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Old White Men

The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet once again on Monday to determine the fate of Bret Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. At least that’s what the schedule is today.   It’s an eerily familiar scene:  the brilliant jurist, literally days away from a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, dragged back in front of the Committee.  A woman, highly educated and successful, brought into the harsh limelight to tell a humiliating and degrading story.  And on the dais overlooking the public airing of their lives are the “old white men.”

A scene familiar for those old enough to remember 1991 and President George HW Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace retiring  Thurgood Marshall.  Four years earlier Ted Kennedy led the successful attack on conservative ideologue Robert Bork’s nomination, keeping him off the Court.  This time, Thomas was sailing through the process:  Senators had returned to the view that a President should be able to have a nominee of his own choosing.  Though Thomas shared much of Bork’s ideology, Kennedy did not attack him in the same way – perhaps because he was African-American.

After the committee concluded their questioning, Anita Hill came forward with charges of sexual harassment against Thomas.  The committee brought Hill and Thomas back, and the Senators humiliatingly pushed Hill through the “exact words” of her harassment. Republican Senators Arlen Spector, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley were inquisitors, eliciting terms like “pubic hair on Coke cans” and “long dong silver” that entered the American political vocabulary.  Hill courageously withstood outrageous claims from the “old white men” who sat in judgment; leaving America with a vision of their attacks.  And Ted Kennedy, silenced by his own sexual history, sat in obvious discomfort.

Joe Biden, then chairman of the committee, was also clearly uncomfortable with the nature of the testimony. He cut off further witnesses and other information, abandoning Hill and  leaving Thomas damaged but able to survive the confirmation vote, 52-48.  Thomas is still on the Court.

Twenty-seven years later, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of more than just harassment.  She states that he sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school.  And, at least on the Republican side of the committee, it will seem like history revisited: the same old white men, even older.  Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley are still there, now in charge, and while other Republican members are younger, they are faced with a modern quandary.  If they attack Ford like Anita Hill, will they face a different backlash in this “#MeToo era” than politicians of the 1990’s? And the President, like Kennedy before, is quieted by his own history.

And unlike Anita Hill, Dr. Blasey Ford is taking steps to protect herself from an inquisition.  She has stated that she is willing to testify, but she believes that the incident should be investigated before her appearance, a standard practice using the FBI.  Reasonably, she wants the Committee to have some facts before they try to pass judgment.

The Republican Party is already in trouble for the November elections.  Should the members of the committee be seen as “old white men” attacking a victim, the result could be even greater political losses.  The “younger” Republicans like Ben Sasse and Mike Lee can’t be seen as “sitting by” while their older colleagues attack.  And the Democrats on the Committee should let the women Senators take the lead, with former prosecutors Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris defending.  Senior Senator Pat Leahy, also at the Anita Hill hearing, should lay low.

If the Kavanaugh nomination is stopped it will be seen as a strong Democratic victory, despite the fact that a new nominee with the same ideology will be back in front of the Committee within weeks.   If it goes through, then the Republicans will be forced to live with the political consequences, perhaps making November’s expected “blue wave” more of a “blue tsunami.”

For Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, it must seem a lose-lose situation.  He will determine Kavanaugh’s fate, regardless of the committee’s decision.  McConnell is known for his ability to count votes:  the Kavanaugh nomination won’t go to the floor in the Senate if he can’t win. In fact, if the votes aren’t there, Kavanaugh won’t even get to Monday’s hearing.

There is an old movie called “War Games,” about a rogue computer in charge of national defense that almost begins a nuclear war.  The computer is taught to play out every nuclear scenario out – and reaches a startling conclusion:  the only winning move is not to play.

Perhaps McConnell will decide the same.

Plans Come Together

 

“I love it when a plan comes together” – Hannibal Smith, The A Team 

The Russian Intelligence agencies weren’t much different after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Yes, the KGB was split in two to become the FSB (Foreign Security Service – counter- intelligence and internal security, sort of like an evil FBI) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service – more like the CIA) but while the administration changed, the mission remained the same.  And military intelligence, the GRU continued on serving the state.  The intelligence network laid low through the Yeltsin era, but with the ascendancy of Vladimir Putin, one of the KGB’s own, they were back in full action again.

In Putin’s new era of Russian expansion, each agency searched for a way to maintain relevance, and to further his goal of rebuilding the Soviet empire. The GRU, recognizing that the armed might of Russia was far less, searched for alternative means of influencing the burgeoning democracies of the newly independent  former Soviet states. Attacking computer networks, including voting computers, became one of their specialties, as well as using false accounts and “trolls” on social media to influence neighboring populations. Their actions started in Estonia, but expanded to Ukraine, and ultimately to France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

The SVR continued much of the KGB era operations.  This included the sleeper agents place throughout the world even before the fall of the Soviet Union, and assassination actions towards enemies both at home and abroad.  It also included a longtime Soviet program of finding ways to influence foreign leaders. The old KGB tactic of gathering “kompromat” or compromising information for blackmail, accelerated as Russia became a center for cheap money as a result of the sale of “Soviet” assets. Billions of dollars were to be made, and any and all fetishes could be fulfilled, accompanied by a hidden camera.

But it wasn’t just the old-fashioned blackmail material that made Russian intelligence influential.  There was an even more powerful influence:  money.  The billionaires around Putin maintained their role and their bankrolls by following his orders. They “freely” invested their monies throughout the world.  Whether it was loans to Deutsche Bank in Germany or the Bank of Cyprus, or real estate in Miami, New York, London, or Singapore; the tentacles of the Russian “oligarchs” spread throughout the world.  And if an influential person in a target country, say, the United States, needed funds, then the oligarchs were directed to finance them.  It was always for a profit, and always had Russian strings attached.

None of these actions were initially targeted at the United States Presidency.  Each of the prongs:  the GRU’s internet attacks, the SVR and FSB grooming of influential individuals, and the Oligarch’s financial influence; were originally designed the push the former Soviet States back into the Russian empire.

There was no original “plot” to make Donald Trump President of the United States.  He was a broke, high profile real estate marketer, fresh from the failures of his casinos in Atlantic City and multiple bankruptcies.  He needed money to get back on his feet, and US Banks weren’t lending to a clear real estate failure.  But he was a TV character, the image of success in “The Apprentice,” and the oligarchs extended the Trump Organization financing.  Soft loans from Deutsche Bank, high market purchase of Trump condos, and wildly over-valued purchases of Florida property all opened a money and influence flow.

Why would they pick Trump?  He already was outspoken on a variety of issues, and he had a national audience.  If his statements were slowly biased towards Russian interests, then perhaps it would influence US policy towards Russia.   But more importantly, Trump was a “loud mouth,” historically divisive and disruptive, Russian money and influence could amplify his national voice.

Trump was not an “only” target.  Russian money was infiltrated into US interest groups, from the National Rifle Association to the Green Party.  Mainstream candidates for office would accept “dark money” support, not necessarily even knowing its Russian origin.  The tentacles of Russian money spread into American political life.

Vladimir Putin’s goal was not to elect Donald Trump. His goal was to disrupt America’s democracy.  Who won wasn’t the primary goal, it was an attack on the legitimacy of the democratic process itself.  Russia no longer could compete as an economic or even a military power; his only alternative was to try increase his influence by reducing American influence.

So a multi-prong plan emerged from the intelligence agencies.  A brilliant mind in the Kremlin saw all of the  pieces and pulled them together into a coherent strategy:  support Donald Trump as a disruptive candidate for President, and make sure he gets support from the US interest groups already under Russian influence.  The goal was not “to win” but to sow disorder.

Backing the plan was the GRU with their new-found power in social media.  With the cooperation (unknowing?) of Facebook and Twitter and Google, and perhaps the targeting information provided by their contact at the “psycho-profiling” firm Cambridge Analytica, they were able to exacerbate the divisions already present in American political life.  The subconscious resentment of some Americans of an African-American President, the racial divisions seen in Ferguson and in the multiple shootings of unarmed black men, the drumbeat of hate for Muslims (radical Islamic Terrorists) and the inherent fear of changes from gay marriage to transsexual restrooms all could be inflamed online.

When Donald Trump decided to run for President, it may have been with subtle Russian encouragement, but when he began to have success in the primaries, the Russian intelligence network was brought into full support.  And when he won Republican nomination, to run against Putin’s hated rival Hillary Clinton, Russia was “all-in.”

It was a confluence of different Russian intelligence programs.  Years of work on different levels came together to produce a single Russian Intelligence goal – the candidacy of Donald Trump.  They saw it as the single most disruptive action they could take towards the US.  Win or lose, he “main-streamed” the fringe ideas that Russia had been pushing to divide America.

Abraham Lincoln famously said:

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

It was the Russian goal to fool as many as possible, as least for some of the time.

It took Americans to get Donald Trump elected to the United States.  From the millions of dollars worth of free television time that MSNBC’s Morning Joe gave him early in the campaign, to the 54.4 million followers Donald Trump has on Twitter, Americans bought into his candidacy.  The Russian manipulations helped, and the Russian attacks on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party helped even more, but it was Americans who made the Russian plan a success beyond their wildest dreams.

Whether it’s through money or “kompromat,” or choice, the Russians have an asset in the White House.  As Hannibal Smith, the renegade Colonel who led the A Team of 1980’s television fame would say as he lit up his victory cigar; “I love it when a plan comes together.”

I bet Putin smokes Cubans.

Dirty Pool

President Trump’s candidate for the United States Supreme Court spent three days as a witness in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Judge Kavanaugh skillfully did the modern “dance” we now expect of a current nominee for the Court; successfully avoiding taking a stand on any issue, using the terms “long standing precedent,”  “historic decision,” and a new one (at least to me) a “double precedent” to cover for his own views.  He never let on how he would decide as a Justice on the Court, following the “double precedent” and more of recent appointees.

