil unrest, and other towering challenges.  However, our system has been preserved under a certain covenant of faith from all citizens.  It is that very covenant that is affirmed every time a president or a Member of Congress takes the oath of office. There is no improvisation option for Congress.  There is no circumvention option for presidents. What we are witnessing today is a crisis of faith in our system despite its unparalleled and proven success.”  
“People have grown impatient with the constraints of the constitutional system, constraints which can seem quaint or antiquated when compared to pressing problems of health care or immigration or the environment.  It is tempting to embrace rule by a single person who offers to govern alone to get things done.  However, this is the very Siren’s call that our Founders warned us to resist.   We remain a nation of laws and we have a court system designed to resolve such controversies.  That is precisely where this authorization would take us and it is where these questions should be answered.”

Now I would ask you to go to the post below and go to vidmark 2:47.  What had been largely a civil proceeding turned highly partisan thanks to Jim McGovern (D-MA).  He cited an article in The New York Times that mentioned a piece written by Elizabeth Price Foley for The Daily Caller.

McGovern flagrantly obfuscated her words which spurred Foley to strike back with ferocity.  You should watch the takedown.  It’ll bring a glint of hope to your heart.

Democrats desperately argue the lawsuit has no standing, but I would ask you to think about this:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in last year’s case before the court over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), wrote “Heretofore in our national history, the President’s failure to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ could only be brought before a judicial tribunal by someone whose concrete interests were harmed by that alleged failure.”

If the American people are not “the someone” whose concrete interests are being harmed by that alleged failure then who the hell is?

Unless the Supreme Court takes expedited action, Boehner’s lawsuit would not be placed on the docket until October 2015 with a ruling on the case coming out in June of 2016.

Watch Live: House Rules Committee Hearing on Proposed Lawsuit of President Barack Obama