The Democrats’ Missed Opportunity on Impeachment

Read: Trump’s biggest impeachment mistake

That the Democrats would choose left-leaning witnesses to make the case against the president is not surprising—it’s what typically happens in congressional hearings in the highly polarized House. But as they seek to build a broadly bipartisan consensus and convert Republicans to their cause, they may have missed an opportunity to call one of the many conservative critics of the president’s actions. While there may be a dearth of Republicans within Congress who are willing to call out Trump’s conduct with Ukraine, there are plenty just outside Capitol Hill, especially in the legal community. (The libertarian law professor Jonathan H. Adler suggested a few options on Twitter; others suggested Adler himself.)

Without that diversity, today’s hearing quickly fell into a predictable rhythm. The Democratic witnesses all made their cases compellingly, arguing that the evidence of Trump’s quid pro quo with Ukraine—conditioning foreign aid on an investigation into one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden—fits precisely the definition of an impeachable offense as conceived by the Framers of the Constitution. “If what we are talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable,” Gerhardt told the committee.

The GOP’s lone witness was Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University who represented House Republicans when they sued Obama for executive overreach. Turley noted that he didn’t vote for Trump, but he criticized the evidence against him as insufficient and faulted Democrats for rushing the process. “It has not been explained to me why you want to set the record for the fastest impeachment,” he said. “Fast is not good on impeachment.” As for the alleged quid pro quo, Turley said: “There is a difference between requesting investigations and a quid pro quo. You need to stick the landing on the quid pro quo.’

When it came time for questioning, Democrats all but ignored Turley and focused instead on drawing out from their witnesses exactly what they wanted to hear. Republicans did the same.

There were a few pointed exchanges, and some outright anger, such as when Karlan confronted the committee’s top Republican, Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, over his suggestion that the law professors had not been able to fully digest the evidence presented by the Intelligence Committee before their appearance today.

“I would like to say to you, sir, that I read the transcripts of every one of the witnesses that appeared in the live hearing, because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts,” Karlan said. “So I’m insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don’t care about those facts.”

And there was some levity, such as when Collins complained about the temperature of the hearing room (cold) and his chair (uncomfortable), and when Turley claimed, during his opening statement, that even his golden doodle, Luna, “seemed mad” about the state of American politics.

Yet for most of the first three hours, the hearing itself seemed a microcosm of that political debate and of the impeachment process that, to the chagrin of Trump’s critics, has failed to transcend it. Democrats talked with the Democrats, Republicans talked with the Republican, and the partisan lines that have been drawn on impeachment darkened a little bit more.

Russell Berman is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics.