I spent Tuesday afternoon with the House Judiciary Committee. I watched the Committee question Corey Lewandowski. He is the former Campaign Manager for the Trump Campaign, a current Presidential \u201cenforcer,\u201d and a possible future New Hampshire Senate candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were four main themes at play during the hearings.\u00a0\u00a0The first was from the Democrats.\u00a0\u00a0They are trying to find their way towards impeachment, but are unwilling to actually commit to doing it.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, we have \u201cimpeachment-lite\u201d. That’s the idea that the Committee can examine the idea of bringing impeachment resolutions to the House, without actually having those resolutions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the normal course of business, a bill of impeachment would be introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives, then referred to the committee for study.\u00a0\u00a0If that process was used, then the House would have already heard actual impeachment resolutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the House Democratic leadership doesn’t want to go \u201cthat far\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0They aren\u2019t ready to have an actual impeachment process begin. Instead, to mollify the majority of Democrats in the House who favor impeachment, and the large number of Americans who feel the same way, the Judiciary Committee is studying whether to introduce the resolutions.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s backwards to \u201cnormal order,\u201d making it vulnerable to Republican complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leading us to the second theme of the day:\u00a0\u00a0the Republicans.\u00a0\u00a0Their function was to disrupt the hearings as often as possible.\u00a0\u00a0Congressman Doug Collins, Ranking Minority Member on the Judiciary Committee, was animated in his protests and distractions.\u00a0\u00a0The Committee spent over an hour on procedural arguments, debates, and votes as the minority stalled the proceedings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It made a lot of the hearing interesting only to true \u201cparliamentary geeks,\u201d arguing whether a hired consultant or a Congressman was by definition a \u201cstaff member,\u201d or whether a point of \u201cparliamentary inquiry\u201d was \u201cin order\u201d or not. We all got to watch the clerks call the roll, over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when the Republicans actually engaged in the questioning, it was not to elicit information from Mr. Lewandowski.\u00a0\u00a0Their goal, led by Ohio\u2019s Jim Jordan, was to create a separate narrative.\u00a0 Republicans want Americans to believe that the entire Russian intervention in the 2016 election was the fault of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.\u00a0\u00a0They re-wrote the Mueller Report to exonerate the Trump Campaign, and regurgitated the claim that there was a failed US Intelligence operation that was designed to defeat him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They used Lewandowski as a foil, firing softball questions to set up obvious answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This leads to our third theme:\u00a0\u00a0the Lewandowski candidacy for the US Senate.\u00a0\u00a0In the middle of questions about the actions of the President, who ordered Lewandowski to demand Attorney General restrict the Mueller Investigation or be fired; the Republican Congressmen gave Lewandowski time to make speeches.\u00a0\u00a0His statements on patriotism, and sound bites on the Democrats, \u201c\u2026they hate the President more than they love America,\u201d\u00a0\u00a0were tailor made for thirty-second advertisements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lewandowski was well aware of his \u201cmoment in the sun.\u201d In the middle of the hearings, during a five minute\/twenty minute recess, he tweeted the link to his political action committee, and all but affirmed his candidacy for the New Hampshire seat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the main theme of the day, was the President\u2019s total disrespect for Congress.\u00a0\u00a0It began with his refusal to allow White House staffers to appear in front of the Committee.\u00a0\u00a0Former employees Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn were ordered by the White House to ignore the Committee subpoena and not appear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The President is claiming a novel version of Executive Privilege.\u00a0\u00a0Traditionally, the President has been granted the latitude of allowing the advice he receives from his advisors to remain secret.\u00a0\u00a0In general, this makes sense, as it allows his staff to give him unrestricted advice, knowing that it won\u2019t necessarily become public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But by definition, a \u201cprivilege\u201d is not a \u201cright.\u201d The President claims that he can restrict ALL access to his advisors, including investigating potential crimes. He has expanded that definition to all information from the White House as well, basically denying Congress any opportunity to perform their Executive Branch oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Lewandowski has never worked in the Executive Branch. He hasn\u2019t had an official role in the Presidency, or with the Trump Campaign since May of 2016. Yet the President claims that any discussions he had with \u201cprivate citizen\u201d Lewandowski were privileged as well, and sent White House lawyers to enforce his wishes. Those lawyers even went so far as to protesting who could question Lewandowski, taking a place at the microphone before Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler gaveled them to silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Lewandowski used the White House letter like a battering ram, quoting verbatim his \u201corders\u201d time and time again. It was a way of \u201ceating up time\u201d from the Democratic questioners; with the spectacle of Lewandowski reading aloud as Congressmen continued to demand answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lewandowski would read that letter aloud, but he refused to read his own words in the Mueller Report for the public to hear. He claimed the same \u201cprivilege\u201d as Special Counsel Mueller, as if he deserved the same respect as the man who served the nation for his entire lifetime. But the real purpose: Lewandowski didn\u2019t want to put \u201chis voice\u201d to his own actions described in the Report. He didn\u2019t want those thirty-second sound bites to appear in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite all of the distractions, the Democrats did actually make some headway.\u00a0\u00a0They were able to get Lewandowski to verify his own actions. He acknowledged that he took the President\u2019s dictated letter, then failed to deliver it to Attorney General Sessions.\u00a0\u00a0It forced Lewandowski to make lame excuses, \u201c\u2026I was on vacation\u2026\u201d for his intentional failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the Democrats got some \u201cpayback\u201d on Lewandowski as well. In the final thirty minutes, a staff (consulting) attorney for the majority questioned him. Barry Berke forced Lewandowski to acknowledge that he lied in interviews. Lewandowski stated that he felt no obligation to tell the truth to \u201cthe media.\u201d If he finally does run for Senate in New Hampshire, that thirty-seconds will come back to haunt him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hearing allowed the President to use Lewandowski to show his contempt for the Congress.\u00a0\u00a0The Democrats in the House looked muddled and unorganized, but continued to proceed down their confused path towards impeachment.\u00a0At some point, the House will need to take a more substantive stand.\u00a0\u00a0They have enforcement provisions, contempt citations, and the House Sargent of Arms that could physically enforce their orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They aren\u2019t ready to do any of that yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But while contempt for \u201cimpeachment-lite\u201d might be acceptable to some, contempt for national security shouldn\u2019t be. Today\u2019s news about a possible Presidential breach of security makes all of this more than a \u201cgame.\u201d It\u2019s deadly serious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"