Here are key passages, all in agreement and consistent in their dominant theme, delivered this morning before the House Judiciary Committee.
Prof. Noah Feldman, Harvard Law School:
"The solicitation constituted an abuse of the office of the presidency because Pres. Trump was using his office to seek a personal political and electoral advantage over his political rival, former vice president Joe Biden, and over the Democratic Party. The solicitation was made in the course of the president’s official duties … [and] sought to gain an advantage that was personal to the president. This constitutes a corrupt abuse of the power of the presidency."
Prof. Pamala Karlan, Stanford Law School:
"The evidence reveals a President who used the powers of his office to demand that a foreign government participate in undermining a competing candidate for the presidency…. That demand constituted an abuse of power."
Prof. Michael Gerhardt, North Carolina School of Law:
"The record compiled thus far shows that the president has committed several impeachable offenses, including bribery, abuse of power in soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader to benefit his political campaign, obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice."
Speaking on behalf of the anti-impeachment Republican minority, Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley was just as singular in message, but somewhat comical in substance; his testimony had none, in terms of addressing the president's many unmistakable abuses of power. (You can read it, or rather not read it, here.) Yet Turley was fussily upset about the speed with which the Democratic majority has been pursuing impeachment. My goodness, he moaned, this is all proceeding just too quickly — as though if Trump had shot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, at least a year, maybe two years, of investigation would be required.
That's just about all the anti-impeachment Republicans have, folks — that, and the pathetic "defense" that Trump's many crimes weren't all that serious.
And they'll prevail.
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Update: To be fair, under subsequent questioning Turley elaborated on his prepared remarks, saying he simply did not believe that Trump's extraordinarily impeachable offenses are, under the Constitution, impeachable. Thus his legal opinion goes deeper than his original testimony at first revealed. But, to be just as fair, he should have stopped at fussiness.