A Line In The Sand

Posted: September 24, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Enough!

For those that take even the most cursory notice of events on the daily news, you have no doubt heard that the president once again broke the norms of presidential behavior by, again, using his office for personal gain.  He will stop at nothing if it serves his personal interests.  He has yet to see any consequences to his actions and is increasingly emboldened to do whatever the heck he wants to do — legal or not.

He already moved beyond the boundaries of ethical and moral behavior.  Now that he sees no consequences from the Mueller Report and has an Attorney General that has decreed the president is above the law — any law — while in office, he sees nothing that can slow him down, much less stop him, from pursuing whatever he wants to do.

The only possible way to put a check on his actions is to impeach him, and the Democrats are dithering and wringing their hands in an ineffective effort to provide oversight of Mr. Trump’s presidency.  So far they’ve brought a butter knife to a grenade fight.  Mr. Trump has refused to provide any documents or to allow any testimony from anyone that he deems a possible threat to his reign.  Across the board.  Including hum-drum, every day just-trying-to-do-business subjects.  Total non-cooperation.

That may be about to change.

The latest insult to the office, to our country and to all of us as citizens involves the president’s efforts, aided and abetted by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani (who has no role in the government or the administration, a fact that will become significant) to get a foreign power to interfere in the 2020 election.  Sound familiar?

As briefly as possible, the entire situation came to light when the president instructed his Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to break the law.  Also known as obstruction of justice.  (Note that Mr. Trump fired the DNI and the Deputy DNI last month.) That came about because an intelligence official turned in a complaint to the Inspector General (IG) of the Intelligence Community — who, by the way, was appointed by Mr. Trump — stating that the president interacted with the head of a foreign government in a way that was detrimental to the interests of the United States.  The specifics of the claim are classified.  The law requires that if the IG finds the complaint credible and urgent that it must (“shall be”) be turned over to the Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate.  The Acting DNI refused based on directions from the Executive Branch.  The IG went to Congress and explained what happened and stood by his initial determination that it should go to Congress.  The Acting DNI continues to refuse to turn it over.

I predict that the president will release a transcript of his conversation that will be spun to show he didn’t do what is alleged.  Firstly, we know we cannot trust Mr. Trump to be truthful, therefore how do we know it is the actual transcript?  Secondly, and more importantly, the transcript is not nearly as important as the original whistle blower complaint.  That document would give a fuller story and put the events in context.  The Administration has no intention of turning that over.  In itself, that to me is evidence that something serious occurred that Mr. Trump does not want us to know about.

In short, since then we have learned from Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani themselves, as well as from wide spread reporting in the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, that the complaint involves the President of Ukraine who Mr. Trump tried to bully (eight times according to reports) into finding “dirt” on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.  We learned today that Mr. Trump withheld needed military funding and aid for Ukraine totaling nearly 400 million dollars.  The reporting alleges that Mr. Trump wanted the dirt before he would release the money.  Congress had authorized the money in two different bills early this year.  Over the summer inquiries began to build as to why the money had not been made available to the government of Ukraine, currently locked into a shooting war with Russia.  (Russia!  Again!)

In sum, Mr. Trump wanted the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 election by supplying information (whether true or not, more on that in a minute) on Mr. Biden and his son that the Trump Campaign could use to slime the individual Mr. Trump most fears as his opponent in the election.  In exchange, he would release the money Congress appropriated (yet another presidential abuse of the power invested by the Constitution in the Congress) to help the Ukrainians defend themselves against Russia — who annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and is trying to obtain more Ukrainian territory.

Mr. Trump and his allies are trying to make the focus of the story about Mr. Biden and corruption.  (Kind of hits close to home when the president’s children are trotting around the world doing business with their father’s permission and help, spending taxpayer’s money for Secret Service protection and other expenses.)

The thing is, the Ukrainians already investigated the allegations against the Bidens and guess what?  There is nothing to it.  No corruption.  No undue pressure.  Nothing.  And if you listen closely to Mr. Trump and his lackeys, they present no evidence that anything is amiss.  Just innuendo and questions as to why no one is looking into it.  (BECAUSE THEY ALREADY DID!)  And don’t forget that Mr. Trump is on the record with over 12,000 lies since taking office.

