A leading liberal constitutional law professor, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, writes: “While there’s a high bar for what constitutes grounds for impeachment, an offence does not have to be indictable. Madison saw impeachment as ‘defending the community against the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief magistrate.'”
Turley continues: if “…the president were to openly defy clear federal authority and order unlawful acts, he would move from the realm of using arguable discretion to that of being a danger to the system as a whole.”
Turley thus confirms the view of conservative lawyer Andrew McCarthy and others. In contrast, pro-amnesty Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), applauded by the establishment media, claims that Obama’s lawless immigration policies do “not rise to the high crime and misdemeanor level.”
McCarthy has written that the job of defenders of constitutional government [and supporters of immigration law enforcement] is to explain to the public as well as misinformed members of Congress that impeachment was intended to address serious threats to the constitutional order, not petty matters such as a president lying about a tawdry sexual relationship.
Posted 8/5/14 by Margaret Hull