Tag Archives: impeachment

Dershowitz to the Defense

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Ever since Mitch McConnell signaled his intention to herd the Republican caucus right over the cliff in supporting Donald Trump’s “perfect call” argument, the burning question has been what sort of defense was possible on the facts. This weekend offered a glimpse of where this might be going.  

(Appreciation to “The New Yorker for the accompanying illustration!)

Newly announced as a member of DT’s defense team, perennial camera moth, Alan Dershowitz  has been making the rounds of talk shows, insisting that he is representing the Constitution rather than the president.  His former student, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin did perhaps the best job of ripping away that particular fig leaf, returning repeatedly to challenge this bashful conceit in their lengthy exchange last evening.  It was pretty obvious that Dershowitz already recognizes the stigma that will be forever associated with being another one of Trump’s stooges, so he is doing what he can to distance himself while still serving as the president’s defense attorney.  An impossible conflict?

He was at great pains to repeatedly insist that he is a “liberal” and voted for Hillary Clinton, and, of course, that he would be appearing on behalf of the Constitution, not Donald Trump. Toobin wryly asked if the Constitution had hired him and if he would be paid; a question he rather side-stepped.

Mr. Dershowitz’s argument is that the two Articles of Impeachment against Trump are not technically “high crimes and misdemeanors,” as specified in the Constitution.  This was a difficult argument for him to make, as Toobin reminded him that there was no criminal code for the U.S at the time the Constitution was drafted; so what precisely constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors” in the Framers’ minds remains a matter for interpretation.  Dershowitz kept saying that “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” were “things like bribery and treason.”  That suggests that even he acknowledges that chargeable offenses are not limited to bribery and treason.

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Trump’s actions with regard to Zelensky seem for fall well within the parameters of bribery, not to mention it’s fraternal twin, extortion; and his overall behavior has at least flirted with treason on numerous occasions over the past three years; I would have liked for someone to ask Dershowitz  A) whether he thought the president’s phonemail with Zelensky was “perfect”, which apparently is the official position of Trump’s Republican defendersd; and B) What exactly should be the remedy for Trump’s bad behavior if not impeachment?

Undoubtedly, he would have countered that removal of the president should be left to the voters in the next election, but when the “crime” involved was an ongoing attempt to corrupt an election, surely such a toothless consequence as “leave it to the voters” is itself a danger to the Constitution.

I would have liked to see the mental gymnastics he would have to perform in order to defend his position on that one!

Dershowitz, who himself has an accumulation of dirty dark clouds over his head ought to eschew demonstrations of high-minded outrage at those like Toobin who dare question his motives.  The problem with “originalists” whether they be constitutional or biblical, is that they will deny the sky is blue if it isn’t so stated somewhere in the original document.

I wonder if Mr. Dershowitz, once again basking in the glow of klieg lights, is aware that, should he survive impeachment, Donald Trump is already planning on decriminalizing bribery, which he claims unfairly handicaps American businesses in the global marketplace.  

You can take the slumlord away from his gangster environment, but you can’t take the gangster out of the slumlord.

Welcome to the Impeachment

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Well, we’re in it now.

There was a certain inevitability to Donald Trump’s investigation for impeachment.  It’s as if he’s been trying to bring it on ever since he found himself, to everyone’s surprise including his own, the duly elected president of the United States.  In the early days, Republicans kept insisting that he would become more “presidential” the longer he served in office. 

Instead, with every outrageous tweet or insult, he steadily grew less presidential.  It was the Republican party itself that grew more and more Trumpian as the horrifying months careened by.

Yesterday, I went out and bought myself knitting needles and wool, resigned as I was to the lengthy spectacle of can’t-miss testimony and “ah-HA” moments that is about to unfold before us.  Americans from my generation are old enough to have been here before.

We’re a different nation now than we were back in 1972 when the Watergate investigation began to unfold.  After a brief moment of unity in 2001 following 9-11, the country began a slow motion decline into dissolution.  How many times was it repeated that the expressed purpose of Al-Qaeda in attacking the capitol of American capital was to “destroy the American way of life?”

An honest observer from the future would have to agree that they have succeeded; but it wasn’t the direct actions of the terrorists that did it.  We did it to ourselves, descending into twenty years of continuous war, tribalism and self-harm, claiming to do so in the name of the very values and institutions the hijackers had despised. 