I do not give Mr. Trump or his campaign any slack regarding their involvement with Russia during the 2016 campaign.  (“Russia if you’re listening….”)  But maybe one could make a case that they did not know what they were doing.

That does not fly in this situation.

The President.  Of the United States.  Used the full authority and weight of his office — himself, in his own voice — to try and convince a foreign state to interfere in our election against a specific opponent in exchange for funds desperately needed for their protection.

This alone is an impeachable offense.  Abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

However, add it to the list of other impeachable offenses and one would think that the House of Representatives has to act.  The Mueller Report defines ten times Mr. Trump obstructed the investigation of his involvement with Russia in 2016.  Over one thousand former federal attorneys — Republicans and Democrats — publicly stated that they would have prosecuted any other citizen with that evidence.  The U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York lists him as an unindicted co-conspirator in election campaign fraud when he paid off two mistresses to keep them from speaking up before the election.  And on and on and on.

When do we put a stop to the madness?  The more he gets away with, the more emboldened he is to do more.  We are still over a year from the election.  Anyone that thinks Mr. Trump won’t try every illegal dirty trick in the book to stay in office is not paying attention.  At the risk of sounding like I am hyperventilating, I can envision our very democracy at stake.

The Republicans, led by Senator Mitch McConnell (Tr-KY), a.k,a. “Moscow Mitch” are now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc.  Perhaps my biggest disappointment, even shock, is that not one Republican Senator, or Congressman, has said “enough”!  According to multitudes of reports, in private conversations many elected Republicans worry because they do not like the way Mr. Trump operates and see him as a threat to our country.  Yet, not a peep.  To stay silent is to be a co-conspirator.  They are aiding and abetting a president that is out of control.  Not a patriot among them.

As I get ready to publish this, it appears that later today the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will announce a preliminary impeachment inquiry.

At last.

Mr. Trump may not realize he has crossed a line in the sand.  The American people will not stand for his shenanigans forever.

But if we do, God help us all.

 

Shameful

Posted: April 29, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic.  If this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds… Impeachment is not about punishment, impeachment is about cleansing the office.  Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”  — Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

“The president of the United States looked 270 million Americans in the eye, and lied, deliberately and methodically. He took an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this nation, and he violated that oath. He pledged to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, and he violated that pledge. He took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and he willfully and repeatedly violated that oath.”  — Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)

“There is one standard of justice that applies equally to all, and to say or do otherwise will undermine the most sacred of all American ideals. [The] President has committed federal crimes, and there must be a reckoning, or no American shall ever again be prosecuted for those same crimes.”  — John Thune (R-S.D.)

“As of April 27, including the president’s rally in Green Bay, Wis., the tally in our database stands at 10,111 (false or misleading) claims in 828 days.” — Washington Post

Have Republicans finally seen the light and figured out that Donald J. Trump is unfit for office given the clear-cut references to obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report?  Hardly.

The quotes above refer to the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1999 and the fact that our current president has lied over 10,000 times since taking office.  The hypocrisy speaks for itself.

And yet, the talk of impeachment — should Mr. Trump be impeached or not — focuses only on the disagreements within the Democrat Party.  Not a word on the Constitutional duty for oversight and the rule of law from any Republican.  The closest that any Republican now in office came was a statement from Senator Mitt Romney (R-Ut).  Mr. Romney did not speak of impeachment or make a case that Mr. Trump should resign.  He merely said that he was “sickened” and “appalled” by the actions of those in the Trump administration and campaign “including the president.”  No reference as to what the consequences should be, but at least it was something.  He was, of course, immediately attacked for his statement.  After that, crickets.

And it gets worse.