And, with only a scratch or two, he made it through.  Maybe Senator Harris tripped him up a bit with the question about his private conversations on Presidential privilege, and Senator Hirono revealed his views about Native Americans; but they were only pinpricks. Democrats made a valiant stand, giving stirring speeches about Republicans hiding information, and violating Senate rules by releasing some of it deemed confidential by the majority. Whether the Democrats really thought they could de-rail the nomination, or whether it was more of a “show” for the base, we didn’t know.   Kavanaugh was on his way to a lifetime appointment by a narrow confirmation vote, perhaps fifty-four in favor to forty-six opposed.

Then came “the letter.” Senator Feinstein had a letter accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault as a teenager; a drunken attack on a girl in a bedroom.  The accuser asked that the letter be kept confidential, but wanted the Senator to know. Feinstein kept it secret for months, not even letting her Democratic colleagues see it.  But, after the hearings, the word somehow leaked out, and Democrats demanded to see.  Soon there was a public “whiff” of scandal, the reporters went to work, and the accuser realized that she could come forward herself, or be “outted” by the ravenous media.  She chose to control her destiny, and entered the public spotlight.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of Psychology at Palo Alto University, has now publicly told her story.  She has offered to testify to the Senate about what happened, and has even “vetted” her own report, taking a lie detector test and offering the notes of her therapist from 2012.

It won’t take long for the smear campaign to begin.  We will soon hear every negative aspect of Dr. Ford’s life; we will know every mistake, misplaced comma in her doctoral thesis, and donation to a political cause. She stands in the shoes of Anita Hill, the law professor that accused then Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.  In 1991 the Democrats, led by then Senator Joe Biden, ultimately abandoned her testimony and proceeded to confirm Thomas.  Now twenty-seven years later in the “#MeToo” era, both they and the majority Republicans are faced with a similar problem.

The Republicans face a “lose-lose” situation.  Mitch McConnell seems determined to proceed with the vote, knowing that a Kavanaugh confirmation would create the Federalist Society’s “Dream Court.”  But the process, particularly if there are no hearings, or if the smear gets too ugly, will turn off the suburban white women vote that the Republican Party candidates desperately need to survive the upcoming midterm elections.  Win the Court,  but lose the House and Senate as well, may be the ultimate result.

But to allow hearings, and more, to withdraw or lose the Kavanaugh nomination, means to lose the Court, perhaps forever.  Regardless of the nomination outcome, the Republicans are now looking at possibly losing the Senate, and with it their opportunity to control the appointment process. The traditional Republican base, and more particularly the traditional Republican financers, are more than willing to give up the legislature today for decades of conservative majority on the Court.

Republicans claim the Democrats are playing “dirty pool.”  They have a point, as Democrats, at least Senator Feinstein, held the letter through the entire vetting process without bringing it out.  While Feinstein says she was respecting Dr. Ford’s privacy, in the end it does look like a last minute ambush attack.

And Democrats will soon be claiming “dirty pool” as well, when the smear campaign against Dr. Ford begins.  The Republicans have already found sixty-five women who knew Kavanaugh in high school and vouch for his “sterling” reputation.  Hard to imagine how they remember so well back from the early 1980’s; even harder to imagine that the Republicans found them over the weekend. They must have known about the Feinstein letter, and prepped a response.

So we are now at the ultimate battle for the control of the Supreme Court.  Unlike the historic debates of the Senate that decided the great issues of their time, this one won’t end with flowery speeches and careful compromises.  This will be determined by all the pressures of modern politics, from dark money donors to demanding interest groups.  It’s a “street fight” with no rules and we can expect even more “dirty pool” to come.

The Room Where It Happens

No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in
The room where it happens

Lyrics from the song – The Room Where It Happens – from Hamilton, once again creating the themes for our era

  

Paul Manafort, Manager of the Trump Campaign during a critical time, yesterday pled guilty to a series of charges under the following headings:

• Conspiracy against the US
  • Money Laundering
  • Tax fraud
  • Failing to file Foreign Bank Account Reports
  • Failing to file as a Foreign Agent
  • Lying to the Department of Justice
• Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice (Witness tampering.)

He reached an agreement with the Special Counsel’s office, avoiding an upcoming trial in Washington DC.  This happened after he was found guilty last month on eight federal charges in Virginia, putting him in jail for fifteen years, and faced a possible thirty-seven year sentence in the second trial. All of this would add up to a life sentence for a sixty-nine year old man.

The agreement: Manafort would fully cooperate with the Special Counsel, waiving the right to counsel during questioning and answer all questions truthfully, testifying when and where required.  If Manafort fulfills the agreement, then the Special Counsel will ask the Court for reduced sentencing on both the Virginia and District of Columbia courts.  If not – it’s the rest of his life in prison.

None of the crimes he has pled guilty to are directly connected to the Trump campaign or the 2016 elections.  So when White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders states that the guilty pleas have nothing to do with the President or his campaign, she’s right.  But what the plea agreement does do is give the Special Counsel full access to what Manafort did and what Trump knew, during the campaign.

This agreement puts Robert Mueller’s team “…in the room where it happens” in several pivotal events in the Trump Campaign.  The best known is the June 16, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, where Manafort, Donald Trump Jr, and Jared Kushner met with Natalia Veselnitskaya and three other Russians to talk about getting “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.  But it also gives first person access to the platform decision to drop support for arming Ukraine, and insight into the relationship between the campaign and Cambridge Analytica, the US backed, UK based, “psychographic microtargeting” firm.

Manafort was  “…in the room where it happens” from March when he joined as head of the “delegate team” for the Republican Convention, through June when he was made Chairman of the Campaign, to his resignation in August.  And recent evidence from the Virginia trial shows that he continued to have influence after leaving.  Not only was Manafort’s key aide, Rick Gates, the Deputy Campaign and Deputy Inaugural Committee Chairman, but Manafort himself was still influential, even trying to barter appointments in exchange for bank loans.

He was part of the critical developments in the Trump foreign policy team, putting him into the mix with then-Senator Jeff Sessions, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos; all of whom have been implicated with Russian connections.  And Manafort himself had major Russian connections, including owing $10 million to Putin ally Oleg Deripaska.  Manafort offered to give him private briefings during the campaign as partial repayment of the loan.

Paul Manafort has now, as a former US Attorney stated, “…switched to Team United States.”  And, should the President decide to Pardon him, Manafort would still have to testify. A Pardon would remove his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination (he can’t incriminate himself for a crime he already has been pardoned for) and would put him in front of a Grand Jury under penalty of perjury. And, of course, a Presidential Pardon would certainly become another block in Mueller’s building obstruction of justice case against the President.

The Agreement has forced the Trump legal team to find new Constitutional interpretations. Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Professor and unofficial Trump advisor, yesterday raised the novel theory that a President can only be impeached for actions that occur while President.  This is an extension of the political cover that Trump has used since the Access Hollywood tape: that voters in the election determined and exonerated him for actions before the election.  Once they have voted, the issue is “dead.”

The impeachment clause of the Constitution states:

 The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

A plain reading of the clause shows no time limits, such as the words “while in office.”  But Professor Dershowitz has spent his career trying to find differing interpretations of the law to support his clients, so it should be no surprise that he is advancing this one.

And Dershowitz, along with the President’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, has used the expression, “…people with plea agreements ‘sing,’ but they also ‘compose.’”  It suggests that Manafort will make up any story in order to reduce his sentence, and attempts to damage his credibility as a potential witness.  Former US prosecutors counter that, like Rick Gates’ testimony in the first Manafort trial, any statements Manafort would make in trial would be backed up with mountains of other evidence.  And of course, should Manafort lie to the Special Counsel, he faces the enormous penalty of life in prison.

While the Special Counsel will find the truth through whatever legal means necessary, the cooperation of Paul Manafort will certainly provide more information and insight into what the Trump Campaign was doing, and perhaps help answer the question:  “what did the President know and when did he know it.”

Manafort was, “…in the room where it happened.”

It’s Time

I am tired.  Tired of the betrayal of American values that is the Trump Administration.  Tired of being told that “elections have consequences.”  Tired of pretending that the Trump election was legitimate, and that we should honor the results.

There is a “rumor” floating now, that Republicans will acquiesce in a Trump impeachment or resignation, “…as soon as Kavanaugh is confirmed, the midterms are over, and another tax cut is passed.”  They will get their agenda complete, then throw Trump to the wolves.  What has become of the “honor” of the Republican Party?

They made a “deal with the Devil” in April of 2016, when the leaders, particularly Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, determined to allow the Trump candidacy to continue.  They decided that it was more important to keep the “Trump voter” on the Republican side, then to worry about an actual Trump Presidency.  They knew, then, that he was unfit to be the President of the United States.  But they, like everyone else, presumed he would lose, and in losing, give the benefit of his voters to elect a Republican Congress.

They continued the deal, even after the Access Hollywood tape.  They fought the Obama Administration’s attempts to warn the nation of Russian interference.  They wanted their majority in Congress, and they were willing to do anything to get it.  They made sure that there was enough pressure on James Comey that he felt it necessary to interfere in the final days of the campaign.  What they didn’t plan on, at least I hope, is the effectiveness of the Russian influence on the election.  They didn’t plan on the incredibly dangerous alliance between the “psycho-profiling” of Cambridge Analytica, the divisiveness of the Russian social media campaign, and the still untold story of Russian hacking into the election system.

