By Joshua Nelson | Fox News
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has sunk so far below the Founding Fathers’ standard of an impeachable offense that the process has devolved into a joke.
“I think the Founding Fathers would’ve thought this is exactly what they did not want to see happen because it reduces the presidency to a daily political fight, rather than to the commander in chief to the nation,” Gingrich said.
The Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee moved to the forefront of Trump’s impeachment inquiry Wednesday with a hearing featuring four legal scholars, but no fact witnesses.
In the same pillared room that hosted last month’s House Intelligence Committee hearings, lawmakers heard from Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, Harvard law professor and Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman, University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt, and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.
READ: JONATHAN TURLEY IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY TESTIMONY
All are Democrat witnesses except for Turley.
In his opening statement, Turley told lawmakers that, while he is not a “supporter” of the president, he is concerned about the “integrity” of the impeachment process based on the case being built against Trump.
“One can oppose President Trump’s policies or actions but still conclude that the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate, but in some respects, dangerous, as the basis for the impeachment of an American president,” Turley said.
Gingrich agreed, believing it’s “almost a joke” to argue Trump’s actions are impeachable.
“The [founders] saw this power of impeachment as a correction for a fundamental profound threat to the Republic. They did not see it as a political tool. They didn’t see it as an emotion of no confidence. They thought that was the job of the American people at the election.”Joshua Nelson is a freelance reporter for Fox News.
