WASHINGTON—Here is Jonathan Turley, to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

That is why this is wrong. It's not wrong because President Trump is right. His call was anything but perfect. It's not wrong because the House has no legitimate reason to investigate Ukrainian controversy. Point's not wrong because we're in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No, it's wrong because this is not how you impeach an American president. This case is not a case of the unknowable. It's a case of the peripheral. We have a record of conflicts, defenses that have not been fully considered, unsubpoenaed witness with material evidence. To impeach a president on this record would expose every future president to the same time of inchoate impeachment.

Here is Jonathan Turley, in 1998.

In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker; it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. The allegations against President Clinton go to the very heart of the legitimacy of his office and the integrity of the political system. As an individual, a president may seek spiritual redemption in the company of friends and family. Constitutional redemption, however, is found only in the company of representatives of all three branches in the well of the Senate. It is there that legitimacy, once recklessly lost, can be regained by a president.

If there ever was need for more evidence that the pursuit of Bill Clinton was destructive to good government, it is right there in Jonathan Turley, who spent Wednesday rattling around on a hook on which he hung himself 20 years ago.

Impeach a president* for shaking down an ally for personal political advantage?

Everybody calm down before something gets broken.

Impeach a president for lying about an affair?

If not, anarchy!

Nothing is ever really over.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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