Jonathan Turley, the sole Republican witness before the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing Wednesday, implored Democrats to slow their rush toward impeachment.
Mr. Turley, a George Washington University law professor, testified along with three other constitutional law professors selected by Democrats.
Opposing impeachment, Mr. Turley warned Democrats not to jump the gun, saying they were moving forward “on the basis of conjecture.”
“Not on this schedule,” Mr. Turley told the panel, adding that impeachments require a period of “saturation and maturation.”
“It is the public has to catch up. I’m not prejudging what your record would show, but if you rush this impeachment, you are going to leave half the country behind,” he said. “And certainly that’s not what the framers wanted. You have to give the time to build a record. This isn’t an impulse-buy item. You are trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States, and that takes time and takes work.”
Mr. Turley compared the impeachment inquiry against President Trump to Watergate, noting that the public did not initially support impeaching President Richard M. Nixon, but later changed their mind.
“If you look at Nixon, which is the gold standard in this respect, the public did catch up. They originally did not support impeachment, but they changed their mind. You changed their mind. And so did, by the way, the courts, because you allowed these issues to be heard in the courts,” he said.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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