We don’t know that Trump really “won,” we weren’t allowed to recount the votes in Detroit, and we aren’t allowed to consider the possibility that other states were hacked.  It has “been determined” that it didn’t happen, yet drip-by-drip we hear of more digital incursions into voting systems.  It was 77,744 votes out of 130,000,000 that determined the outcome – and we just don’t know.

We do know that there is growing evidence of the influence of Russian intelligence on the Trump Campaign. We do know that the President has “bowed down” to Putin, and has espoused a foreign policy that could have been written in the Kremlin.  We saw that policy again yesterday, when National Security Advisor John Bolton attacked the World Court, denigrating their authority.   We know that the future of Syria is being decided without our involvement, even as our troops remain at risk.  And we know that the Trump Presidency has done everything it can to weaken the Western Alliance.  We suspect that we have a President who is somehow compromised (kompromat) by the Russians.

Mark Hanna, the political boss of Republican Ohio in the 1890’s and backer of President William McKinley made his “deal” by putting Teddy Roosevelt on the ticket as Vice President in 1900.  WhenMcKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in September of 1901, Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency.  Hanna is famously quoted as saying, “Now look!! That damned cowboy is President of the United States.”

Perhaps Ryan and McConnell said something similar. And perhaps they were hoping that, like Teddy Roosevelt, Donald Trump would surprise them and become a strong President.  Or perhaps they thought they could surround him with “adults in the room” who would lift up his Presidency, or at least protect the United States from the excesses of his actions.  It didn’t happen.

They were the leaders of their party, and they didn’t have the RIGHT to risk our nation on such an unsound bargain.  They were supposed to be PATRIOTS and instead chose this dangerous path to get the partisan benefits.  And WE are the ones now paying the price for their bargain.  But they are not.

I am tired of pretending that it’s OK. It’s not, and out nation is suffering. Paul Ryan, the “Hamlet-like” figure in this drama, will leave the action and return to Janesville, Wisconsin (probably to increase his fortune through lobbying.)  McConnell will continue in the Senate, though it wouldn’t surprise me, should the Democrats gain a Senate majority, if he too left to increase his bank accounts.  They will “dip out” and take their money with them.  And we Americans are stuck with the mess.

They, and the rest of the Republican Party, including the “good” members who have acquiesced in their leadership decisions, are to blame (“Hear-Hear” for John Kasich!!)  They should stop lining their pockets with tax cuts.  They should stop their long-term plan to distort America by turning the Supreme Court over to the Federalist Society.  They should recognize their fault, and help clean up the mess. And if they don’t, then the Republican Party needs to follow the historic path into oblivion of the Know-Nothings and the Whigs.   It’s time.

 

How Impeachment

Impeachment is the process of Congress attempting to remove members of the Judiciary or Executive Branches. It has two-parts,  the bringing of charges; the actual “impeachment” by the House of Representatives and the “trial” in the Senate. Impeachment is similar to an indictment in the court system; laying out the reasons why the individual should be removed from office, “the charges.”

The Senate is the deciding force in the process.  They take the “charges” from the House, and they hold a trial to determine the outcome. In the case of Presidential trials, the whole Senate sits as the “jury,” hearing all of the evidence.  The House “managers” are  the Prosecutors, and the President’s lawyers the defense.  The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court serves as the “judge.”  In “lesser” impeachments, such as a Supreme Court Justice, a Senator serves as “the judge,” and a committee may hear the evidence and report back to the Senate.

It requires a majority vote of the House to impeach, and two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict. Removal from office and banning from future office are the only punishments the Senate may exact.

Members of the Executive Branch can be impeached for “…treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”  An additional “good behavior” factor is added for the removal of judges.  The impeachment process has been used a great deal more than is commonly known:  nineteen trials have been held with seven guilty verdicts, nine acquittals or dismissals, and three resignations (ending the process.)

In fact, within the last decade two Federal Judges have been impeached and removed from office, Samuel Kent for sexual assault and obstruction who resigned before the trial was completed, and Thomas Porteous, convicted of accepting bribes and perjury, removed from office and banned from future offices.

Three Presidents have been threatened with impeachment. The first was Andrew Johnson, who became President after the death of Abraham Lincoln.  Johnson’s impeachment was primarily political in nature; Johnson was a Unionist added to the Republican ticket in 1864 to help re-elect Lincoln. The radical Republicans controlling the Congress found him to be a huge impediment to their plan of Reconstruction, and ultimately tried to control his administration by altering Presidential power to fire cabinet members.

The Tenure of Office Act extended Senate power to advise and consent for Presidential appointments to removing those appointments as well.  Johnson vetoed the Act, but the Congress overrode his action, and it became law.  Johnson refused to accept it as Constitutional, and removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from office, who barricaded himself in the War Department. Johnson countered by appointing war hero Ulysses Grant as Secretary, and the House voted to impeach on that and associated charges.

The trial of Johnson in the Senate was the “hottest ticket” of the time.  And while the Radical Republicans made up two-thirds of the Senate and seemed to have a pre-ordained conclusion, a single Senator, Edmund Ross of Kansas, determined that while Johnson was an incompetent President, his actions did not rise to the Constitutional standards, and by that one vote Johnson remained in office.

Richard Nixon avoided impeachment by resigning in the face of a nearly united Congress threatening removal.  Nixon’s impeachment charges included obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.  A bipartisan group of Senators advised him that the Senate would in fact convict, allowing Nixon to resign before the full House voted on the charges.

Bill Clinton was impeached as a result of the multi-year, millions of dollars Whitewater Investigation. While the originations of the probe were questionable land deals in Arkansas, Clinton himself was ensnared due to his sexual affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.  Clinton was charged with committing perjury in a deposition regarding his relationship with Lewinsky and others, and with a series of actions to obstruct justice.  The impeachment resolution passed on a near party-line vote, and went to trial in the Senate.  The Senate, after a month long trial, also voted near party-line, with the perjury count failing 55-45 and the obstruction count failing  50-50 (67 votes required to convict.)

The current crisis with President Trump involves some of the same issues as Nixon and Clinton. Obstruction of justice, hindering investigations, and encouraging others to hinder, all seem to be on the table. This probably would not be enough to convict (see Clinton) but a Mueller report that includes conspiracy with a foreign power to influence the election might well change the balance.  It would be at that point that influential Republican Senators who have supported the President like Lyndsey Graham and John Cornyn, may well have the same “talk” that the Senate had with Nixon.  A Trump resignation would avoid the turmoil of impeachment and conviction.

This is not a Constitutional crisis.  The Constitution provides a clear path to resolving the issue, either through Congressional action or popular elections.  It would not become a Constitutional crisis until the problems cannot be resolved by Constitutional means, for example,  should a five-four Supreme Court inappropriately intervene.  Then, with the process failing to resolve the issue, the real crisis in our Constitution would begin.

The President Is Not the United States

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.– US Constitution, Article III, § 3

“unelected deep state operatives” are a “threat to democracy itself.”  “(the person who wrote the op-ed) may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state person who has been there for a long time” – President Donald Trump – 9/6/18

 “Number one, the Times should never have done that, because really what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason, you could call it a lot of things.” – President Donald Trump – 9/6/18

“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. SICK!” Twitter – President Donald Trump – 2/17/17

 

Donald Trump, among his many other flaws, is confused.  He has conflated the United States, our nation, with himself.  While the President of the United States may be the head of state, representing our nation both at home and overseas, the holder of that office is NOT the United States.  Trump needs to figure that out.

In the past year or so, he has accused the media of treason and as being an enemy of the American people. He has also accused the “anonymous” (or ‘annimus’) author of this week’s cry for help in the New York Times of treason, and has asked the Department of Justice to investigate and find out who the writer was.

Criticizing the President is not a crime, at least since the Sedition Act expired in 1801. (A brief history lesson, President John Adams and the Federalist Party of Hamilton’s fame, wrote a series of laws restricting immigration and criticism.  One, in 1798, was called the Sedition Act, making criticizing the Administration a crime punishable by imprisonment.  Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party made opposition to these laws a prime issue in their winning election of 1800, and most, including the Sedition Act, were allowed to expire at the beginning of the Jefferson Administration.)  And even in the brief three years when it was a crime, it wasn’t treason.   John Adams knew the difference between infuriating criticism that he wanted to end and actual treason against the United States.

In fact, despite the wishes of most “Resistance” fans, even if Trump was a direct agent of Russia who achieved the Presidency with knowing aid of Russian intelligence, he probably still hasn’t committed treason.  Russia has not been defined as an “enemy,” and while trying to subvert our electoral process may be considered a “bad” act, it probably doesn’t rise to the legal definition of an “act of war.”  Treason is an ultimate crime, one of the few defined in the Constitution itself; it probably does not fit even the worst imagined extremes of the Trump Campaign.

This doesn’t mean that in the most extreme case, the Trump Campaign and the President himself haven’t committed serious legal offenses.  Violation of Federal Election Laws, conspiracy to commit fraud on the United States, conspiracy of theft in the Clinton emails, and acting as an unregistered agent of foreign nations are just a few of the possible charges.  These possible acts don’t meet the Constitutional definition of treason, but do definitely reach the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” as written in the impeachment clause.

“Treason” and “Enemy of the People” are phrases used to fire up crowds at campaign style rallies, but they shouldn’t apply to what’s going on today.  These are dangerous phrases:  Americans would “take up arms” against treason, they would try to eliminate “enemies of the people.”  These terms are incitements to violence, and in an era where there are weapons of war (1.5 million assault weapons sold each year in US) stored throughout the nation, and an expanding division in race and ideology, they are “flame to gasoline” dangerous.  It feeds into an American “dream” of the Minuteman (common man) standing on the green at Lexington, fighting against tyranny.  This “treason” needs to be “put down” and if the Justice Department, or the military, won’t do it, well, maybe we will.  There’s a reason the American Eagle is on the symbol of the National Rifle Association.

