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February 10th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley refuted a claim by House impeachment manager Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) in real time on Tuesday, after the Democrat tried to argue that Turley believed a former president could be impeached and tried.
Turley responded on Twitter:
Rep. Neguse just cited my Duke piece and said that I was an advocate until just a couple weeks ago for retroactive trials. I appreciate the citations but it is not true. That article was 21 years ago…https://t.co/GD3RCTz09T
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 9, 2021
As noted, my views have evolved not on the value of such trials but on the text. Others, like Laurence Tribe (who is also cited by the House), have also evolved in their views in the last two decades. https://t.co/awVhtJDEh7 Most of us have said this remains a close question.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 9, 2021
……The issue on such close questions remains your default on such questions. I have certainly become more textual in the last three decades, which I have written about over the years. However, this was not a recent change as suggested by Rep. Neguse…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 9, 2021
…As I wrote about earlier, I still believe what I said in the Duke piece 21 years ago on the purpose of the Belknap trial and the value of such condemnations. However, I believe the better textual argument favors the narrower meaning. https://t.co/GD3RCTz09T
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 9, 2021
Turley linked to his January article about the topic, in which he addressed questions about his past views. He argued that while such trials had value in the past, the increasingly loose way in which the House had used its impeachment power meant that trying former officials caused more problems than it solved, and was probably unconstitutional:
I still hold the same views on the history and value of such retroactive trials. However, I believe that the language and implications of such trials outweigh those benefits. Indeed, I have found over these decades that departures from the language of the Constitution have often produced greater dangers and costs. … It was historically allowed but I believe that it is not constitutionally sound. That view against retroactive impeachments is strengthened by what we have witnessed in the two Trump impeachments.
Turley later added in a new column: “”I felt Neguse did an excellent job in his argument but that statement is simply not true. His reliance on the Duke article is not misplaced. It is only his characterization of my position that was misleading.”
The first day of the trial was devoted to the constitutional question; both sides will continue to argue their cases for 16 hours each over the next several days.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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