Tag: Impeach

BTW, While We Are Talking About Impeachment

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Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) received a standing ovation Tuesday evening at his first public event since becoming the first Republican to call for President Trump‘s impeachment.

At a town hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Amash criticized House Republican leadership, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whom he called the “so-called leader.”

“I read the Mueller report. I’m sure he didn’t read it,” Amash said of McCarthy. “He resorted to ad hominem attacks; that’s the kind of ‘leadership’ we now have in Congress.”

 Nancy Pelosi needs to understand that her cowardice is neither good policy nor good politics.

Mueller Speaks

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Unfortunately, he’s still not particularly good at communicating, but it appears to me that what he implied was, “of course he obstructed justice, so do your job, Congress,” though as is often noted, your mileage may vary:

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, declined on Wednesday to clear President Trump of obstruction of justice in his first public characterization of his two-year investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mr. Mueller said, reading from prepared notes behind a lectern at the Justice Department at a hastily called public appearance.

He also noted that while Justice Department policy prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime, the Constitution provides for another remedy to formally accuse a president of wrongdoing — a clear reference to the ability of Congress to conduct impeachment proceedings.

Although it lasted less than 10 minutes, the news conference presented an extraordinary spectacle of a top federal law enforcement official publicly stating that the president’s conduct had warranted criminal investigation, even though it was impossible to indict him for any crimes. Mr. Mueller delivered his statement on his last day as special counsel, saying it was his final word on his investigation and he was returning to private life.

I’ve always said that it would be the coverup, and not the crime, and rather remarkably, Fox News’ pet, “judge,” Andrew Napolitano has observed that this is basically what Nixon got impeached for:

Judge Andrew Napolitano does not mince words.

Appearing on Fox Business’ Varney and Co. after Robert Mueller’s morning press conference, Napolitano told host Stuart Varney that the special counsel had essentially told the country that he “had evidence that he committed a crime but we couldn’t charge him because he’s the President of the United States.”

“This is even stronger than the language in his report,” Napolitano added. “This statement is one hundred and eighty degrees from the four-page statement that Bill Barr issued at the time he first saw the report.”

Fairly anodyne, until you consider the fact that it was on Fox F%$#ing News, huh.

So, considering that statement against interest, I’m going to go with what Eduardo Martinez Jr. said on McSweeney’s, and suggest that Congress is obligated to start a formal impeachment process, though he says it in an earthier manner, “Do Your F%$#ing Job.”

Sorry Nancy, but ironic clapping is not enough.  Your actions are not just bad politics, it will depress Democratic base turnout, but it is a deliberate shirking of constitutional responsibility:

Hey, Congress.

HEY.

LISTEN TO ME. ALL OF YOU.

I know this is inconvenient. I know what I’m about to tell you to do is hard, and complicated, and may not even, in the end, actually produce results. But I promise you, it’s never been more important to do what needs to be done. Do what, you ask?

DO YOUR F%$#ING JOB.

………

I’m sorry. I, in no way, mean to be aggressive or abrasive or imply that there are not enormous consequences to whatever happens next. This is a historical decision, no doubt, but it’s almost like HE’S THE F%$#ING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA JUST DOING CRIMES WHILE YOU ARE ARGUING ABOUT CIVILITY.

………

Just do your f%$#ing job.

Because if not.

We’ll find other people who will.

Amen.

Today’s Must Read

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Philadelphia Enquirer columnist Will Bunch has what I believe to be the definitive word on what the Democratic Party should be doing in the age of Trump.

His thesis is pretty straighforward, the Democrats need to stop being cowards:

………

The timidity of Democrats in response to Trump’s take-no-prisoners is disappointing, even after watching decades of battered-dog politics from the center-left. The slow-motion House Democratic strategy of finally issuing some subpoenas after several months in power, then watching them get ignored and finally tied up in court as the clock ticks toward the 2020 election appears hopeless in the face of all-out Roy Cohn-ism. And yet the Democrats are politically terrified of using the only power that matches Trump’s tactics – an impeachment inquiry, and the expanded powers that flow from that.

Read the rest.

If Speaker Pelosi Does Not Want to Use the House of Representatives, I Would Like to Borrow It for a Time

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Yesterday, it was Justin Amash (R-MI), and today it was 3 members of the Demcratic leadership in the House calling for Trump’s impeachment:

House Democratic leaders sparred internally on Monday over whether to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies rejecting the call to move forward for now, according to multiple sources.

Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) — all members of the Democratic leadership — pushed to begin impeachment proceedings during a leadership meeting in Pelosi’s office, said the sources. Pelosi and Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) — some of her key allies — rejected their calls, saying Democrats’ message is being drowned out by the fight over possibly impeaching Trump.