But the President does have one thing right, though not in the way he means it.  There is a “threat to democracy” by the “steadystate” theory put forth in the New York Times opinion article.  That the un-elected staffers of the executive branch are trying to steady the government from the whims of an out of control President has little to do with democracy.  Our system has Constitutional alternatives for this situation; that the “steadystaters” are gaining the tax cuts or regulatory reform they want is far outweighed by the needs of protecting  our democracy by using the system.  Subverting it by an “administrative coup” does our nation no good.

America needs to “right the ship.”  It will take some time, and, unfortunately, during that time more damage will be done. But the Constitution charts a course to fix this, and going outside of its structure threatens permanent damage to our democracy.  It starts in November:  as former President Obama said once again yesterday:  “don’t boo – vote!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beat Goes On

(a sixth graders “band” with a chord organ playing Sonny – we needed a Cher!)

I spent much of yesterday watching the Kavanaugh hearings.  The Judge has proven to be adept at avoiding the landmines in confirmation:  he never says what he believes, nor what he would do, he only quotes what the precedents are now.  When given the opportunity to discuss what his own precedents might be on the high court, he refuses to give an inch.  The only insight we have is his past, and that seems pretty clear.

Yesterday also was the less than tremendous fallout from the New York Times “cry for help” message from inside the Trump Administration.  While the President was threatening the expected lie detector tests and purges; the reaction from the one body that could actually do anything about this, Congress, was almost nil.

But as we all again are distracted, on the border the Department of Homeland Security continues their draconian efforts to stop “brown people” from entering the country.  After the epic disaster of the “child separation” program, they are quietly moving to a program of building internment camps and holding migrants indefinitely.

The “child separation” disaster was triggered by a series of badly considered decisions. The first: that those crossing the border with children should be held in custody for the misdemeanor crime of the actual crossing until claims for asylum were adjudicated.  They immediately ran afoul of the “Flores Settlement,” a legal agreement that controlled what happened to minor children at the border.  The Settlement required that ICE release children within twenty days, forcing the agency to turn them over to the Department of Health and Human Services presumably to go into foster care.  The kids were shipped all over the country, and many were left behind when the parents were finally judged and returned to their home countries.  More than 500 are held today, still separated from their parents (Washington Post.)

In the past, the parents were placed on probation to await their legally guaranteed hearings into claims for asylum.  As the parents were free from custody, the children were able to stay with them and not a problem for the ill suited ICE, or the highly paid contractors they employed. Since those parents were not held, the children weren’t an issue.

At the height of the crisis, the focus was rightly on what happened to the children.  But even at that time, it was announced that billions of dollars were to be spent building detention centers to hold whole families. Much of this money was going to companies that were already used to feeding at the government trough, such as defense giant General Dynamics.  Sites were being developed, including one perilously close to an historic internment camp from World War II (those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.)

But the outrage over the children put the government on hold.  Now, when “only” five hundred children remain in custody, and the hyperactive focus of American life has moved onto other issues, ICE has issued a “new” policy.  There will be no more child separation.  Whole families will now be placed in “detention centers” and held until their cases are settled.  The US is back in the internment camp business.

The government argues that by keeping the children with their parents, the Federal courts won’t have a problem.  The immigrant advocates counter that children are still being held in custody even with their parents, therefore keeping innocents in custody without charge.  Certainly the Federal Court, currently the District Court in San Diego, will have its say.

The issue really is the relentless determination of the Trump Administration to incarcerate those who cross the border.  In the past those folks have been set free while awaiting adjudication, free to live and care for their children, and free to work and pay their own way.  Now they will become a financial burden on the US, and the fate of their children will rest again with the courts.

The Trump Administration has determined that internment camps will serve as a deterrent to prevent further migrants from Central America.  They are ignoring the facts, that conditions are so bad in some Central American countries that even the possibility of internment is better than the risks of staying home.  If tearing children away from their mothers didn’t do it, incarceration certainly won’t. But the Stephen Miller led policy continues to try to make “America White Again.”   And the beat goes on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call the Fire Department

There was a joke in the old Soviet Union under Premier Nikita Khrushchev:

“A man was running down the corridor of the Kremlin, shouting ‘Khrushchev is a fool, Khrushchev is a fool!!’  He was captured tried and sentenced to six months for insulting the Premier; and ten years for revealing a state secret.”

 On the evening of September 5^th, Trump Tweeted:

Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source?  If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once.

 It’s not particularly funny. An unnamed senior member of the White House Staff feels the President himself is a threat to the nation, and responded by publishing an anonymous article in the New York Times.  The article outlined a White House where the staff is trying to protect the nation from the President’s erratic and dangerous behavior.  They are doing so by ignoring the President’s directives, and re-directing his actions. In part the article states:

“(But) we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.  That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”

It all sounds noble; standing in the line against an amoral man, with responsibilities far over his head, with impulses that are anti-trade and anti-democratic.  But these individuals have already made a decision that is detrimental to our nation.  They have abandoned all of the Constitutional means of controlling an “out of control” President, and instead determined that THEY are the only ones to save the nation: the very definition of hubris.

Michael Steele, former Chairman of the Republican Party, said something that made a lot of sense yesterday:  “…if your house is on fire, call the fire department.” These anonymous “resistors” are trying to control the fire themselves, and it clearly isn’t working.  Maybe this anonymous plea is a cry for help, but like calling the fire department and not telling them where the fire is; it’s not very useful.

There has been an ongoing debate in the government since the day Trump was elected.  Do you stay on with the government, and try to “protect” the nation, or do you quit.  This debate has been titled “the adults in the room,” and we have taken some solace in the fact that Secretary Mattis, General Kelly and Director Coats are there. Maybe one of them wrote this piece, though I highly doubt it.  But if it is one of these leaders, they need to do more than just make an anonymous call for help.

I’m not particularly interested in “outing” the source, but I am deeply interested in those in the White House who truly feel this way.  They need to do more to precipitate action.  If our nation is at risk, as they clearly think, and all of the circumstantial evidence supports, then it is up to the “adults in the room” to take the ultimate risk and speak out, publicly, for our nation.

Bob Woodward’s new book will provide even more evidence of the “chaos Presidency.”  Woodward’s impeccable research style, backing most quotes with actual tapes of the conversations, provides a foundation for the New York Times article claims.  So what is the next step, who is the “fire department?”

There has been a great deal of conversation about the 25^th Amendment, that provides that a President “unable” to perform his duties, can be temporarily replaced by the Vice President.  It takes the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to replace him, but this would only provide a thirty-day respite.

The Constitution provides for several layers of agreement for government action.  The lowest is a majority of both Houses of Congress, the standard for passing a law.  The highest is for a change in the Constitution itself, with two-thirds of both Houses plus three-fourths of the states needing to be in agreement.

The standard for the 25^thAmendment is that two-thirds of both the House and Senate must agree to permanently replace the President with the Vice President.  This is higher than the standard for impeachment and removal; a simple majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.

So if the White House is on fire, the fire department is the House of Representatives.  The anonymous “protectors” of the United States need to take their plea to the House, even though it is the most Trump-supportive part of the government.  They need to make their case to them, and to the public whose pressure will impact them. It’s sixty days before the entire House will be up for election, there is no better time to gain public influence.  If they are going to “…call the fire department;” it’s now.

A Unitary Executive

“The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America…”  – US Constitution, Article II, §1

“The President of the United States shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices…” – US Constitution, Article II, §2

 

The Constitution of the United States was written in 1787, in a long hot summer in Philadelphia. The Founding Fathers were trying to solve the problem of governing the thirteen states, founded in rebellion against a single authority, the King of England.  They were extremely wary of a single executive, so much so, that the original founding document, the Articles of Confederation, vested what executive authority it claimed into committees, rather than a single individual.

For that and other reasons, governing under the Articles was virtually impossible, so, in secret, they met in Philadelphia to try again.  The same fears of a too powerful executive were represented; and even though George Washington was their model for a benevolent President, they were well aware that he would not be the only one to hold the job.

To quote Nebraska’s Senator Ben Sasse, the “School House Rock” version of American Government has the Congress passing laws, the President enforcing the laws Congress has passed, and the Supreme Court determining the Constitutionality of the laws and actions of both.  This simple version is what WE all learned in school, and it is what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

It hasn’t been that way for a long time.  The complexity of governing a nation the geographic size, population, and diversity of the United States has led the executive branch to gain a great deal of “operational” power.  The expansion came particularly with the Civil War, with President Lincoln often acting “extra-Constitutionally” in order to preserve the Union.  He used his authority as Commander-in-Chief to wage war, and do all those other things, like suspending the writ of habeas corpus, installing military governments in the South, and instituting a national draft; expanding Presidential power well beyond what the writers of Philadelphia conceived.

Our Nation then has adapted to the needs of history.  The Founding Fathers saw this adapting process right from the beginning of their writings, setting as the first goal for the Constitution to “…form a more perfect union.” And while the Preamble setting out those goals are not considered “law,” they are a clear insight into the writers’ minds.

So we have continued to adapt.  One of the major adaptations was after the national crisis of Watergate, when Richard Nixon as President, tried to use the Departments of the executive branch to cover-up his own criminal actions.  After that was finally resolved in 1974 by the only Presidential resignation in history, internal rules were established in the executive branch creating barriers between the political White House and the law enforcement branches.  The Department of Justice, while still a part of the Executive Branch, was given more independence to protect it from Presidential interference.

