The Conservative Case for Impeachment — and Removal

On Tuesday, Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, issued a stinging rebuke to the Bureau for its handling of the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.

“The frequency with which representations made by F.B.I. personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other F.B.I. applications is reliable,” Collyer wrote.

Collyer’s decision should put paid to the notion that this month’s report from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, is some kind of ringing vindication of the Russia investigation. Republicans like Devin Nunes were more right about the conduct of the investigation than many of its supporters, including me, care to admit, even if the investigation itself was warranted. And Carter Page is owed an apology by anyone, including me, who cares for the presumption of innocence and objects to trial by media.

But now to impeachment: If conservatives are right to object to the abuse of power by F.B.I. agents, shouldn’t they be far more alarmed at the abuse of investigatory and other powers for political ends by the president of the United States?

According to the public transcript of Donald Trump’s July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Trump said: “The server, they say Ukraine has it …. I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/opinion/trump-impeachment-fbi.html?emc=rss&partner=rss