The, “Democrats’ message,” what the hell is that?

According to Cheri Bustos, head of the DCCC, you have to aggressively support an anti-choice Dem in a safe district, (Lipinski) and a right wing darling of the Koch brothers. (Cuellar)

What is your message, besides, “This space for rent”?

She is the George McClellan of Congress.

She has done a creditable job organizing a Democratic Congress, but she seems determined not to do anything it.

A Good Start

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The first Republican member of Congress has come out for impeaching Donald Trump:

Republican Congressman Justin Amash has broken with the Republican Party line to declare that President Trump has “engaged in impeachable conduct.” He also accuses Attorney General William Barr of attempting “to mislead the public about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s analysis and findings.” President Trump has responded calling Amash a “lightweight” and a “loser.”

Amash, who represents a Michigan district anchored by Grand Rapids, leans libertarian in his political orientation. He is the first prominent GOP officeholder to suggest that Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice and undermine the rule of law merit his removal from office. Indeed, Amash’s call for impeachment puts him out ahead of Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

“President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment,” Amash writes. The congressman used a Twitter thread Saturday to broadcast his views, “only after having read Mueller’s redacted report carefully and completely, having read or watched pertinent statements and testimony, and having discussed this matter with my staff.”

Here are my principal conclusions:
1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.
2. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.
3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances.
4. Few members of Congress have read the report.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019


In his thread, Amash offered choice criticism for Barr in his execution of his duties as America’s top law enforcement officer.

Barr’s misrepresentations are significant but often subtle, frequently taking the form of sleight-of-hand qualifications or logical fallacies, which he hopes people will not notice.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019


Amash spends much of his thread warning America about adherence to party over our constitutional system of checks and balances, while making a subtle jab at fellow conservatives who sought to impeach Bill Clinton for obstruction of justice, but have remained silent in the face of Trump’s lawlessness:

In fact, Mueller’s report identifies multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice, and undoubtedly any person who is not the president of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019

Trump’s response, by Twitter (of course) , is to call Amash a lightweight and a loser.

I do not think that this is pebbles before an avalanche, but it does provide a slight gloss of bipartisanship to the movement toward impeachment.

Why an Impeachment Investigation is Merited

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Given the current theory that a Republican (and only a Republican) President is unlimited in their powers by virtue of the unitary executive theory, the fact that, “Trump White House Lawyers Plan To Tell House Judiciary to ‘Go F*ck Themselves’,” the only way to pierce the veil of executive impunity is via an impeachment investigation, since the Constitution unequivocally pierces executive privilege:

President Trump’s White House attorneys are preparing to tell a key congressional panel investigating the administration “to go f%$# themselves,” as a person familiar with the deliberations characterized them to The Daily Beast.

According to three sources familiar with the situation, the White House counsel’s office, currently headed by Pat Cipollone, was still, as of Thursday morning, in the process of drafting a letter responding to the House Judiciary Committee’s request for a wide array of documents.

The documents requested by the Democratic-run committee are part of the sweeping and long-telegraphed inquiry into a range of Trump administration and Trump-associate activities earlier this month.

Cipollone’s letter response to the committee is essentially similar to one he sent to the Oversight, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence committees, which Politico reported on Thursday. Those committees, along with the Ways and Means panel, coordinate regularly over their complementary investigations into the administration.

The formal response to House Judiciary, these sources say, is expected to raise executive-privilege concerns and initially withhold any documents that the committee has requested. The response from the Trump White House is already several days overdue, per the Monday deadline set by Democratic lawmakers on the committee.

It’s the latest sign that Trump and his team are gearing up for a protracted war with the Democrats on the committee. Representatives for the committee did not immediately respond to a Daily Beast inquiry.

Beginning an impeachment investigation in order to forestall any ratf%$#ing by an increasingly corrupt and politicized federal judiciar would allows Democrats to thread a political needle.

They would be able to show a base that is clamoring for impeachment that they are willing to move, while reassuring a Democratic Party establishment that has lost anything resembling a set of cojones, that this is just a pretense to allow them to conduct real investigations.

Just do it.

Deliberately Missing the F%$#ing Point

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The New York Times has a story about how Republicans are using the specter of impeachment to bolster their chances of reelection in what is a difficult cycle.

It’s an interesting narrative, but it is profoundly wrong:

As Republican leaders scramble to stave off a Democratic wave or at least mitigate their party’s losses in November, a strategy is emerging on the right for how to energize conservatives and drive a wedge between the anti-Trump left and moderate voters: warn that Democrats will immediately move to impeach President Trump if they capture the House.