The backlash to this started early, with a trend in legal thought that called for adherence to the “original intent” of the Founding Fathers.  By 1982 the Federalist Society was formed throughout the law schools in the United States.  One of the tenets of this group, was that as the Constitution was written, the President is the absolute authority in the Executive Branch.  The development of independence either through internal rules such as with the Justice Department, or through the establishment of even more detached agencies, like the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau; denies their “clear reading” of the Article II, §1.  The President cannot “grant” independence, he is ultimately fully in charge.

This may all sound like legalistic trivia.  But its application to the current crisis in the Trump Administration is quite serious.  According to the theory, Donald Trump is effectively investigating himself by the Mueller probe.  If the logic is valid, then of course he could end the investigation, fire the investigators, and conceal the investigatory results.  There are “his.”

The “original intent” theorists point to the impeachment process of Congress, Article 1, §2 and 3,as the “check” on Presidential misdeeds. In addition they point to the legislative supremacy of the Congress who can grant and restrain Presidential powers. This of course, requires that Congress could act in a decisive manner, something that seems unlikely in our current crisis.

So, as Brett Kavanaugh, Judge of the United States Federal Appellate Court for the District of Columbia, testifies in the next few days to the nation, we must recognize that this is his ideology.  He clearly is a “good man;” if the only test was character then he seems to be a stellar example.  He also is a “bright man;” his intelligence and legal acumen is unquestioned.  What is in question is the impact, intended or unintended, that this “good man” may have as the deciding vote on the Supreme Court. It can be guaranteed that he will not “change his spots” when reaching the highest Court, he has been a man of clear ideology from his earliest legal days.

So it is not really about Kavanaugh:  this Supreme Court pick is about ideology.  He is a “young man” at fifty-three, we can expect his impact on the Court to last many decades.  With this decision, we are deciding the “arc of history” for  the next half-century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What We’ve Lost

In the early 1990’s I was involved in a ugly and bitter dispute in my little corner of the world; Pataskala, Ohio.  It involved the school coaches, a lawyer who had a gripe against them, and the school board. In the midst of this, I got some advice from a friend.

This friend was an “old school” coach.  While he hadn’t been a high school coach for all that long, he had been coaching kids for thirty years (that was “old” for me back then.)   He was a “bear of a man,” a coach who cared about kids, and who had a lot of the best values of his time.

I was struggling to understand how the dispute had gotten so ugly:  lawsuits threatened, public claims of corruption.  I didn’t get it:  we disagreed; but instead of arguing with the means, but agreeing on the ends that all sides wanted to help kids, it was a “newer” way to disagree.  It was “agree with me or you are a bad person who needs to be destroyed.”

My old coach friend told me a story about his union (his day job.)  He said in the union meetings there would be incredibly loud and intense arguments, both sides trying to get their point across to the membership. The members would vote, a decision made, and the meeting would end.  Then all sides would head out to a bar and drink beer.

“This is the way men argue,” the old coach would say, “Argue until it was done, then shake hands and go drink beer.”  “Women,” he said “would argue and then hold a grudge forever.  They would plot and scheme to ‘get back’ at the other side. No hand shake, no beer, just fighting forever.”  My friend would then make the ultimate insult to the other side, “…they fight like women, not men.”

This was far before the “Me Too” era; but even then I recognized that this was a “sexist” way of viewing the world.  I knew women who fought just as hard as men, and shook hands and drank just as much beer as well.  But, with the gender identities taken out, my friend was making a greater point.  Why can’t we recognize that we can fight and argue about the means but still agree on the ends?

President Obama, in his eulogy to John McCain made a similar point.  He recognized that there were many areas where he and McCain disagreed quite publicly.  But President Obama knew that at the end of the day, they were both on the “same team.” They differed widely on the means to achieve it, but they both believed in making the United States a better place. I’m betting the quiet drinks they had at the White House afterwards weren’t beers, but Scotch still makes the point.

Perhaps the era of being “on the same team” has passed.  We are now in a time when anyone we disagree with must be “locked up,” or completely destroyed.  Our “Reality TV” version of politics doesn’t allow for respect, or fairness, or a beer at the end of the day.

We are seeing it today with the total disrespect of the Trump Administration towards the Democrats in Congress.  Last night, the White House dumped 42,000 documents about their Supreme Court Appointee Brett Kavanaugh on the Judiciary Committee.  The hearings begin today; it’s impossible that Democrats could review those documents, but the Republicans don’t care.  Instead the hearings will roll on; Chairman Grassley and the Republicans will get their nominee on the Court, “by hook or crook.”

And there is little Democrats can do.

Kavanaugh in another time would have been vetted and questioned, and probably approved by wide margin of US Senators.  While Democrats (and me) certainly disagree with his views, he is the “…model of a modern Supreme Court Justice.”  If he didn’t represent the pivotal deciding vote, he would be a “walk-through” like Justice Gorsuch was.

But he is that critical vote.  Upon this appointment may stand the fate of the civil rights reforms of the past forty years. Kavanaugh’s writings on the Court of Appeals in cases relating to Roe v Wade are more than scary.  So it’s going to be an ugly debate, and there will be recriminations on all sides, towards  “enemy” and “friend” both.  However this turns out (and it’s difficult to see any other outcome besides Kavanaugh’s approval) there will be no shared beer, or Scotch, after it’s over.  It’s another sign of our times, and what we’ve lost.

Better Ten Go Free

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”

– William Blackstone, English Jurist, 1769

The government of the United States is taking its next step in the “cleansing” of America.  The newest twist:  revoking the citizenship status of some born along the Texas/Mexico border.  These are “natural born” American citizens, having citizenship from birth.  They were born in the Rio Grande Valley; their births attended by a mid-wife rather than a doctor or at a hospital.  And now, decades later, the US State Department is refusing to accept their birth certificates as proof of citizenship, denying them passports, and the Immigration service is going so far as detaining and trying to deport them.

The problem:  there were some mid-wives who lied about exactly which side of the border the child was born on.  Not every child delivered was born in Mexico, but not every one was born on the US side either.  This is not a new issue:  these “births” are now in their thirties; the concern has been around for a while.

So, these thirty-some year olds, whose sole possible crime was to have been born on the wrong side of an artificial geographic line, are now being forced to prove the location of their birth.  Their birth certificates won’t work:  can they get a utility bill from their mother’s home, or some other external paperwork that shows their birth residence was on the right side of the line?  And, of course, their mothers were not wealthy: they were using mid-wives rather than hospitals, and, given the present Administration, they were all Hispanic. Here’s a challenge: prove the residence of your birth, thirty years later.  Go find the utility bills from the 1980’s, or the rental bills since these mothers weren’t likely to own their homes:  Good Luck.

It then becomes a “guilty until proven innocent” issue, with some of these Americans held in detention, and forced to search unavailable records.  And many of them don’t know for sure whether they were born a US citizen or Mexican. The Immigration service (good old ICE) has even gone so far as to deny some of them access to the regular Federal Court system, instead putting them into the Homeland Security run Immigration Courts.

This isn’t the first time the US government has tried to do this; it’s not just the Trump Administration.  But unlike earlier efforts, when officials quickly realized the inequity of their actions and stopped, the Trump “ICE Troopers” are moving on, sweeping up the innocent with the guilty.  The “guilty” here are guilty of being born in the wrong place; the “fraud” they have committed is one that they don’t even know they’ve done.  And the innocent aren’t necessarily sure either.

Clearly the validity of the birth certificate is a failure of the Texas state issuing authority.  They didn’t do their job thirty-some years ago.  The current enforcement actions have a better than even chance of denying Americans their American citizenship.  And unlike the rights we expect for anyone facing court action, these Americans are being found guilty, then forced to prove their own innocence.

We are a nation of laws and beliefs.  We believe that to be guilty, one must have the intent to commit an act. And one of our most sacred legal precepts is that we must protect the innocent, even at the risk of freeing some of the guilty.  There is no government action more heinous than the punishment of an innocent, our legislatures pay hundred of thousands of dollars to those we inadvertently jail.  And we are a nation that claims to be unbiased; but in this action “blind justice” is clearly peeking out to see the color of the accused.

This must stop.   None of these individuals are responsible for this “crime,” and even if some of the “guilty” remain American citizens, so be it.  This “birth fraud” cannot be undone by the government sweeping up those who have done nothing wrong.  But, of course, it won’t stop, at least not until the last bastion of civil rights, the Federal Courts, step in.  Meanwhile, America, the home of the free, continues to act out the racists views of its President.

 

 

 

Echo, Echo, Echo

Daily Caller 8/27/18 –China Hacked Hillary Clinton’s Email Private Server

Daily Caller 7/12/18 – Gohmert:  Watchdog Found Cinton Emails Were Sent to Foreign Entity

It was supposed to be the “highlight” of the conservative right attack on the FBI.  Peter Strzok, the disgraced head of the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton emails and of Trump and Russia, was publicly testifying in front of  a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.

It had a Freedom Caucus “all star” cast:  Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Sam Gohmert along with fellow travellers Trey Gowdy and Bob Goodlatte.  They were poised to finally “get” the bête noire, the man who “let Hillary go” and went after the Trump campaign.  Strzok was fatally flawed; he had an affair with a DOJ employee, they were both married to others, and they had a lot of the affair on government phones.  There was a written record of their infidelity, and of their disdainful political opinions about Trump.

For ten hours Strzok was grilled.  Democrats on the committees gave him some respite, but Republicans came back at him again and again.  However, this former top agent in counter-espionage responded clearly and definitively, even in the face of Congressman Sam Gohmert’s personal attacks.  Gohmert asked how Strzok could look in his wife’s eye and lie about the affair.  That encounter led Democrats to ask if Gohmert had forgotten to take his medication.

