The first hearing before the House Judiciary committee is finally over. Three constitutional law professors appeared to state unconditionally that the actions Donald Trump took in regards to Ukraine were without a doubt at the level of not just being worthy of impeachment, but demanding impeachment. Republicans produced lawyer turned television commentator Jonathan Turley, whose big conclusion was that this is moving too fast, that Trump needs to be investigated further, and that more witnesses need to testify … which doesn’t seem to be what Republicans really want at all.
Throughout the day, Republicans avoided getting inconvenient answers by simply failing to ask the witnesses any questions. Even Turley was rarely given the opportunity to do more than nod along to statements that were mostly duplicates of those Republicans made on the Intelligence Committee—though the Judiciary Committee Republicans threw in more complaints about chairs, temperature, and layout of the hearing room. And throughout the day Republicans tossed in demands for one vote after another in an attempt to disrupt and delay the hearing.
Overall, the day did what it was intended to do—show the Constitutional grounds on which the case is mounted and allow the witnesses to note the importance of the situation. However, as disruptive as Republicans were in the Intelligence Committee, it’s clear that they’re attempting to create a firewall in Judiciary and will continue to take additional steps to protect Trump by interfering in the process in every way possible. It’s genuinely unclear that it will be possible to have coherent hearings as this moves forward.