Jonathan Turley, the lone legal scholar selected by Republicans for Wednesday’s impeachment hearing, received threats at his home and office while he was testifying.
Turley, 58, was one of four legal experts selected to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee to voice their opinions on whether President Trump committed impeachable offenses regarding his policy with Ukraine. He was the only one who argued that the impeachment process, led mainly by the House Intelligence Committee, has been rushed and lacking evidence.
“My call for greater civility and dialogue may have been the least successful argument I made to the committee. Before I finished my testimony, my home and office were inundated with threatening messages and demands that I be fired from George Washington University for arguing that, while a case for impeachment can be made, it has not been made on this record,” he wrote in his newest column in the Hill on Thursday.
The George Washington University professor noted during his testimony that “the use of military aid for a quid pro quo to investigate one’s political opponent, if proven, can be an impeachable offense” and argued that Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was the catalyst behind the impeachment investigation, was “anything but ‘perfect,’ and his reference to the Bidens was highly inappropriate.”
The three law experts called by Democrats — Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School, Pamela Karlan of Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina — all alleged that Trump committed impeachable offenses.
