Paul Rosenzweig

Opinion contributor

We stand on the cusp of history. Only three times in the past have impeachment proceedings against an American president begun. Twice, with Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, they resulted in impeachment and acquittal in the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned before articles of impeachment were voted on. And, now, we have President Donald Trump.

The House of Representatives process so far, and the plan it outlines going forward in a resolution it approved 232-196 on Thursday, have been subject to much complaint by the Republican members of Congress. Yet the truth is that the process the Democrats have proposed is roughly analogous to the Clinton impeachment run by Republicans.

In both inquiries, the majority controlled the process of subpoena issuance; in both inquiries the normal rules of rapid-fire five-minute questioning by members were relaxed to allow for lengthier examination; and in both inquiries there are mechanisms by which the president could offer rebuttal evidence.

House is primary Trump investigator

The similarities are actually quite odd because the origins of the two impeachment proceedings are so different. Clinton’s was piggy-backed on top of a long-running, existing criminal investigation (one in which, full disclosure, I took part as a senior counsel to the Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr). Thus, the examination of Clinton’s interactions with his intern, Monica Lewinsky, initially took place behind closed doors, in the context of a grand jury investigation.

Given the thoroughness of the Starr investigation, the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee ultimately determined not to take any new evidence. They did not, for example, hear directly from Ms. Lewinsky and based their impeachment decision principally on the report from and testimony of Starr, who functioned as a summary witness.

The contrast with current events could not be starker. The House is now examining President Trump’s efforts to hold military aid and a White House meeting for Ukraine hostage, in exchange for investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden and a theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. There is no preexisting investigation; the House is the primary investigator. It is hearing from witnesses directly, and 47 Republican members of Congress sit on the committees conducting the inquiry.

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While the current series of depositions is occurring in a classified setting, the House resolution makes clear that if the House eventually proceeds to a vote on impeachment, it will do so only after a public airing of the evidence before the Judiciary Committee. And so the Democrats' process is much more reminiscent of the Nixon Watergate inquiry, which lasted for months, than of the abbreviated House consideration of Clinton’s conduct.

The procedural resolution passed with near-unanimous Democratic support and unanimous Republican opposition. But that is a political calculation, not a fair evaluation of the process.

Republican complaints ring hollow

Indeed, this partisan vote is a sad commentary on the degradation of a once noble party, of which I used to be a member. Any fair reading of history suggests that Republican complaints today ring hollow.

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They contend, for example, that the Democrats' proposal violates due process. Yet that argument has a makeweight quality to it, given that the plan is a close cognate of the Clinton procedures; the Constitution says the House and Senate have "sole power" over their impeachment responsibilities; and a federal judge ruled just last week that the House impeachment proceeding was legal.

In as much as the Republicans were earlier complaining of the lack of any process at all, their current complaints only validate the Democratic charge that Republicans are moving the goal posts of their process demands in a never-ending series of retrenchments.

In the end then, the true measure of the fairness of the process lies not in the complaints of the Republican Party, but rather in an objective assessment of precisely what the Democrats have proposed. And by that measure, they have done a reasonable job. If Republicans are reduced to complaining about process instead of facing the substantive reality of what has happened, they seem likely to only further hasten the erosion of their credibility.

Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow in the National Security and Cyber Security Program at the R Street Institute, was senior counsel to Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation and a deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration. Follow him on Twitter: @RosenzweigP