King Donald

The man who claimed he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it keeps getting away with it. When Republicans voted down the Democratic motion for witnesses and documents, it was clear the fix was in. Lawrence Martin writes:

“Sham” cried the Democrats over and over again as Donald Trump was assured acquittal late Friday on impeachment charges. With the formal vote to exonerate him slated for Wednesday, he’s survived another trauma, the most grave he’s faced.

Next to sham, “coverup” was the most operative word in the Congressional corridors following the vote to disallow witnesses. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that the country was headed for “the biggest coverup since Watergate.” Watergate legend Carl Bernstein echoed the sentiment. Referring to the reputation of the senate as the world’s greatest deliberative body, he said, “What a joke.”

Indeed it was. The Republican senators, at the behest of their leader, defied 75 per cent of Americans who, according to polls, wanted witnesses. Such witnesses, denied by votes from no less than 51 of the 53 Republicans, would surely have offered incriminating evidence of Mr, Trump’s plot to have the Ukraine government investigate his political rivals. The witnesses would have made it more contemptible for his Grand Old Party toadies to acquit him.

But look at the numbers. MSNBC reports that the 49 senators who voted for witnesses represent 20 million more Americans than the 51 senators who voted to suppress them. Thus, Trump's defence -- when the president does it, it's legal -- has become a precedent. When Richard Nixon used that defence, it was a joke. You see the problem.

The Republic now hangs by a thread. American voters have one last chance to save their republic -- nine months from now.

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Guilty. It Couldn't Be Clearer

Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released its report into Donald Trump's shenanigans in Ukraine. Senator Richard Blumenthal -- a former federal prosecutor -- writes that Trump was bribing the Ukraine. And bribery is an impeachable offence:

President Trump solicited a bribe. And the Constitution makes clear that a president who engages in bribery “shall be removed from office.” In fact, along with treason, it is one of only two crimes specifically mentioned as conduct that would necessitate impeachment and removal.

Before I joined the Senate, I spent decades in law enforcement deciding when bad conduct rises to the level of illegality. Any good lawyer starts with the legal text, and when the Constitution was drafted, bribery was defined broadly as any “undue reward” for a public action. As illustrated during the House impeachment inquiry, which moves to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a political investigation ginned up to reward Trump for providing needed military aid would certainly fit the bill.

But even under the narrower definition of bribery currently in the criminal code, Trump’s actions clearly qualify. Federal law defines bribery as the solicitation of “anything of value personally” by a public official “in return for” an official act. It also specifies that a bribe can be a reward for an act the public official would have done anyway. In short, merely soliciting a bribe is bribery.

The entire Republican Party -- in the House and Senate -- offers two defences of Trump:

First, they argue that Trump can’t be guilty of bribery because Ukraine never conducted the investigations he demanded and because the country still received military aid. Of course, the money was released only after a government whistleblower exposed the president’s plans. As a law enforcement official, I prosecuted criminals whose illegal schemes failed because they were caught red-handed. None had the gall to say they were innocent because their crimes did not achieve their goals. Ineffective criminals are still criminals.

The bribery statute makes clear: Soliciting a bribe is illegal even if the bribe is never paid.

Second, Trump’s defenders argue that no one has testified they directly heard Trump order anybody to demand a bribe. Apparently, they want us to believe that Giuliani — a private citizen — ran a shadow foreign policy to secure political benefits for Trump without Trump’s knowledge or support. The fact that Trump specifically told foreign leaders to contact Giuliani is simply an unfortunate coincidence.

That no witness heard Trump utter the words “please solicit a bribe from Ukraine” should not be shocking. Anybody who has watched a mob movie knows criminals don’t spell out their illegal plans to every subordinate. More importantly, individuals who might have heard Trump say those words may have unlawfully refused to testify, at Trump’s request. When a defendant improperly withholds evidence, courts instruct juries to assume that the evidence would not help the defendant. Americans should make the same assumption here.

But simply, Trump solicited a bribe -- an impeachable offence -- and he was caught red handed. Any other criminal would be sent to jail. But, because he's the president, Trump will probably get off.

Is this "Truth, Justice And The American Way?"