In the good ol’ days of Watergate, Republicans hadn’t yet sold-out completely to Wall Street, the NRA, Big Oil, Big Pharma and Fox News.  We were still singing from more-or-less the same songbook, and both parties were still courting the so-called center. 

Republicans were all about small government, capitalism and minding everyone else’s business globally.  Democrats were about the social safety net, equal rights and avoiding international conflict.  Both sides liked Social Security, Public Education, infrastructure investments, farm subsidies and cheap oil. Neither side fully appreciated the urgency of environmental issues.

Religious differences were to be carefully avoided in conversation and it was mutually agreed that racism was a bad thing.

I remember how tired we all became with the endless Watergate hearings, but they provided a real service to the country in bringing the public along gradually to majority agreement on at least one thing:  Dick Nixon had to  go. And go, he did; voluntarily, and one might even say presidentially.  He knew when the jig was up and preserved enough of his shredded dignity to say a tearful “goodbye” from the steps of Airforce One.

After that, we never saw our government through quite the same eyes. Nevertheless, the presidency  survived, separation of powers survived, and the hero of the ordeal was a young Republican in the Nixon administration who gave evidence against him.  John Dean went to jail for his role in enabling Nixon’s crime, but emerged older, wiser and equipped to provide valuable perspective on the corrupt reign of Donald J. Trump.

As much as Michael Cohen apparently fancies himself to be the John Dean of this story; so far, no one has come near to earning that distinction.

Donald Trump proclaimed that his administration would appoint the “best people” to run things.  After roughly 75% of his appointees have been replaced, sometimes with multiple changes in rapid succession, we have yet to see any of the “best people” that he promised. Character is in remarkably short supply.

Although quite a few of the folks who exited through the rapidly swinging doors readily dished on the president and first family, most were too thoroughly intimidated by the Oval Office Godfather to delve very deeply into his corruption.

The people who really know where all the bodies are buried are all immediately related to Donald Trump.  Chances are they’re just as guilty as he is.

With no John Dean in the wings and a soul-less vampire clinging to the ledge of the Oval Office, our poor battered constitutional democracy might not survive to 2024.

Why does he get away with this stuff?

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Donald Trump wants freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omer to resign over a single objectionable tweet?  Congresswoman Omer has apologized and accepted responsibility.

Decades older and holding the highest office in the land, Donald Trump, on the other hand,  has made countless far more offensive comments . He has never apologized for any of them, so we must assume that he stands by those comments, violating social norms in so many directions.

He has called for Hillary Clinton to be “locked-up,” but after lengthy investigation by the Republican Congress and the FBI, it was concluded that she was not guilty of any crime.  

Donald Trump, on the other hand behaves like a racketeer.  He has packed his campaign and his administration with a  cast of shady characters who might easily populate a spy or crime novel; has displayed a conspicuous bias toward Putin while disparaging US intelligence bodies; has shared sensitive information about Israel with a Russian official in the oval office; and has boasted to the Russian that he fired James Comey in order to relieve himself of the collusion investigation.  

He has lied at an ever accelerating rate, about everything from the trivial to the monumental, throughout the first two years of his administration, so that the number of lies is now over 8,000 and counting. 

Corruption in the Trump administration exceeds that of any administration in living memory.  Apart from that, aspects of his businesses, his administration, his campaign  and his personal finance  are under investigation by at least three different bodies, which have already resulted in multiple inditements of individuals acting on his behalf.

And that’s just the short list.

If we are pressuring elected officials to resign for racial insensitivity, the racial insensitivity and all-out race-baiting  of Donald Trump is certainly equal to if not greater than that of any of the others.  If we are demanding resignations from elected officials for past allegations of sexual assault, there are even more unresolved allegations against Donald Trump, whose credibility is reinforced by the witness of his own words on the “Access Hollywood” tape.

How can we hold anyone else accountable for these misdeeds unless the President himself, our chief executive, is held accountable in the same way?

Never mind impeachment, if the Republican Party re-nominates Donald Trump for a second term, Democrats should demand that every one of their congressional members resign.

While we are on the subject of enabling, let’s not forget the role the mainstream media (most especially CNN) played in electing Donald Trump in the first place.

CNN seems guilty of short-term memory loss.  They’re doing a fine job now of fact-checking Trump; but throughout the campaign, they gave him unlimited airtime to propagate mistruths with only the weakest attempts to reign him in. 

