Torture Cheerleader John Yoo Is Back To Lie About The Constitution

He's claiming the Founders did not believe in impeachment, which they did.

Oh goodie. The torture guy has more wisdom to share with us.

War criminal John Yoo, George W. Bush's favorite waterboarding lawyer, is back to lecture us on the Constitution. Because irony, like God, is dead.

Yoo, who once argued that the president could massacre entire villages and crush children's testicles if he wanted to, is back on the scene. But instead of torturing Muslims, this time he's here to torture American history.

Fox guest John Yoo says the framers of the Constitution "would never have wanted impeachment within a year of an el… https: //t.co/T8RvMK1vk1

— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1571280033.0 

So that's on-brand.

We're still taking legal advice from the torture guy?!

Well, not all of us are taking legal advice from the torture guy. But the geniuses over at Fox News ( and the New York Times ) have decided that war criminals deserve large national platforms, too.

Speaking to white nationalist Laura Ingraham (because of fucking course she would want to have Yoo on her show), Yoo once again spewed incoherent nonsense that has no basis in fact. Though that's probably par for the course for the guy who's claim to fame isdefending the use of waterboarding.

Let's take a look at what Yoo had to say.

What the Framers thought was that the American people would judge the President at the time of the election.

Okay ... no. What the Framers thought was that the House of Representatives would impeach and the Senate would convict if the president committed a bunch of high crimes and misdemeanors. That's why they put it right there in the Constitution!

Yoo keeps going:

They would never have wanted impeachment within a year of an election. It's up to the American people. If the American people think Trump has done wrong, they don't have to return him to office. If they don't think this was important, they'll reelect him.

Oh, apparently we're taking Moscow Mitch's Merrick Garland rule and applying it to impeachment now? That's ... a thing.

Except, like Moscow Mitch's Merrick Garland rule, it's not actually a thing at all. It's completely made up bullshit.

You know how I know that? There's no "except within one year of an election" exception to Congress's impeachment power. Because that would be really fucking stupid and would allow presidents to commit all sorts of high crimes and misdemeanors in their last year of office. Kind of like Trump has been doing this whole time.

The fact that we have presidential elections every four years does not negate the need for impeachment, bro.

Well, that's embarrassing

It's a good thing the Framers didn't consider and explicitly reject Yoo's dumb arguments.

Oh. Wait.

@BrianDeLay If only we could know what the founders thought about this & if they would confirm John Yoo's view. Oh… https: //t.co/Hr6aIrVxHr

— Christopher Nichols (@Christopher Nichols) 1571289816.0 

And have I mentioned yet that Andrew Johnson was impeached in February of 1868, nine months before a presidential election?

I, FOR ONE, AM SHOCKED THAT JOHN YOO WOULD EVER SAY SOMETHING THAT WASN'T 100% BASED ON ACTUAL FACTS.

But hey, I'm not a historian. Let's see what some historians have to say about Adventures in History Featuring John Yoo.

I’m beginning to think that John Yoo’s constitutional views are not carefully formed by a dispassionate assessment… https: //t.co/QZRUNyXRHU

— Jacob T. Levy (@Jacob T. Levy) 1571281904.0 

@BrianDeLay Come on John Yoo. I would have hoped you'd be better than this -- why would you event assert this? Try… https: //t.co/Kh2nrWUd4F

— Christopher Nichols (@Christopher Nichols) 1571291340.0 

It's almost like John Yoo is just making shit up and then deciding the Framers would agree with him.

Because torturing history and our brains wasn't quite enough, Yoo also tortured logic for a little while.

Fox guest John Yoo says Trump shouldn't meet with any Democrats until they stop the impeachment inquiry. Laura Ingr… https: //t.co/tN4okbTgaE

— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1571280000.0 

Oh dear.

Well, those are words. And most of them form full sentences. So there's that.

Why should [Trump] meet with people who have called him all these names and are trying to unseat him from office based on, so far, flimsy evidence?

Flimsy evidence like the Transcript!!!! produced by the White House? And the White House chief of staff admitting to high crimes and misdemeanors at a press conference? Or the whistleblower complaint?

Let's also pause and take a moment to reflect on Yoo accusing Democrats of name-calling while he's defending the man who coined "Cooked Hillary," "Shifty Schiff," and "Pocahontas" as ways to refer to various Democrats?

I'm actually surprised President Trump meets with, does them the respect of having a meeting with them at all. He actually gives them a forum to attack him. He doesn't have to do that.

Umm ... I guess it is technically true that the Constitution doesn't require the president to meet with the Speaker of the House?

A banana republic where the president refuses to meet with his political rivals is one idea.

These are people trying to remove him from office and undo his election in 2016.

Yoo apparently got the Republican talking points on how IMPEACHMENT IS TRYING TO OVERTURN THE 2016 ELECTION!!!!!1!!!!11!

I guess at least this means they finally figured out how to send talking points to one another without accidentally cc-ing every Democrat in the House of Representatives?

And, of course, we get some wonderful insight on what -- other than waterboarding -- John Yoo would do if he were the president.

If I were him, I would say, "I'm not gonna meet with you until you end this impeachment.

And if I were you, I would hide in my basement for the rest of my life and pray each day to my creator for forgiveness, but I guess that's the difference between us.

This fuckin' guy

Of course, this isn't the first time Yoo has tried to claw his way back into relevance by making dumbass pro-Trump arguments . A couple of weeks ago, when all of Trump's Ukraine crimes started to percolate, Yoo wrote a fucking ridiculous piece for the New York Times about how Congress shouldn't impeach Trump because reasons .

This is a man who the University of California Berkeley School of Law pays to teach law students about the Constitution.

It is fucking ridiculous that any of these things are happening. John Yoo is a war criminal and a disgrace. He should be and removed from polite society, not given a megaphone asked his opinions on the Constitution.

Can we all please agree that, once you advocate for the use of torture and the president's right to murder villages of innocent people, we're no longer going to call on you for moral and legal leadership?

TL;DR

Fuck John Yoo.

[ Jason Campbell ]

Wonkette is independent and fully funded by readers like you. Click below to tip us!