The hearing was a letdown for the Freedom Caucus team.  Strzok held his ground, and projected the aura of a competent intelligence officer. The hearing itself became a circus, ultimately embarrassing both committees.

But just before Gohmert’s snide remark, he asked a question about a meeting Strozk had with Frank Rucker of the Intelligence Community Inspector General Office (ICIG) regarding an anomaly on the Clinton server.  Gohmert claimed that the ICIG knew that over 30,000 Clinton emails were being copied to a different address (30,000 is a “magic” number, the number of Clinton emails that were unavailable for FBI inspection.  Trump famously asked the Russians to find them.)

The Daily Caller, Fox News Commentator Tucker Carlson’s online “newspaper,” picked up the story that day.  Last week, Carlson himself repeated the charges on his Fox News show, and the Daily Caller re-echoed the charges in a “more specific” article.  President Trump obviously watched Carlson, and repeated the story as “fact” in a series of tweets, claiming that all of Clinton’s emails were copied to the Chinese.

Since July 12^th, there has been no independent confirmation of Gohmert’s claim.  But his words have entered the “echo chamber” of Trump-supporting media, and have been bouncing back and forth.  Today in a brief Google Search, there are more than eleven different sources reporting the story that “Clinton emails were hacked by China.”  Like the proverbial “fly story” where millions can’t be wrong, each of these stories cite either Gohmert, or the original Daily Caller article from July 12^th.

In fact, the only “new news” regarding this story is a blanket FBI denial:  “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised.”

It is a prime example of the “echo chamber” effect.  What real evidence Gohmert had has not been revealed or may not exist, and besides, that’s not the point.  The Daily Caller cites him and unnamed sources, and all of the other publications ran with the story.  The President then elevates it to national prominence, and, voila, it is now “fact.”  The “missing” 30,000 Clinton emails are with the Chinese government, and the FBI investigators ignored the evidence. Trump cries:  “Stop the Mueller investigation, there is NO COLLUSION!!!”

In our current crazy world, truly all things are possible.  But what evidence we have now on this story is the word of a Congressman, Sam Gohmert, who has proven he will say anything to get Trump “off the hook.” It is interesting that even his “brother” Freedom Caucus members, Jordan and Meadows, haven’t taken up this fight. But the story continues to bounce around the internet, and for the thirty-percent “always-Trumpers” the repetition alone will create a “fact” out of this fiction.

Dog Whistles or Old Saws

Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida and devout Trump supporter, won the Florida Republican Gubernatorial primary this week. He built his campaign around his fealty to the President, even filming a television commercial with his toddler “building the wall” and learning how to read from a “Make America Great Again” poster.  He spent millions of dollars less than his opponent, but got millions of dollars (approximately $9 million) in free advertising from Fox News appearances.

Andrew Gillum, Mayor of Tallahassee, won the Democratic nomination for the race, defeating front-runner former Congresswoman Gwen Graham.  Gillum will now bid to become the first African-American Governor of Florida.

Gillum ran from the “left-wing” of the Democratic Party.  His platform includes health insurance for all, a $15/hour minimum wage, a billion dollar increase in Florida education spending, and an increase in corporate income taxes.  He was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders as well as supported by billionaire progressives Tom Steyer and George Soros.

In a world were common political sense says that campaigns are won in the middle among the independents and undecided, DeSantis and Gillum are running from the extremes.  The two “middle of the road” candidates of both parties were left behind in the primary.  So it is seems likely that this campaign will generate a lot of controversy.

It didn’t take twelve hours.  On a Wednesday morning Fox News interview, DeSantis made the following statement about his opponent:

 “He is an articulate spokesman for those far-left views. And he’s a charismatic candidate… …The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.”

Gillum and the media immediately cried “foul,” claiming DeSantis was mimicking his mentor by using “dog whistles” to racist followers.  They claim the terms “articulate” and “monkey” were coded insults against black opponents.

“Monkey this up” is an awkward phrase.  “Monkey around” or “monkeys and a football” or “monkey business” all are common phrases.  “Mess this up” or “Screw this up” or its more profane derivation is commonly used.  But where did the phrase “monkey this up” come from?

Racists have long used monkeys, apes, and gorillas as insulting terms for black people.  To insert the word “monkey” for what should have been “mess or screw” couldn’t have been accidental, it doesn’t fit.  So DeSantis, Harvard and Yale educated, either intentionally chose the term, or subconsciously inserted it.

In the same way, claiming that an African-American candidate is “articulate” has undertones of racism as well.  It highlights the “surprise” that an African-American could be so “well spoken.”  DeSantis isn’t the first to run into this situation.  Joe Biden, in opening his last campaign for President in 2007, made the following statement about his opponent Barack Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.  I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

What Biden meant as a compliment came out as condescension to his black opponent.  He quickly apologized, Obama accepted, and the campaign of 2008 moved on.  DeSantis, a history major and lawyer, would or should have been aware of that precedent.  So again he either intentionally chose the term, or subconsciously inserted it.

What my grandfather might have said, or even my father, is not politically acceptable today.  What was common speech in the 1940’s or 50’s we now know is “loaded language” full of racist connotations.  Politicians use speech as their “art,” their way of shaping the views of potential voters. So when DeSantis places these “loaded” terms in his speech, we can’t assume that it’s an accident, or something his grandfather used to say, or even his subconscious bias slipping through.

Politicians practice the art of communication.  Either DeSantis is committing malpractice, or he’s doing exactly what he intends to do:  communicating to the voters of Florida that they really don’t want to vote for a black man. It exactly what the President would do.

 

 

Controlling the News

My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral,
the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening

Alice Longworth Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest man to serve as President of the United States at forty-two.  He was also the “first” modern President, using the turn of the century media to help achieve his political goals.  In fact, Roosevelt’s Presidency was a direct result of the media.

One of the primary causes of the Spanish-American War of 1898 was the competition between the newspapers of New York City:  Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal.  In their drive for greater readership, both papers resorted to first embellishing stories about Spanish atrocities in Cuba, and then actually making them up, in order to heighten public tension.  This created public pressure on the US Government, and resulted in the deployment of forces to Cuba, led by the Navy Cruiser USS Maine.  When the Maine exploded in Havana Harbor from undetermined causes killing 260 men, the newspapers immediately blamed the Spanish and loudly demanded war.

The US proceeded to invade Cuba to fight the Spanish, and Teddy Roosevelt organized a regiment of cavalry called the Rough Riders.  His leadership of that unit, particularly at the Battle of San Juan Hill and in conjunction with the accompanying newspaper coverage, put him in the national spotlight, leading to his election as Governor of New York.  Within a year he was Vice President and, upon President McKinley’s death, the President of the United States.

Roosevelt was constantly aware of his “image” in the press, and continued to use them to forward his goals. Whether it was long hikes across Washington D.C. (including swims across the Potomac) proving his own energy and youth, or his insider support for “muckraking” authors like Upton Sinclair (his book, The Jungle, exposed the Chicago unsafe and unsanitary Chicago meatpacking industry) Roosevelt kept public pressure on the Congress to get his agenda passed.

While current President Donald Trump is “no Teddy Roosevelt,” he does have a well-developed sense of the media. It is clearly his goal to dominate every news cycle.  There is an old saying, “no news is good news.”  However, in the Trump Administration the phrase has been altered to say “any news is better than no news.”  For example, this weekend the US news cycle was dominated by the news of the death of Senator John McCain, one of the very few Republicans to stand up against Trump.

In order to regain the news cycle, the Trump White House decided to create a controversy over the US flag flying over the building.  It was lowered to half-staff immediately upon hearing of the Senator’s death on Saturday, but on Sunday was raised back up.  The media then spent most of Monday focusing on whether the President would honor McCain by lowering the flag or not.  He waited until Monday afternoon, stealing the daily news cycle, then begrudgingly declared a state of national mourning and officially lowering the flag.

But the Trump Administration has gone far past “stunts” to manipulate media attention.  They also have gone to great lengths to create a theme that much of the media lies about the President.   The President has instructed his supporters to ignore “Fake news.” That has become their battle cry when any story is presented that shows the Administration in a critical light.  Yesterday Trump even went so far as to demand that Google change its search algorithm in order to make the Administration look better.  He quoted a conservative blog article showing that Google on a given day showed over 90% negative articles when googling the President.

Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press had a great retort to this claim.  He noted that almost all of the articles about the Cleveland Brown’s football team have been negative in the past three years. Todd pointed out that there wasn’t much positive to talk about a team that won 4 games and lost 44 over those three years (a 91% losing record.)

And like the Yellow Journalism of Hearst and Pulitzer, the President also is willing to create crises out of nothing. Monday night he met with Christian Evangelical leaders in the White House.  In the meeting he stated:

“If the GOP loses(control of the House of Representatives in the November elections) they will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently, and violently. There’s violence. When you look at Antifa and you look at some of these groups — these are violent people.”

So, his message is that if he loses and the Democrats win, then there will be violence against Christians and Republicans by the Democrats.  It’s a ludicrous idea, but it’s a continuing message to his base: if we lose, our world will end. Be ready to fight.

The Administration’s “fake news” and distractions continue on an hourly basis. Just in the past two days, from the flag, to violence, to firing Attorney General Sessions, to Google, to spreading rumors that China hacked Clinton’s email; they have tried to dodge the realities of the Russia investigation, and Democratic gains, and another burgeoning crisis over the inappropriate influence in the building of a new FBI headquarters (and its impact on Trump’s Washington Hotel.)