“And you look at what Russia did — you know, buying some Facebook ads and try to sow dissent and do it, and it’s a terrible thing but I think the investigations and all the speculation that has happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on democracy than a couple Facebook ads….I think they said they spent about $160,000. I spent $160,000 on Facebook every three hours during the campaign. So if you look at the magnitude of what they did and what they accomplished, I think the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful to our country.”  — Jared Kushner commenting on the Mueller Report

We have come to a place where a (the?) Senior Adviser to the President, downplays the fact that a foreign adversary interferes in our election and that he believes that the investigation of that fact was a bigger threat to our democracy.  Oh, by the way.  He got his facts wrong, and he failed to mention criminal activity hacking into the DNC data base and stealing damaging emails. But I suppose that is to be expected from this administration.

And it gets worse yet.

When the president’s personal lawyer was asked about the Mueller Report’s findings of Russian interference in the election during an interview on CNN he said, “There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.”  When given a chance to clarify his statement he said, “There’s no crime.  We’re going to get into morality?  That isn’t what prosecutors look at, morality.”  So in the course of the Trump campaign we’ve gone from there was no contact with the Russians, to maybe there was contact but it was to talk about orphans, to if there was contact with the Russians there is nothing wrong with it, to we did contact the Russians but everybody would have done the same, to yes, of course we were in cahoots with the Russians, what’s wrong with that?

And it gets even worse.

According to the New York Times then Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kirstjen Nielsen tried to bring up cyber security and Russian (and other foreign adversaries) interference in the 2020 election.  She was thwarted by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney who told her not to bring it up in front of the president.  She was told that Mr. Trump equates any discussion of Russian interference in the 2016 election as questioning the legitimacy of his election.  As a result, there have been no Cabinet level meetings on the subject and no presidential level directives to prepare to defend the country against future attacks.  So much for the president upholding his oath of office.  Additionally, I will take a quick note to remind everyone that the DHS is not primarily focused on immigration.  At least it wasn’t until this administration.  It is involved in counter-intelligence work, cyber security and many other areas vital to our country to protect it from real threats to our security, not manufactured border crises.

Mr. Trump is the biggest threat to our democracy of any president in my lifetime, and possibly ever.  My lifetime includes the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.  He at least had certain standards that even he would not dismiss.  A scoundrel yes, but a scoundrel with at least some understanding of what our country stands for.  There were lines even he would not cross.  Mr. Trump knows no boundaries and now he is aided and abetted by Republicans in the House and Senate that apparently have no boundaries either.  Somehow they have made a pact with the devil that they will support and defend anything Mr. Trump does or says in order to get a tax cut and conservative judges on the federal courts.  It seems nothing else matters.

By their actions and words it is clear that the Republican Party no longer has any intellectual or moral underpinnings.  Their sole reason for being is to defend the president, no matter what.  The Republican Party in Washington ceased to exist.  Trumpism prevails.

To me this is not a matter of policy or a matter of Democrats just not liking the president.  Like has nothing to do with it.  Mr. Trump is destroying the moral fabric of society and deliberately stoking fear and loathing in order to achieve his own ends.

All presidents deserve thoughtful criticism and reasonable people can reasonably disagree on a given policy.  This is more than that.

Please tell me that you would hold Mr. Trump’s actions, words, and demeanor up to your children as an aspirational goal you would be proud to see them achieve.  If you cannot do that, then why do we tolerate it in our president?  What happened to our desire to see a person of great character as the leader of our country?

And please, spare me the “what abouts.”  Not all of our presidents or party leaders have been icons of virtue, but can you truly say that anyone of them in our lifetime was worse than Mr. Trump?  This is not a “it happens on both sides” issue.  It is not.

While the Democrats move to and fro tearing themselves apart contemplating their collective navel as they try to decide whether and how to hold Mr. Trump accountable under their duty as sworn to in an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, Republicans sit smugly on the sidelines appearing systematically to kiss Mr. Trump’s — well, you know.  Not a leader among them.

We get so caught up in the day-to-day travesty known as the Trump Administration that we lose sight of the forest for the trees.  Everyday brings a new outrage.  It is hard to keep up.  Step back sometime and think about the totality of his destructive work.  Taken as a whole, he is a one man wrecking crew with his advisers and apologists in Congress gleefully sifting through the wreckage.

