Legal scholars weigh Trump impeachment charges

(4 Dec 2019) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: apus127612 The House Judiciary Committee's first impeachment hearing quickly burst into partisan infighting Wednesday as Democrats charged that President Donald Trump must be removed from office for enlisting foreign interference in U.S. elections and Republicans angrily retorted there were no grounds for such drastic action.      The Judiciary Committee was hearing Wednesday from legal experts to determine whether Trump's actions stemming from the July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president rose to the constitutional level of “high crimes and misdemeanors" warranting impeachment. At the hearing, Republican witness Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said that the Democrats were bringing a "slipshod impeachment" case against the president based on secondhand information. Still, Turley didn't excuse the president’s behavior.    “It is not wrong because President Trump is right," according to Turley. He called Trump's call with Ukraine “anything but 'perfect," as the president claims. “A case for impeachment could be made, but it cannot be made on this record," he said.    The remaining three witnesses, all called by Democrats, argued for impeachment. Stanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan pointedly rebutted comments from Georgian Republican Doug Collins that the hearing was only hearing from law professors who hadn't had time to review the Intelligence Committee's report. "I'm insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor, I don't care about those facts," she said, adding "but everything I read on those occasions tells me that when President Trump invited, indeed demanded, foreign involvement in our upcoming election, he struck at the very heart of what makes this a republic to which we pledge allegiance."    Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill argued that if Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning.    The political risks are high for all parties as the House presses only the fourth presidential impeachment inquiry in U.S. history. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...