Jonathan Turley Is Exhibit A That the Clinton Debacle Never Really Ended

That is why this is wrong. It's not wrong because President Trump is right. His call was anything but perfect. It's not wrong because the House has no legitimate reason to investigate Ukrainian controversy. Point's not wrong because we're in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No, it's wrong because this is not how you impeach an American president. This case is not a case of the unknowable. It's a case of the peripheral. We have a record of conflicts, defenses that have not been fully considered, unsubpoenaed witness with material evidence. To impeach a president on this record would expose every future president to the same time of inchoate impeachment.

In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker; it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. The allegations against President Clinton go to the very heart of the legitimacy of his office and the integrity of the political system. As an individual, a president may seek spiritual redemption in the company of friends and family. Constitutional redemption, however, is found only in the company of representatives of all three branches in the well of the Senate. It is there that legitimacy, once recklessly lost, can be regained by a president.