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The Evidence Keeps Piling Up

Yesterday was quite a day in Washington. The evidence to support Donald Trump's impeachment keeps piling up. Noah Bookbinder writes in The New York Times:

Mr. Trump used the immense powers of the American presidency to pressure an ally to open investigations that would help him personally. That much is clear just from the call memo of the July 25 conversation between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

But today’s testimony made clear that it goes much further. Two respected public servants — Ambassador William Taylor, an experienced diplomat and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, the State Department official overseeing European and Eurasian affairs — testified that the president and his personal attorney sought politically motivated investigations by the Ukrainian government into former Vice President Joseph Biden and allegations concerning the 2016 election (the latter references an unfounded conspiracy theory that Ukrainians, not Russians, were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, and the Ukrainians framed the Russian government to make it look like that country was working with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign).

Pressuring a foreign power to investigate a political rival is, alone, a potentially impeachable offense. But Mr. Trump’s effort to condition needed military and diplomatic aid on investigations helpful to his personal political interests may also constitute bribery as contemplated by the Constitution for the purpose of impeachment. It also likely violates criminal laws, including the federal bribery statute.

And new evidence emerged during the hearing:

As important, today Mr. Taylor revealed stunning new information. He said that a staff member of his witnessed Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, call Mr. Trump the day after his call with Mr. Zelensky and that the staff member heard Mr. Trump ask Mr. Sondland about the status of “the investigations” — which witnesses have testified was shorthand for inquiries into the Bidens and the origins of the investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Taylor testified that his staff member heard Mr. Sondland say Ukraine was moving forward on those investigations and that Mr. Sondland said that the president “cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.”

Republicans tried to argue that all of this is second hand information. But the phone call puts the evidence in the president's mouth. If Republicans don't see what is right in front of them, they should go down with Trump. But that scenario is based upon the assumption that the vast majority of Americans can see what is right in front of them.

Image: The Los Angeles Times

The Politics Of Projection

The Republican Party, Dana Milbank writes, is engaging in the politics of projection. Yesterday's debate to formalize the rules for Trump's public impeachment procedures offered several examples of this strange kind of magical thinking:

[Devin Nunes] railed about the sort of person who believes in “conspiracy theories” and relies on “defamation and slander,” who spins a “preposterous narrative” with “no evidence” and only “bizarre obsession.”

Surely he was describing one Donald J. Trump to a T?

Trump has repeatedly advanced Moscow’s agenda, pulling out of Syria, siding with Russia over U.S. intelligence on election interference and withholding military aid to Ukraine. But Republican Whip Steve Scalise (La.) displayed on the House floor a poster of a hammer and sickle and the Kremlin and said Democrats are the ones doing things “Soviet-style.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the GOP conference leader, said Democrats are the ones “putting politics above national security.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) alleged that Democrats are the ones undermining “the integrity of our electoral process.”

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.). “For one man to turn this country upside down,” he said, is something “our Founding Fathers warned about.” Surely this was about Trump? Nope — Schiff.

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said Democrats are the ones “eagerly ripping our country in half,” and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) lamented “what the Democrats have put our nation through for now almost four years.” (He specifically blamed them for the Mueller probe, launched by Trump appointees.)

Donald Trump has turned the Republican world inside out. They have jettisoned everything they once stood for -- balanced budgets, family values, opposition to Russia -- and accused the Democrats of doing precisely what Trump has done. They are now a cult who worship at his feet.

And cults, Milbank warns, always end badly.

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A Matter Of Time

Bill Blum writes that Donald Trump is finished:

Donald John Trump, the 45th president of the United States, is going to be impeached. Not only that, but whether or not the GOP-controlled Senate convicts Trump of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” his presidency is drawing to a close. Unless a political deus ex machina comes to his rescue, he will not serve a second term.

There is all kinds of evidence to point to Trump's removal. But, as with Richard Nixon, the articles of impeachment should be short and simple:

1. Abuse of power for Ukraine.
2. Using the presidency for personal gain.
3. Obstruction of justice for the Mueller investigation and the wholesale defiance of congressional subpoenas.

As with Nixon, the tide demanding Trump's removal is rising:

The current situation is much more akin to 1974, which saw Nixon’s popularity steadily erode until his resignation, than 1999, which saw Bill Clinton’s popularity climb. A CBS News Poll released Sunday showed a whopping 55% of respondents favor the impeachment inquiry. A Quinnipiac University Poll survey released on Monday went beyond the inquiry, finding respondents evenly split, 47 percent to 47 percent, on whether they support impeaching President Trump and removing him from office, a 10-point swing in favor of impeachment over a five-day period.

