In 1998, as a supporter of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, I wrote columns criticizing Speaker Newt Gingrich for conducting the impeachment inquiry in a way unfair to Clinton. Now, as a supporter of impeaching President Trump, I agree with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who is criticizing Speaker Nancy Pelosi for an unfair impeachment process.

Both speakers ignore the reality that impeachment and removal of a president is such a momentous situation that the public will balk at any sign of stacking the deck.

McCarthy sent an Oct. 3 letter to Pelosi asking ten highly relevant questions about how the speaker intends to proceed. He noted that if Pelosi answers “no” to any of the ten questions, she would be “acting in direct contradiction to all modern impeachment inquiries of a sitting president … denying the President the bare minimum rights [he deserves, and] … would create a process completely devoid of any merit or legitimacy.”

Among his questions was whether Pelosi will ever hold an actual House vote to open an official impeachment inquiry, whether she will allow Republicans to subpoena witnesses in defense of Trump, and whether she will allow the president’s counsel rights similar to court trial rights, such as the right to attend depositions, present evidence, object to the presentation of disputed evidence, and cross-examine witnesses.

McCarthy, himself no saint on internal House affairs, does make great points here. Even though impeachment isn’t, strictly speaking, a judicial process, and thus not governed by constitutional protections and derivations thereof, the process still ought to observe the norms and common-sense rules of fairness that Americans expect in court. Indeed, because the possible outcome is the removal from office of the most powerful man on Earth, and some 60 million Americans who voted for Trump will feel their votes are being nullified if the removal process isn’t careful and entirely just. The imperative should be to go the extra mile to ensure that the president receive an adequate defense.

So far, Pelosi has shown no such fair-minded inclinations. She has held no vote to start an inquiry, has made no move to consolidate impeachment responsibilities in a single committee, and has offered not a single proposal for rules to govern the process.

This is even worse than Gingrich did when he refused all Democratic entreaties for specific limits on the length and breadth of the Clinton probe. When investigating Clinton, Republicans at least formally voted to open the inquiry, and then presented a specific rules package to govern the proceedings. Even though they ramrodded that package through, without anything approaching adequate consideration to Democrats’ objections and suggestions, at least all sides were afforded a clear road map for the process.

If I could write back then that “the Republicans' lack of compromise on impeachment procedures makes them look dangerous,” it is even more true today that the Democrats’ refusal even to define impeachment procedures makes them look guilty of a sinister bloodlust.

The American public deserves better.