Bret Stephens: The conservative case for impeachment and conviction

(Patrick Semansky | AP) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California readies to strike the gavel as she announces the passage of Article II of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.Several years ago, Laurence Silberman, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and a man widely admired by conservatives for his wisdom and rectitude, spoke of his experience in the mid-1970s looking into the secret files of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

“Accompanied by only one FBI official, I read virtually all these files in three weekends,” Silberman, who was then President Gerald Ford’s deputy attorney general,…