Turley Warns of ‘Impulse Buy’ Impeachment — ‘Runs Against the Grain of the Constitution’

Monday on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley weighed in on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) push to impeach President Donald Trump should he not resign or be removed from office via the 25th Amendment over the riot at the U.S. Capitol by a group of his supporters.

With nine days remaining in Trump’s term, Turley cautioned against a “snap impeachment” because it “runs against the grain of the Constitution. He argued it would create a “pathway for impulse buy impeachment” in the future.

“First of all, the very concept of a snap impeachment runs against the grain of the Constitution,” Turley outlined. “This was supposed to be a deliberative –not an impulsive — process. It’s rather, you know, curious that you have the House leadership saying they may just impeach and wait months. Why not do this the correct way? Why not hold an inquiry, have a hearing? There are very serious implications about what is occurring. And the first of those issues is this snap impeachment idea. You are creating a pathway for this type of impulse buy impeachment. This is what we are talking about here. There is a desire not to have that inquiry or hearing to look at the implications of what they are going to do. There are serious questions here that we need to discuss.”

“You know, they are suggesting impeaching a president over a speech that many of us call reckless, but it’s a type of vicarious impeachment in the sense that he doesn’t call for violence in his speech. He, in fact, tells his followers to be peaceful. He says the reason they should go to the Capitol is to support members who are challenging the elections and to encourage other members to join them. So, the speech itself would not meet any definition as a criminal matter of incitement,” he concluded.

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