There is one thing the mainstream media can now do to address Donald Trump’s worsening habit of demonizing them: don’t cover his rallies.

Having a corral of press, ringside at these carnivals of self-indulgence, only provides Trump with a handy target and foil for his vitriol.  He LOVES press coverage and will become apoplectic if he is denied their attention.

If the mainstream media doesn’t show up, he will be left with the likes of Fox News and Breitbart, outlets that receive little respect and credibility beyond the base that already attends his rallies in dwindling numbers.  

Once having moved freely between the Democratic and Republican parties as a “harmless” business buffoon, Trump now finds himself, on the whole, socially isolated.  Still, he continues to crave and court approval (from his dead father?) and, to that end, seeks every opportunity to make a spectacle of himself.

Like a child starved for attention, the 73-year old refuses to do his homework, lies prodigiously, and is devoid of any strategy other than bullying.   “Look at me!” he seems to be saying, “Ain’t I something?!”

It’s not as if we learn anything new about Trump from analysis of his rally footage.  It’s always the same appalling intolerance, misogyny and misinformation.  

If nothing he has said or done so far has provoked the GOP to reject him in defense of their constitutional obligations, there is no earthly excuse for providing his lies with a mainstream media platform.

It diminishes us as a nation to indulge his appetite for sensation; and, as the attack on the BBC cameraman clearly illustrates, it is building to a dangerous place.

 

“Very surprising that we all could see the plot and claimed that we could not…”

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lightlyTrump1The latest revelations from the Mueller investigation showing criminal activity by those surrounding then candidate Donald Trump, and even potential felonies (an impeachable offense) perpetrated by the Donald himself have brought on a strong wave of nostalgia for an earlier constitutional crisis.

And I don’t mean the GOP’s failed Clinton impeachment but — wait for it — Watergate.

H2Ogate Blues

And the poem is called “H2O-G-A-T-E Blues”
And if H2O is still water, and G-A-T-E is still gate
What we’re getting ready to deal on is the Watergate Blues
(Rated X!)  

Let me see if I can dial this number right quick
*Click! Whirrr! Click!*
“I’m sorry, the government you have elected is inoperative
Click. Inoperative”                 

[Verse 2:]
Just how blind will America be? (There ain’t no telling)
The world is on the edge of its seat
Defeat on the horizon. Very surprising that we all
Could see the plot and claimed that we could not… (Alright)

Gil Scott-Heron/ Brian Jackson

Yeah, the real old days — way, way back to the 1970’s when articles of impeachment against President Nixon passed — with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Nixon, widely believed to be guilty of various crimes, resigned — some say to save the nation suffering a trial. He was quickly pardoned of all crimes by President Gerald Ford.

Any bets on how current events will fit the Watergate rhyme?

 

 

Perjury could save the nation.

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Sunday musings in a flu and Robitussen-induced fog:

Congressional Republicans have all the power to stop Donald Trump’s march to catastrophe, but recognizing that they have been effectively castrated by fear of populist revolt from their base, we are left frantically looking for a “Plan B” before the Doomsday Clock strikes twelve.

Apparently our best legal opportunity to curb the insanity is to get him into court for any reason and force him to testify under oath. This has been suggested repeatedly in the media but, IMHO, hasn’t gotten nearly enough traction.

The man appears incapable of distinguishing truth from fiction and it is unlikely that he can restrain himself from at least one boldface lie in the course of any sworn testimony, no matter how brief.

Therein lies the easily pulled lynchpin to impeachment.

I would guess that, by the time he lies under oath, at least half of all congressional Republicans would leap at the chance to push him toward the exit sign if given that opportunity through a simple impeachable offense such as perjury.

They’ll know, of course, that they will still have Mike Pence (God forbid!) to do their rightwing bidding…but Pence is considerably less likely to launch a missile strike on a whim.  We might actually survive to to see another election.

The beauty is that Donald Trump has done so many nasty and double-dealing things to so many people over the course of his personal and business history that the opportunities for court-ordered depositions abound.

What the public and the media must do is find some way to reassure his myriad victims that they have the opportunity to do the country a great service simply by dragging his ass into court.

Donald Trump will inevitably do the rest. He is programmed to lie even about trivial things. He simply can’t help himself.