President Trump has certainly achieved one goal:  he has so muddied American thought and perception that it is often difficult to tell what is real news, and what is fluff.

For those who have struggled against his media savvy there are two signs that may clarify the waters.  The upcoming elections in November may create a new narrative with greater integrity. And the Mueller report will lay bare Trump’s flaws, dissolving  his “Fake News.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Constitutional Dilemma

(Sorry about the history lesson – but I was a history teacher!!)

The founding of the United States was messy.  Thirteen colonies, breaking away from the British Monarchy, were incredibly jealous of their sovereign powers.  They came together to fight the British, but they were like a group of squabbling children, unwilling to give authority to a national government.  The Articles of Confederation, an agreement that took four years for all thirteen colonies to ratify, did not even give the Nation the power to tax, only to ask the states for money.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, we were a nation of loosely organized sovereign states.  We found that this organizational model did not work; thirteen currencies, thirteen tariffs at the borders, thirteen different codes of law, did not make a nation.  It was a recipe for division and disaster.

The Constitution was written, and while the Preamble stated WE THE PEOPLE writ large, it still was a contractual agreement among the states.  Nine were required to agree to make it the foundation of the United States.

There is a segment of current legal thought that claims the Constitution should only be evaluated through the thinking of those that actually wrote it.  They believe the words, carefully chosen, often in compromise, should be examined only in the context of the thoughts of those amazing minds: Madison, Hamilton, Sherman, Franklin, and of course, Washington.

This echoes the earliest debates of our nation, the “strict interpreters,” who wanted to follow the letter of the document versus the “loose interpreters,” believing that there were implied powers that the National government could exercise.   The “strict interpreters” then, and the “original meaning” voices now, both saw the only way of expanding the Constitution was through the Amendment process.

This argument advanced into the mid-19^thcentury, culminating in the attempted dissolution of the contract, and of the Union.  The Civil War used military force to enforce a differing view of the Constitution, as a compact among the people, not just the states.  When Lincoln stated, in the Gettysburg Address, that this was a “…government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” he was defining a new interpretation of the deal.

The Fourteenth Amendment further defined the change.  It made it clear that there was a single citizenship, of the United States (not just of individual states) and that states, or the nation, could not differentiate or discriminate among those citizens.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. – 14^th Amendment – Section 1

While the writing of the Constitution brought the states together, it was the Fourteenth Amendment, and the war that preceded it, that made us one nation.  While the Constitution said WE THE PEOPLE, it was the ALL PERSONS of the Fourteenth that made us Americans, and guaranteed what we now believe and enforce, the equal protection under law.

We have in our midst today, a powerful legal group that has been given the ultimate authority of selecting our Supreme Court Justices.  Unfortunately this group is not the United States Senate, though Constitutionally they still have that power.  The President has “contracted out” the selection process to the Federalist Society, an organization of like-minded lawyers who have dedicated themselves to the concept of “original interpretation.”  They are re-litigating American history, trying to take our nation back to a time before the experiences that shaped our current law.

They wish to apply only the thoughts of the founding fathers to the two-hundred thirty years of experience we have lived since. They want to believe that the founding fathers, who led a Revolution, organized a government, then re-organized it again; did not write a document that in and of itself could grow and expand with the changing times. They want to judicially determine that change can only be made through amendment, not through changing interpretation to meet changing times.

Their impact is already being felt.  The scourge of money in our political system, already enhancing the formidable powers of the wedge interest groups and the billionaire class, has been protected as “individual free speech” by the Citizen’s United decision, five justices (four of the Federalist society) to four. The door was opened to the NRA and the Koch Brothers, and even more insidiously the Mercer family; to buy our national government.

This is why the Supreme Court appointment of Brett Kavanaugh is so important.  He represents a Federalist Society coup, a full majority of the Court.  The bitter struggles that applied the Fourteenth Amendment to our daily lives, rights that protected ALL PERSONS and they way they live, are in jeopardy.   It is an old argument, one we thought was already resolved.  This nomination opens the door to that struggle once again.

 

Just heard that the President has determined not to fly the flag at half-staff in honor of Senator John McCain.  It shouldn’t be a surprise, I guess.  The President is a man who does not recognize heroism, or grace, or dedication.  His lack of respect for McCain says much more about him, than the Senator.

 

He could look East and West, but he always sailed true North. 

– Admiral Stavridis on John McCain

 

The Heart of an American

There is a governing tradition in America; one that, sadly, we seldom see today. It states that our partisan politics are just differing ways of achieving a common goal:  a better life for Americans.  If everyone is striving for the same goal, then politics is just technical, just a series of tactical maneuvers.  At the the close of debate and end of day, opponents can walk out, together as comrades, knowing that they still share in that common goal.

In politics today they are more likely to “tweet” some insult about their opponent, or run off to a press appearance to explain why the other side “hates” some part of America.  It makes it near impossible to reach across party or ideological lines and find compromise.   Today the politics of polarization means that to compromise is to be attacked by the extremes of your own side.

There are a few who have tried to rise above the tide of division and hate.  We lost one of those giants yesterday:  Senator John S. McCain of Arizona.

McCain was a man in the truest sense of the word.  His courage was tested under the most intense conditions: a fighter pilot who risked his life in defense of his nation, shot down in a jet fighter over Hanoi in the Vietnam War, over five years as a prisoner.  The son and grandson of four-star Admirals, he refused an early release by the North Vietnamese, unwilling to give them the propaganda victory or gain his freedom out of turn.  It cost him two additional years of captivity and torture.

McCain left the Navy to follow in even bigger footsteps:  he won the Senate seat of retiring conservative icon Barry Goldwater of Arizona.  And while McCain in general was a conservative, he really never followed a single ideological path.  He chose his conscience, his determination of what was right and wrong, over ideology, and sometimes even over party.

He was a “Lion” of the Senate. He was able to reach across the aisle and work with any number of members from the other side.  The pivotal campaign finance law that tried to keep “dark money” out of our elections was McCain-Feingold, where he joined a liberal Democrat Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, to try to improve our nation.

The law to truly fix immigration, charting a path to citizenship for many, was called McCain-Kennedy.  Ted Kennedy, the liberal “Lion” and John McCain were able to work together, and though this particular effort failed, they established a friendship that went beyond the Senate.  When Ted Kennedy died in 2009, remarkably of the same brain cancer, it was John McCain who gave the eulogy.

And this week we will see Democratic Vice President Biden and President Obama eulogize McCain, as well as Republican President George W Bush.  These men were all rivals, but they also found deep respect for McCain:  the respect of men with differing ways to achieve a common goal.

McCain was outspoken, even until the end.  It was only a few weeks ago that he criticized President Trump for his performance in Helsinki.  And he earned Trump’s permanent enmity by voting against the Senate bill to end the Affordable Care Act; the famous “thumbs down” late in the night.  McCain wasn’t necessarily in favor of the Act, but he was absolutely opposed to the Senate Republicans short-circuiting of  procedure to get it done.  All Trump could do is mimic McCain’s action, ridiculing the movements of a man whose shoulders were broken by torturers.

McCain was a man of the Senate, but he twice ran for President.  It was in his 2008 campaign that he proved his true loyalty to America, even above party, and even above his own ambitions.  In a town hall meeting, an older woman declared that Barack Obama was “an Arab” that she couldn’t trust.   McCain didn’t let her finish, taking the microphone back and stating, “He’s a decent family man/citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”

And it was in his incredibly gracious concession speech at the end of that campaign, where instead of being bitter and continuing strife, he spoke of the enormous historical significance of the election of the first African-American President, and concluded by offering the new leader his support.

It was in his final paragraph that night, that we saw the heart of that American, the true identity of John McCain.  It is more than fitting that his own words from that night, are his lasting legacy today.

Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Sen. Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.

And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties but to believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history. Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America.

God Bless John McCain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Want an Audit

Donald Trump as President of the United States is paid $400,000 a year.  He also receives a $50,000 expense account, a $100,000 travel account, and a $19,000 entertainment budget.   And of course, he gets to live in provided government housing, with a full staff, and round-the-clock protection.  He gets the use of Air Force One, Marine One, and a fleet of armored vehicles.

I know, this President “donates” his $400,000 to charitable causes.  But it’s my money, in part, and if he doesn’t want it, he can give it back to the government to defer other costs.  I pay taxes, and so do you, and we ought to have some say in how it’s spent, or donated.

And I know that the job, “President,” is not an hourly, punch-the-clock,  job.  It’s salaried.  But even a salaried job needs to have some bounds for how much time is put in on the work of governing the United States, and how much time is spent doing “other” things.  So let’s look at the amount of other things the President is doing, beside the hard work of being the leader of the United States (can’t say the leader of the free world anymore, we’ve clearly abdicated that position.)

In the last three days, the President of the United States has started a minor international crisis with South Africa.  The basis for this crisis, is that the President was watching Tucker Carlson, a commentator on Fox News.  Carlson parroted a report about the majority black government of South Africa taking over large farms owned by whites, and killing the farmers.  Carlson’s sources, South African right-wing commentators, proved to be inaccurate, but the President continued to pursue action by calling for an investigation by the US State Department.

The President of the United States has multiple intelligence gathering agencies, among them the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the State Department’s on the ground embassies and headquarters analysts.  He can ask any of those agencies for information about anything, from what’s in Area 51, to the location of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.  But instead, he watches Fox News.  I don’t want to pay for that.

It’s 8:52 am on Saturday morning right now.  The President has tweeted three times already this morning (it’s a nice day in DC, I wonder if he’s tweeting from a golf cart.)  Yesterday he tweeted twenty-one times.  This President has lifted twitter to the same high standard as the Gettysburg Address and the Fireside Chat, but he needs to focus on something more than just tweeting at his base.  Twenty-one times:  I know teenagers who tweet less than that! I don’t want to pay for that either.