What began last year as blaring political hyperbole on the right — the stuff of bold-lettered direct mail fund-raising pitches from little-known groups warning of a looming American “coup” — is now steadily drifting into the main currents of the 2018 message for Republicans.

The appeals have become a surefire way for candidates to raise small contributions from grass-roots conservatives who are devoted to Mr. Trump, veteran Republican fund-raisers say. But party strategists also believe that floating the possibility of impeachment can also act as a sort of scared-straight motivational tool for turnout. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas used his re-election kickoff rally to introduce a video featuring a faux news anchor reading would-be headlines were conservatives not to vote in November.

“Senate Majority Leader Schumer announced the impeachment trial of President Trump,” one of the anchors says.

And when Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, convened about two dozen party strategists in February for a private dinner at a French bistro here, the attendees were surprised when he addressed an issue not included in his formal PowerPoint presentation: the threat of impeachment against Mr. Trump, which he said fired up the party base.

First, Republicans are now now, nor have the EVER been, a small donation party.

Small donors are, at best, icing on the cake.

What this is about is getting Nancy Pelosi to do what she did in 2006, and panic and declare that impeachment is, “Not on the table”.

The depressing thing is that it’s probably going to work.

No one ever lost money going long on the cowardice of the leadership of the Democratic Party.

OK, This is Now Officially a Legitimate Sh%$ Storm

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TheNew York Post states the obvious.*

OK, so now we know that in June of last year, Donald Trump, Jr., aka “Fredo”, was setting up a meeting with a Russian lawyer at the request of a publicist for a Russian to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. (Yes, this is profoundly weird and f%$#ed up)

This is now a big deal, not because this was necessarily a crime, I find the claims of a violation of Section 30121 of Title 52 to be a stretch in the world of Citizens United, but because we now have evidence of a conspiracy and a coverup.

It was a conspiracy to obstruct justice that took down Richard Nixon, after all.

I don’t think that this is the most impeachable thing that Trump has done (that will be a later post), but this has a potential to hamstring the Trump administration, particularly if the Democrats take back the House and Senate in 2018.

The underlying crime here is still a violation of campaign finance law, not espionage, not treason† or some similar heinous crimes.

From a political perspective, I do not think that this is a good thing for the Democratic Party.

This provides yet another opportunity for the Dems to miss the opportunity to reform, and ditch the incompetent and clueless deadwood that populate the party’s professional consultant class.

As opposed to a movement toward some sort of ideological coherence, the national Democratic Party will remain in, “A noun, a verb, and Vladimir Putin,” mode, which I do not believe will resonate with voters.

If hostility toward Russia were a political winner nationwide, Hillary Clinton would be President now.

My guess is that right now, Republicans will slow walk any investigation, saying that they need to wait for Special Prosecutor Muller’s report.

I expect months of overwrought press coverage over this, because this is a classic example of catnip for reporters.

*I cannot f%$#ing believe that I am f%$#ing citing the f%$#ing New York f%$#ing Post.
†It was never treason. Treason is specifically defined in the US Constitution because of at least a millennia of abuse in Europe, and this does not meet that very specific definition.‡
‡That being said, Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968, and Reagan and Poppy Bush’s deal with Iran to keep the hostages held in Iran in 1980 might meet the statutory requirements of Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution.

OK, This is a Big F%$#ing Deal

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It appears that following his meeting with Donald Trump, James Comey wrote a memo describing the meeting, and in this memo he makes it clear that Donald Trump applied pressure to get him to drop the investigation on Russian coordination* with the Trump campaign.

Assuming that an actual copy of the memo is made available, and the recipients are willing to testify as to the timing of the memo, then this is more than sufficient justification to open up an investigation against Donald Trump for obstruction of justice:

President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Late Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demanded that the F.B.I. turn over all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey.

Such documents, Mr. Chaffetz wrote, would “raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede” the F.B.I.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.

………

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

………

Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

There is a part of me that is hoping that this meeting was actually taped.

There is another part of me who fearss that Mike Pence is way worse than the Donald.

That being said, Congressional Republicans value Donald Trump as the proverbial useful idiot, so I do not see any meaningful moves toward impeachment absent a complete electoral debacle in 2018.

*Note that Comey has been very meticulious about using the term, “coordination,” and not, “collusion,” the former is a violation of campaign finance laws, while the latter is just sleazy, and so only the former constitutes an underlying crime to which things like conspiracy or obstruction of justice charges can be laid.†
†But I am an engineer, not a campaign finance lawyer, dammit.‡
‡I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!