We now know who Mr. Trump is and little about him surprises me any more.  He outrages me, yes, worries me, yes, but not much new in his spiel.  What worries me more is that so many people go merrily along with him hoping that some day it will make their lives better.  Where is the evidence for that?  Apparently, the motivation for Republicans in Congress and those working for him in the White House is power.  Pure unadulterated power.

I wonder how they manage to look at themselves in the mirror each morning.  Shameful.

 

 

 

The End Of The Beginning

Posted: March 25, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Last Friday, Attorney General William Barr announced that the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was complete.  Yesterday, Mr. Barr put out a summary of the Mueller Report that some likened to a book report because it was very short on content and long on unanswered questions.  There was some good news for our country in his summary.

According to Mr. Barr, Mr. Mueller did not find evidence of any conspiracy or criminal cooperation between the Trump Campaign or the President of the United States and the Russian Federation or any others associated with that country to rig the election.  Very good news, indeed.

Let that sink in for a minute as you contemplate what it would mean had Mr. Mueller found that the president did conspire with a foreign adversary to win the election.  We as a country would be in a very difficult place today had the result of the investigation been different.  At the same time, think what a low bar that is.  Never in the roughly 240 years of our national existence has there been any need to investigate such a matter.  It was inconceivable.  Yet, today, celebrations ensue that the president did not sell his soul to the Russians.  At least politically.  But let’s take a big sigh of relief that it is a positive outcome.

Also good news is that Mr. Mueller was able to finish his investigation without undue interference.  Or at least it appears that way, with one known exception that I will address below.  I have faith in Mr. Mueller and his thoroughness (read Mr. Barr’s letter to see just how thorough).  In my estimation, he is a man of integrity who carried out his mission as he saw it and did not seem to be distracted by the circus atmosphere the president created.  (Mr. Trump owes him an apology.  Instead last night he continued to attack him and the investigation in his public statements and on Twitter.  Shameful.)  From the Attorney General’s letter, it also seems that Mr. Mueller took a very narrow view of his assignment and focused primarily on Russian interference.  As we have already seen, other crimes or unsavory activities were farmed out to the presiding jurisdictions for action.  It remains to be seen what else may arise from other federal and state district attorneys but there are no new indictments, announced or sealed, pending from Mr. Mueller directly.

There are many, many caveats and unanswered questions that hang over the whole report.  First and foremost is the fact that no one has seen it outside of a few people in the Department of Justice (DOJ).  Neither we as citizens nor our representatives in the House and Senate have seen it.  We do not really know what it says — only what Mr. Barr says it says.  By releasing his letter as he did, he gave Mr. Trump and his supporters a very big political win.  Everything that comes after, no matter how damning it may or may not be, will be considered “sour grapes” or otherwise discounted.  I happen to believe that there will be considerable evidence of wrong doing within the Trump Organization and the Trump Campaign that we will find to be unacceptable behavior from a presidential candidate but may not rise to the level of criminality or a provable conspiracy.  Why all the lying about Russia?  By lots of folks at different times and in different places including countless Russia lies by Mr. Trump himself?  My own opinion is that the lying was covering up financial relationships and business deals between members of the Trump family and organization and various nefarious Russian oligarchs and entities.  Again, perhaps not criminal (although such a great volume of lying to the people of the United States should have some consequence), but at best inappropriate and unseemly.  We just do not know and will not know until the report is available to all.

