WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) Three out of four constitutional law professors in testimony on Wednesday told the US House Judiciary Committee that President Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses.
The witnesses, three of whom were picked by Democrats and one by Republicans, were asked to assess whether Trump committed crimes by freezing Ukraine military aid to pressure Kiev into probing Trump's political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
The Democratic-selected legal scholars argued that evidence presented by the House Intelligence Committee in previous hearings and depositions demonstrated that Trump had committed crimes that were impeachable.
"Specifically, President Trump abused his office by corruptly soliciting [Ukraine] President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce investigations of his political rivals in order to gain personal advantage, including in the 2020 presidential election," Harvard Law school Professor Noah Feldman told the panel.
University of North Carolina Professor Michael Gerhardt expanded the rationale for impeaching Trump beyond Ukraine to include efforts by the president to impede former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, as well as Trump's withholding of both witnesses and documents sought by House investigators.
"The record compiled thus far shows that the president has committed several impeachable offenses, including bribery, abuse of power in soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader to benefit his political campaign, obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice," Gerhardt said.
Stanford University Law Professor Pamela Karlan, the third witness selected by Democrats, noted that one of the most important reasons the US founding fathers included impeachment in the Constitution was a fear that unscrupulous officials might try to rig the election process.
Karlan said Trump had strong-armed a foreign leader into smearing one of his opponents to win the presidency in 2020.
"That is not politics as usual - at least not in the United States or any other mature democracy," Karlan said. "It is, instead, a cardinal reason why the Constitution contains an impeachment power... If we are to keep faith with the Constitution and our Republic, President Trump must be held to account."
The single witness chosen by Republicans said the evidence gathered of presidential wrongdoing was not sufficient enough to prove Trump had committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" - a phrase used in the US Constitution.
George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley began his testimony by noting that his selection was somewhat incongruous.
"I'm not a supporter of President Trump, I voted against him. My personal views of President Trump are as irrelevant to my impeachment as they should be to your impeachment vote," he said.
Turley argued that the impeachment process is being rushed and largely based on secondhand testimony instead of first-hand witnesses.
"It is not wrong because President Trump is right. His call [with Ukraine's Zelenskyy] was anything but 'perfect' and his reference to the Bidens was highly inappropriate," Turley said. "It is not wrong because the House has no legitimate reason to investigate the Ukrainian controversy. The use of military aid for a quid pro quo to investigate one's political opponent, if proven, can be an impeachable offense."
He criticized the House for not subpoenaing "a host of witnesses" who would have firsthand knowledge of any quid pro quo, a charge based on allegations that the reason Trump froze nearly $400 million in military aid was to pressure Kiev into at least announcing a probe into the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.
Turley said only three witnesses called by the House intelligence panel had direct conversations with Trump, none of whom confirmed a tie between Ukraine aid and a Biden investigation, and two of whom expressly denied there was any quid pro quo.
The George Washington professor also said he feared impeaching Trump would set a dangerous precedent leading to similar impeachment efforts whenever opposition political parties control Congress.
"I get it. You are mad. The President is mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My Republican friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog is mad," Turley said. "We are all mad and where has it taken us? Will a slipshod impeachment make us less mad or will it only give an invitation for the madness to follow in every future administration?"
During a July 25 telephone conversation Trump asked Zelenskyy to investigate Biden's involvement in the firing of a prosecutor who had been probing a gas firm Hunter sat on the board of. A whistleblower complaint and multiple weeks' of testimony from US diplomats and others linked to the affair have helped form the basis of the House Democrats' argument for impeachment.
In coming days, the Judiciary Committee is expected to draw up articles of impeachment for a final full House vote which could take place before Christmas.
A vote to impeach would be followed by a trial in the Republican-led Senate requiring a two-thirds majority to remove Trump from office.
