more from Turley's statement pg 50-51-52
V.CONCLUSION
Allowme to becandid in my closing remarks.I get it. You are mad. ThePresident 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 . . . and Luna is a golden doodle and they are never mad. 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?That is why this is wrong. It is not wrong because President Trump is right. His call was anything but “perfect” and his reference to the Bidens was highly inappropriate.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 impeachableoffense.It is not wrong because we are in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment,but this process concerns the constitutional right to hold office in this term, not the next.No, it is wrong because this is not how an American president should be impeached.For two years, members of this Committee have declared that criminal and impeachable acts were established for everything from treason to conspiracy to obstruction. However, no action was taken to impeach. Suddenly, just a few weeks ago, the House announced it would begin an impeachment inquiry and push for a final vote in just a matter of weeks. To do so, the House Intelligence Committee declared that it would not subpoena a host of witnesses who have direct knowledge of any quid pro quo. Instead, it will proceed on a record composed of a relatively small number of witnesses with largely second-hand knowledge of the position. The only three direct conversations with President Trump do not contain a statement of a quid pro quo and two expressly deny such a pre-condition. The House has offered compelling arguments why those two calls can be discounted by the fact that President Trump had knowledge of the underlying whistleblower complaint. However, this does not change thefact that it is moving forward based on conjecture, assuming what the evidence would show if there existed the time or inclination to establish it.The military aid was released after a delay that the witnesses described as “not uncommon”for this or prior Administrations. This is not a case of the unknowable. It is a case of the peripheral. The House testimony is replete with references to witnesses like John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Mulvaney who clearly hold material information.To impeach a president on such a record would be to expose every future president to the same type of inchoate impeachment.Principle often takes us to a place where we would prefer not to be.That was the place the “Republican Recusants” found themselves in 1868 when sitting in judgment of a president they loathed and despised. However, they took an oath not to Andrew Johnson,but to the Constitution. One of the greatest among them, Lyman Trumbull (R-Ill.) explained his fateful decision to vote against Johnson’s impeachmentcharges even at the cost of his own career:“Once set the example of impeaching a President for what, when the excitement of the hour shall have subsided, will be regarded as insufficient causes ... no future President will be safe who happens to differ with the majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate ...Itremble for the future of my country. I cannot be an instrument to produce such a result; and at the hazard of the ties even of friendship and affection, till calmer times shall do justice to my motives, no alternative is left me...”106Trumbull acted in the same type of age of rage that we have today. He knew thatraisinga question about the underlying crime or the supporting evidencewould instantly be condemned as approving of the underlying conduct of a president. In an age of rage, there seems to beno room for nuance or reservation. Yet, that is what the Constitution expects of us. Expects of you.For generations, the seven Republicans who defected to save President Johnson from removal have been heralded as profiles of courage.In recalling the moment he was called to vote, Senator Edmund Ross of Kansassaidhe“almost literally looked down into my open grave.” He jumped because the price was too great not to.Such moments are easy tocelebrate froma distance of time and circumstance. However, that is precisely the moment in whichyou now find yourself. “When the excitement of the hour [has] subsided” and “calmer times” prevail, I do not believe that this impeachment will be viewed as bringing credit upon this body. It is possible that acase for impeachment could be made, but it cannot be made on this record. To return to Wordsworth, the Constitution is not a call to arms for the “Happy Warriors.” The Constitutioncalls for circumspection, not celebration, at the prospect of the removal of an American president. It is easy to allow one’s “judgment [to be] affected by your moral approval of the lines” in an impeachmentnarrative. But your oath demandsmore, even personal and political sacrifice, in deciding whether to impeach a president for only the third time in the history of this Republic. In this age of rage, many are appealing for us to simply put the law aside and “just do it” like this is some impulse-buy Nike sneaker. You can certainly do that. You can declare the definitions of crimes alleged are immaterial and this is an exercise of politics, not law. However, the legal definitions and standards that I have addressed in my testimony are the very thing dividingrage from reason. Listening to these calls to dispense with such legal niceties, brings to mind a famous scene with Sir Thomas More in “A Man For All Seasons.” In a critical exchange, More is accused by his son-in-law William Roper of putting the law before moralityand that More would “give the Devil the benefit of law!”When More asks if Roper would instead “cut a great road through the law toget after the Devil?,” Roper proudly declares “Yes, I’dcut down every law in England to do that!” More responds by saying “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’slaws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’dgive the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’ssake!”Both sides in this controversy have demonized the other to justify any measure in defense much like Roper. Perhaps that is the saddest part of all of this. We have forgotten the common article of faith that binds each of us to each other in our Constitution. However, before we cut down the trees so carefully planted by the Framers, I hope you consider what you will do when the wind blows again . . . perhaps for a Democratic president. Where will you stand then “the laws all being flat?”107Thank you again for the honor of testifying before you today. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.108