Speaking of golf, this President has played golf 139 times since he entered the White House.  He’s been in office for 580 days, that means he averages a game of golf every four days; spring, summer, fall and winter. When he can’t play in Washington, he flies to Florida and Mara Lago.  When he doesn’t want to stay in DC to play at his National Golf Course in Virginia, he flies to his club in New Jersey.  And when he goes to Europe, he spends some time at his golf course in Scotland.

Once every four days: we aren’t talking about a thirty-minute workout here, we are talking about eighteen holes of golf.  That takes hours.

There’s a website dedicated to the President’s golf addiction; they estimate that the price tag for his golf (including travel and security) is over $75 million.  While the website is embroiled in an argument about the costs of auxiliary aircraft that travel with Air Force One, the point is obvious – it’s a whole lot of money.  That’s not coming out of his salary or his personal account, it’s coming out of my taxes (and, since I’m not paying $75 million in taxes this year, probably your taxes as well.)  I surely don’t want to pay for that.

So I want an audit. We have outstanding auditors in the government, but I want an audit from outside the executive branch.  I vote for the Congressional Budget Office, they do a great job in determining costs, estimated expenditures, and telling the hard truth, without a lot of political influence.  I want them to audit the amount of time the President actually does the job of President, and how much we are paying for recreation, tweets, and watching Fox News.

I’m perfectly happy to pay for that.

 

 

 

 

Sessions

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is doing everything he can to pursue the “Trump Agenda.”  From his hardline stand on immigration as one of the prime advocates for child separation at the border, to moving the Justice Department away from civil rights enforcement, to refusing to look at criminal justice reform proposed by the Congress; Sessions is using his term at the helm of Justice to radically turn America to the right.

He, at the minimum, misled the Senate in his confirmation hearing about his contact with Russian officials during the Trump campaign:  many would say he lied.  He has consistently refused information to Congress, even to his former Republican Senate colleagues, whining out, “…I don’t recall…” as only an Alabaman can say it. He is no hero to the “resistance.”

But he has been battered by President Trump, in interviews and with his famous tweets, excoriating Sessions for recusing himself in the Russia investigation.  Trump has called on Sessions to resign, and stated that his appointment as Attorney General was a mistake.  Sessions, clearly achieving a lifelong goal by serving at the helm of Justice, has steadfastly refused to quit.  Yesterday he even responded to the President’s barbs, by claiming that “his” Justice Department would not be “politicized.”

This is the one area where Sessions has risen above the political swamp of the Trump Administration. Realizing that his Senate confirmations answers and Russian contacts compromised his ability to supervise an investigation,  he removed himself from leadership.  He recused himself, turning over oversight of the Russia inquiry to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  And Rosenstein, after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, brought former Director Robert Mueller in as Special Counsel.

President Trump has continually threatened to fire Sessions and put a new Attorney General in, one not recused from supervising Mueller.  When this came up a year ago, leading Republican Senators, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and leading member Lindsey Graham, warned the President not to do it.  They stood with Sessions.

Yesterday they both made it clear that their minds have changed,  both opening the door to supporting the President in finding a new Attorney General.  And while it still doesn’t have total Republican support in the Senate, with Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn still supporting Sessions, the idea firing is gaining momentum.

So why would the President replace an Attorney General who is doing more than almost anyone else to advance his agenda?  It isn’t about Sessions, it’s about Mueller.

Logic would say, that if Trump fires Sessions, Rosenstein, second-in-command at Justice, would become the interim Attorney General until a new one is confirmed by the Senate.  But there is an obscure provision that would allow the President to make a different interim appointment.

We saw a similar action when Richard Cordray resigned as Director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.  Upon leaving, Cordray appointed his deputy, Leandra English, as acting director until the Senate confirmed a replacement.  President Trump exercised his authority under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to appoint a different interim director. Under that law, as long as the appointment held a  similar Senate confirmed position in the Administration then he could be moved to fill the vacancy.  It was a “musical chairs” moment:  Mick Mulvaney Director of the Office of Management and Budget was added as Director of the CFPB.

So firing Sessions would not automatically lead to a Rosenstein promotion.  It was theorized that one of the reasons that corrupt EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt stayed in office through so many scandals, was he law degree (University of Tulsa) and history as Oklahoma’s Attorney General. He looked like the perfect interim appointment.   However Pruitt’s corruption finally couldn’t be tolerated.

If Trump fired Sessions now, who could the President choose to serve as interim replacement.  He would need someone of cabinet level, with the prerequisite legal background to make the shift seem “appropriate.”  There is only one.

He is a graduate of Harvard Law School  (highly valued by the President,) and clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Alito.  He served as US Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, a US Attorney in Florida, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board in the GW Bush administration. He is Alexander Acosta (no relations to CNN’s Jim), currently Secretary of Labor; and with the current conflict over Sessions he is on the “hot seat.”

Where he stands on any of the issues regarding the Mueller investigation, we don’t know.  Whether he would accept the job, we don’t know either. But he’s in the right position, and because he is, Trump has an alternative to Sessions, and to Rosenstein.

If a new, “unrecused” Attorney General, even an interim, was appointed, Rosenstein would no longer supervise the Mueller team.  A new Attorney General could throttle the investigation, or fire Mueller. The President would demand it, and the Senate couldn’t prevent it.

A year ago it was clear that this would be a “threshold” moment, when the Republican Senate, even the silenced Leader McConnell, would stand against the President.  Today as the crisis grows, Trump still has moves, and the Republicans in the Senate are divided.  Acosta may well refuse to jump into this fire, but the will of the President is a powerful force to resist.

Sessions stands with Rosenstein and Mueller, and we stand on the brink of the crisis.  To quote Alexander Hamilton, it is time for the Senate Republicans to “Rise Up.”

 

Last Chance

Yesterday Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to Donald Trump, pled guilty to eight charges in federal court.  He is facing several years in prison.  Six of the counts involved his personal actions: failing to pay income taxes and giving false information to attain loans from banks.  But the last two counts are the ones that involve more than just him.

Cohen admitted to making  two counts of illegal campaign contributions, one for making an illegal corporate contribution, and one for exceeding the personal contribution limits. In the elocution phase of the plea, when Cohen admitted to the crimes and outlined his actions, he stated that he was told to make payments to silence two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, by then candidate Donald J. Trump.

In open court, the President was accused of committing a felony.  He was accused of influencing the 2016 election by paying hush money.  He was accused of overseeing elaborate financial arrangements to hide the transactions.  And we know that much of this is true, as Cohen taped his conversations with him.

Had these two “affairs” come to light, they may well have altered the outcome of an election that hinged on 77,744 votes (out of over 120 million.)

No, this isn’t the “Russia” investigation.  This isn’t even the Mueller team, it’s just the regular US attorneys from the Southern District of New York.  This isn’t some fancy, spy-laden story of  “collusion” or conspiracy. That’s all still to come.  This is just straight-up corruption:  paying people to keep quiet about unacceptable behavior, and using campaign funds to do it.

The Republican Party is faced with another inflection point, another choice to be made.  The first chance was when it became clear that Trump’s candidacy was real, and effective.  Republicans could have coalesced around another candidate, making a true one-on-one competition where Trump’s 40% of the vote wasn’t dominant. They didn’t do it, allowing the vote to remain split until far too late in the process.

The second chance was between the end of the primaries and the Republican convention.  The party leaders could have chosen to back a traditional candidate, perhaps Ohio Governor John Kasich, and risk a split convention and Trump as an independent.  It probably would have cost the general election, a three-way race, and the outcome would have been a Clinton win.  But it would have kept the core values of the party intact.

The third chance was October 6^th 2016, the day the “Access Hollywood Tape” broke.  Trump used vulgar and profane terms, and more importantly, made it clear he treated women as objects for his own sexual gratification.  The party clearly thought about it; about removing Trump from the ticket and replacing him with Pence or someone else.  Again, it probably would have thrown the election to Clinton.  But at that point the leadership of the GOP chose to accept Trump’s behavior.  They did not turn away from him; they actually watched the polls, and decided to stay “on board.”  And soon the carefully worded statements about “having wives and daughters” didn’t matter, the party rallied behind Trump, and, through “hook or Russian crook,” he became President of the United States.

We can argue about the Affordable Care Act, or the Tax Cut Cut, or the Supreme Court nominees.  We can talk about the deregulation of environmental protections, and national conservation.  We can discuss immigration policy.

But what cannot be argued anymore is that the President of the United States is an immoral man, who will do anything to get what he wants.  He degrades women, and minorities, and has shown his admiration for authoritarians.  Expect him to continue to use the powers of his office to try to silence critics and investigators.

What comes next?  We can anticipate that the Mueller investigation will have more indictments for those close to the President.  We can expect that, while Mueller won’t indict the President himself, he will make it clear that he was involved, just a Cohen made it clear yesterday.  We can expect the President to fight back, with more firings, pardons, removal of security clearances, and suppression of the investigations.

The Republican Party has not just stood silent; they have actively defended and supported the President. The Republican House of Representatives has served as the strongest bastion of Presidential support.  The Senate Republicans, with a few retiring exceptions, have at best remained silent.

The last chance to save their party is approaching.  They have made the choice to stand with Trump and “Make America Great Again,” time and time again.  They have placed an immoral man in the Presidency, one who has no concept of American history or tradition, one who may well be using the Presidency for his own financial gain, and one who illegally conspired to achieve office.  History will judge what they did, and what they do now:  Last Chance.