Remember that despite Mr. Trump’s claim that he was “totally exonerated” by Mr. Mueller he was not.  Concerning possible obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller did not make a decision.  Mr. Barr’s letter quoted directly from the Mueller Report to say that regarding obstruction, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”  I will be one of several million Americans that will want to know how that non-decision came about.  It is curious that a seasoned, respected, courageous prosecutor would collect a very thorough number of facts and then take a pass on recommending whether or not it reached the level of criminality.  What gives?  The context of Mr. Mueller’s remarks in this regard will be very important.  This is where we don’t know if there was undue influence on the investigation.  Was he told not to make a decision?  Why did Mr. Barr make a decision that there was no obstruction of justice if the investigator did not say so?  Attorney General Barr wrote a long legal dissertation about the investigation even before he was nominated to the position (some critics opine that it was his try-out and audition for the office in that he caught the president’s attention with it).  In it he stated his belief that a sitting president could not obstruct justice while carrying out the prescribed duties of the office.  (Such as firing the FBI director.) Some in Congress and elsewhere are worried that the “fix was in.”  In their view, Mr. Barr was hired to protect Mr. Trump from liability in just such a case.  Without the supporting documentation, we cannot know what transpired.  Unfortunately, Mr. Barr muddied the waters of an investigation that was meant to clear things up.  If we knew the context of Mr. Mueller’s “pros and cons” regarding obstruction, we may even find that his intent was to outline the road map for Congressional inquiries and possible action.  Mr. Barr seems to have tried to short-circuit that possibility.  In my view that was a political decision made in the president’s favor rather than a legal one that should have been left to Mr. Mueller.

Lost in the Tweets and punditry is the fact the report apparently concludes that the Russians did meddle in the election with the intent of helping Mr. Trump — or at least with the desired impact of helping to defeat Secretary Hillary Clinton in the general election.  This should be a major focus of those purporting to want to serve our country.  How did they do so?  What recommendations are there for stopping or at least limiting future interference?  If the president accepts the results of the conspiracy investigation why does he still refuse to acknowledge that the Russians did interfere even as every knowledgeable person in the intelligence agencies and the Congress say that they did?  This should be the basis of serious action on the part of the administration and the Congress to protect the 2020 election.  Will that happen in the midst of the political brouhaha that is occurring daily?

Pressure will be brought to stop further oversight by the House committees looking into the actions of the president and his aides as well as on the District Attorneys looking into possible illegal activities undertaken by the Trump Organization and Kushner, Inc.  Those investigations should continue.  Despite claims by Mr. Trump and his supporters, Mr. Mueller’s report does not seem to touch on those activities.  If they were illegal or unethical, the public should know.  If they are not, then it would seem that the Trump family would want that information to be forthcoming as well.

There is an awful lot that we do not know about the Mueller Report.  Right now, no one outside of the DOJ even knows how many pages it is or the depth of the supporting documentation.  With 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 500 witnesses and other investigative work behind the report, it should be substantial and detailed.  But we don’t know what we don’t know and there is no clear indication from the DOJ as to when or how much of the report will be made available.

Finally, while I do not really see the parallels between Mr. Trump and President Richard Nixon, I will merely point out that the Watergate scandal and investigation lasted a very long time.  The original break-in occurred in June 1972.  In October 1972 the FBI began to uncover the extent of the nefarious campaign efforts.  In May 1973 the Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings and Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was sworn in to investigate.  In May 1974 the House Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings (whether or not to do it).  In July 1974 on a bipartisan vote the House committee approved three articles of impeachment (the first was for obstruction of justice, the second was for misuse of power and not fulfilling his oath as president, and the third was for failure to comply with subpoenas).  In August 1974 the president resigned.  He was never impeached.

My purpose in relating this bit of info is not to advocate for impeachment but merely to say that the completion of the Mueller Report is only the beginning of the search for the truth about what did or did not happen.  It takes a long time.

Unfortunately, I think that the way Mr. Barr released selected excerpts from the full report will only serve to harden the positions of those that support Mr. Trump as president and those that think he has conducted himself improperly in the White House.  Nothing has been fully settled except — thankfully — the president and his aides did not directly conspire with the Russians to throw the 2016 election.

It seems to me that a lot is still on the table and that this is only the beginning of more to come.  I fear that given Mr. Trump’s proclivity to lean towards autocracy, that the idea that he was “exonerated” and the victim of a “witch hunt” will only embolden him and reinforce his worst instincts.

I hope that I am wrong.