He has given the Congress the evidence it needs. Now it's just a matter of time.

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Now Is the Time

The Democrats have decided to hold hearings on the impeachment of Donald Trump. Those hearings were inevitable simply because Trump has always been unfit for office. But the timing of those hearings has been critical. David Leonhardt writes in The New York Times:

The Mueller report was too much of a letdown. True, that was in part because of the artful deception by Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, in releasing the report — but only in part. Over all, the report was anticlimactic. It persuaded virtually no one who wasn’t already persuaded of Trump’s unfitness.

If the Democrats had impeached him after the report’s release — after specifically saying that they would make their decision based on the report — they would not have persuaded many swing voters (or virtually any Republicans). I understand that many progressives wanted House Democrats to impeach Trump anyway, as a matter of principle. But I think that view overlooks the history and purpose of impeachment: It is, again, a political process.

If you impeach a president and fail to damage his political standing — if you’re just as likely to shore up his standing, as I think a post-Mueller impeachment would have — you’re doing it wrong. You are going to political war with the Constitution you want rather than the one the country has.

But the whistle blower's report has changed things:

Starting an impeachment inquiry is the proper move because of both what’s changed and what hasn’t. What has changed? In his dealings with Ukraine, the president committed a new and clearly understandable constitutional high crime: He put his own interests above the national interest by pressuring a foreign country to damage a political rival. He evidently misused taxpayer money in the process. He has shown he’s willing to do almost anything to win re-election.

What hasn’t changed? Trump is unfit for office. He has repeatedly violated his oath of office, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He has weakened America’s national security. He has used the presidency for personal enrichment. He has broken the law more than once. He has tried to undermine American democracy.

Trump has handed Democrats a new opportunity to persuade the country that his presidency needs to end, on Jan. 20, 2021, if not sooner. Democrats should seize that opportunity. Even if they can’t persuade Republican senators to remove him from office, they can focus voters’ attention on his egregious misbehaviour.

The irony is that Trump could have escaped impeachment after the Mueller Report. But he is not smart enough to understand that he shouldn't repeat the behaviour that got the Mueller Inquiry going.

Do his supporters understand this? Probably not. They elected Trump to shake up the system. What they didn't understand -- and still don't understand -- is that his aim is not to shake up the system. He is dedicated to its destruction.

If the Democrats  fail to impeach Trump -- even if the Republicans refuse to follow through -- he will succeed. And the Republicans will go down in history as his enablers -- those who happily were unwilling -- in Benjamin Franklin's word -- to "keep" their republic.

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What Is At Stake

Mark Kingwell writes in The Globe And Mail that now is the time to impeach Donald Trump:

Historian Simon Schama, articulating the thoughts of many, called it “Trump’s Neville Chamberlain moment,” referring to the hapless British prime minister who claimed “peace in our time” by appeasing Adolf Hitler. Mr. Schama went on: “America sold out by its President. A violation of his oath of office. If this isn’t impeachable what is?”

The answer, writes Kingwell is obvious. And the way is clear:

Grounds for impeachment, as set out in the U.S. Constitution, include “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanours,” as Mr. Brennan indicated. More specifically, Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1 says that treason “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.”

Adhering to or giving aid and comfort to an enemy – check. More than two witnesses – check, by a very large factor.

Immediate responses to calls for a Trump impeachment are usually twofold: 1) There is no way Congress will even consider impeachment proceedings against a reckless leader who has nevertheless benefited them materially; 2) Impeachment of Mr. Trump will prove so divisive that it is impractical, especially given the spin the President and his supporters would likely adopt, namely that it is a take-out orchestrated by elite interests.

But those objections no longer carry any weight. The issue is whether the Congress has the constitutional fortitude to to the job.

If indeed Congress lacks the moral fortitude to pursue impeachment, they deserve to be judged as harshly as he. And if the country as a whole cannot weather the fallout from some disgruntled Trump hardliners, it scarcely merits status as a liberal democracy. Robust nations are not held hostage by their own extremists.

What's at stake is American democracy.

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