One of the witnesses at Wednesday's impeachment inquiry hearing was not like the others. While Professors Pamela Karlan, Noah Feldman, and Michael Gerhardt told the panel over and over again that President Trump committed impeachable offenses in his phone call with Ukraine in July, Republican witness Jonathan Turley took a much different approach. To the George Washington University professor, Trump's call was worthy of investigation, but not a full blown impeachment.
As he put it, "Impeachment has to be based on proof, not presumptions."
That is perhaps why the Jerry Nadler-appointed lawyer Norm Eisen ignored Turley during his questioning. Eisen asked the three liberal lawyers if they believed Trump acted immorally and unlawfully because he knew they'd respond in the affirmative. He did not ask the same of Turley. In fact, he didn't ask Turley much at all.
We're not the only ones who noticed.
Norm Eisen's lack of questioning of Jonathan Turley was GLARING. #JerryRigged https://t.co/DfbMj8tMik
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) December 4, 2019
Eisen, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace noted, had 45 minutes to question the witnesses. He spent about 44 minutes and 30 seconds of those talking to three.
"This was not a search for justice or wisdom," Wallace said. "This was a search for trying to make a case...They wanted to hear from the people who were going to make that case for them."
Eisen did acknowledge Turley a bit later in his interrogation, but it was only to spin some of his past statements. He referenced one of Turley's pieces in the Wall Street Journal in which the professor noted that the Ukraine issue did warrant an investigation and that impeachment doesn't require a crime, and he demanded Turley to admit he wrote it. The witness did, but he was quick to note that there was an "important caveat" to it. Eisen wasn't interested and said he only needed a "yes" or "no."