I spent Tuesday afternoon with the House Judiciary Committee. I watched the Committee question Corey Lewandowski. He is the former Campaign Manager for the Trump Campaign, a current Presidential “enforcer,” and a possible future New Hampshire Senate candidate.
Impeachment Lite
There were four main themes at play during the hearings. The first was from the Democrats. They are trying to find their way towards impeachment, but are unwilling to actually commit to doing it. Instead, we have “impeachment-lite”. That’s the idea that the Committee can examine the idea of bringing impeachment resolutions to the House, without actually having those resolutions.
In the normal course of business, a bill of impeachment would be introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives, then referred to the committee for study. If that process was used, then the House would have already heard actual impeachment resolutions.
But the House Democratic leadership doesn’t want to go “that far”. They aren’t ready to have an actual impeachment process begin. Instead, to mollify the majority of Democrats in the House who favor impeachment, and the large number of Americans who feel the same way, the Judiciary Committee is studying whether to introduce the resolutions. It’s backwards to “normal order,” making it vulnerable to Republican complaints.
Disruption and Disorder
Leading us to the second theme of the day: the Republicans. Their function was to disrupt the hearings as often as possible. Congressman Doug Collins, Ranking Minority Member on the Judiciary Committee, was animated in his protests and distractions. The Committee spent over an hour on procedural arguments, debates, and votes as the minority stalled the proceedings.
It made a lot of the hearing interesting only to true “parliamentary geeks,” arguing whether a hired consultant or a Congressman was by definition a “staff member,” or whether a point of “parliamentary inquiry” was “in order” or not. We all got to watch the clerks call the roll, over and over again.
And when the Republicans actually engaged in the questioning, it was not to elicit information from Mr. Lewandowski. Their goal, led by Ohio’s Jim Jordan, was to create a separate narrative. Republicans want Americans to believe that the entire Russian intervention in the 2016 election was the fault of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. They re-wrote the Mueller Report to exonerate the Trump Campaign, and regurgitated the claim that there was a failed US Intelligence operation that was designed to defeat him.
They used Lewandowski as a foil, firing softball questions to set up obvious answers.
Lewandowski for Senate
This leads to our third theme: the Lewandowski candidacy for the US Senate. In the middle of questions about the actions of the President, who ordered Lewandowski to demand Attorney General restrict the Mueller Investigation or be fired; the Republican Congressmen gave Lewandowski time to make speeches. His statements on patriotism, and sound bites on the Democrats, “…they hate the President more than they love America,” were tailor made for thirty-second advertisements.
Lewandowski was well aware of his “moment in the sun.” In the middle of the hearings, during a five minute/twenty minute recess, he tweeted the link to his political action committee, and all but affirmed his candidacy for the New Hampshire seat.
Privilege or Right
But the main theme of the day, was the President’s total disrespect for Congress. It began with his refusal to allow White House staffers to appear in front of the Committee. Former employees Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn were ordered by the White House to ignore the Committee subpoena and not appear.
The President is claiming a novel version of Executive Privilege. Traditionally, the President has been granted the latitude of allowing the advice he receives from his advisors to remain secret. In general, this makes sense, as it allows his staff to give him unrestricted advice, knowing that it won’t necessarily become public.
But by definition, a “privilege” is not a “right.” The President claims that he can restrict ALL access to his advisors, including investigating potential crimes. He has expanded that definition to all information from the White House as well, basically denying Congress any opportunity to perform their Executive Branch oversight.
Mr. Lewandowski has never worked in the Executive Branch. He hasn’t had an official role in the Presidency, or with the Trump Campaign since May of 2016. Yet the President claims that any discussions he had with “private citizen” Lewandowski were privileged as well, and sent White House lawyers to enforce his wishes. Those lawyers even went so far as to protesting who could question Lewandowski, taking a place at the microphone before Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler gaveled them to silence.
And Lewandowski used the White House letter like a battering ram, quoting verbatim his “orders” time and time again. It was a way of “eating up time” from the Democratic questioners; with the spectacle of Lewandowski reading aloud as Congressmen continued to demand answers.
Sound Bites
Lewandowski would read that letter aloud, but he refused to read his own words in the Mueller Report for the public to hear. He claimed the same “privilege” as Special Counsel Mueller, as if he deserved the same respect as the man who served the nation for his entire lifetime. But the real purpose: Lewandowski didn’t want to put “his voice” to his own actions described in the Report. He didn’t want those thirty-second sound bites to appear in 2020.
Despite all of the distractions, the Democrats did actually make some headway. They were able to get Lewandowski to verify his own actions. He acknowledged that he took the President’s dictated letter, then failed to deliver it to Attorney General Sessions. It forced Lewandowski to make lame excuses, “…I was on vacation…” for his intentional failure.
Contempt
And the Democrats got some “payback” on Lewandowski as well. In the final thirty minutes, a staff (consulting) attorney for the majority questioned him. Barry Berke forced Lewandowski to acknowledge that he lied in interviews. Lewandowski stated that he felt no obligation to tell the truth to “the media.” If he finally does run for Senate in New Hampshire, that thirty-seconds will come back to haunt him.
The hearing allowed the President to use Lewandowski to show his contempt for the Congress. The Democrats in the House looked muddled and unorganized, but continued to proceed down their confused path towards impeachment. At some point, the House will need to take a more substantive stand. They have enforcement provisions, contempt citations, and the House Sargent of Arms that could physically enforce their orders.
They aren’t ready to do any of that yet.
But while contempt for “impeachment-lite” might be acceptable to some, contempt for national security shouldn’t be. Today’s news about a possible Presidential breach of security makes all of this more than a “game.” It’s deadly serious.
