The House Oversight Committee‘s first hearing on the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden took a turn when a Democratic congressman began questioning one of the witnesses on his past writings on polygamy.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) asked George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley about a 2006 op-ed in the Guardian in which he wrote that polygamy should not be persecuted.
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“Professor Turley, in 2006, you wrote an op-ed in the Guardian entitled, ‘Stop persecuting polygamists.’ There you liken polygamists to ‘persecuted minorities,’ and you said polygamy is ‘a practice with deep and good-faith religious meaning,'” Krishnamoorthi said.
Turley responded by saying he had represented “the sister wives family in challenging a polygamy prosecution,” to which Krishnamoorthi interrupted saying, “The answer is yes.”
Krishnamoorthi then accused Turley of defending Tom Green, a polygamist who was convicted of child rape, in an op-ed in USA Today because he had also been convicted of polygamy. Turley countered Krishnamoorthi’s question by saying the Illinois Democrat has mischaracterized the piece.
“Can I respond? Because that’s not entirely accurate. I actually criticized him, but I was dealing with the constitutionality of what is called morals legislation, and I admit I am pretty libertarian,” Turley said before he was interrupted by Krishnamoorthi. Turley attempted to continue his answer by saying the morals legislation was about “whether the government can pose a moral code on people,” but was again interrupted.
“We are counting down the hours until a government shutdown and here we have a hearing where we have one witness who defended a polygamist who is convicted of pedophilia and rape, and we have another witness with LinkedIn accounts with extreme views posted. I think that unfortunately, this speaks to the credibility of the witnesses and the credibility of this impeachment inquiry,” Krishnamoorthi concluded.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) then brought a point of order, asking if the witnesses may have time to “respond to those malicious statements.” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said the witnesses may address those statements during a different representative’s line of questioning.
Turley was able to respond to the accusations during Rep. Gary Palmer’s (R-AL) line of questioning nearly an hour later.
“I have spent my life challenging what is called morals legislation. What the Democratic member attacked me for are laws that dictate to others how they should live their lives. Some of those laws have been used against gay and lesbian couples. They’ve used against minorities. The individual that the member described I condemn. I represented the sister wives in a case challenging that law on the basis of individual rights. The trial court ruled in our favor and struck down that law — the first time that type of law had ever been struck down. The 10th Circuit later dismissed on technical grounds.”
Turley then discussed the broader problem of members of Congress attacking witnesses rather than the evidence or testimony being presented by witnesses.
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“But I just wanna end with one other thing and that is, it’s not going to make a difference. This has become a pattern of witnesses and whistleblowers and FBI agents, journalists being attacked in Congress and it won’t make any difference, it won’t change the constitutional standard, it won’t negate any evidence that you have, but at some point, you have to say, enough,” Turley said.
The hearing is the first since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced the House would open an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
