Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Impeachment Deja Vu


For those of us that lived through the turmoil of the late-1960s/1970, I have previously remarked that our current times have an eerily familiar sound and feel to that time. So it is with the current drumbeat marching us undeterred towards our fourth instance of presidential impeachment proceedings. This fourth instance (out of 45 presidents) seems like a drama we have already seen before, a repeat of history with minimal rewrites of the script. Consider the following:

1. The President:
1974: Republican President Richard M. Nixon (RMN).
2019: Republican President Donald J. Trump (DJT).

2. The President’s Goal:
RMN: To obtain political dirt on his reelection Democratic opponent, George McGovern.
DJT: To obtain political dirt on a leading reelection Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

In both instances, the central issue was/is about using illegal “dirty tricks” to win reelection.

3. The Crime:
RMN: The break-in and wiretapping of the DNC headquarters (June 1972), and using the power of the federal government to cover it up for two years.
DJT: Soliciting help from a foreign leader in generating political dirt, coerced by illegally withholding Congressionally-mandated military aid to that leader, and using the power of the federal government to cover it up (April October, 2019)

4. The Perpetrators:
RMN: His reelection committee; Howard Hunt, Gordon Liddy, several Cuban freedom fighters.
DJT: His personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, multiple Ukrainians (foreign and naturalized citizens) now under indictment.

5. Principal Enablers:
RMN: Aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman, ex-AG Mitchell, Acting FBI Director Gray; other staffers.
DJT: Secretary of State Pompeo, Acting Chief of Staff/Director OMB Mulvaney; AG Barr; various other staffers.

6. The Congressional Investigation:
RMN: Senate Watergate Committee, conducted on a bipartisan basis. Assisted by Special Prosecutor appointed by Department of Justice.
DJT: Joint House Intelligence Committee (lead), Foreign Affairs Committee, Oversight Committee, but not conducted on a bipartisan basis. No special prosecutor made available by DOJ for House committees; seeking the details of the prosecutorial work of Robert Mueller.

7. Revealing The Inside Story – Breaking Through The Wall Of Silence:
RMN: John Dean; Jeb Magruder; Alexander Butterfield; others then followed.
DJT: An unnamed CIA whistleblower; Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch; Ambassador William Taylor; others then following.

8. The Guilty  Confession (“The Smoking Gun”):
RMN: The “White House tapes,” recorded in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and Nixon’s private office.
DJT: The “notes” of Trump’s phone call to Ukraine president. (Official transcript remains hidden on private server and unreleased.)

9. The Firings:
RMN: Fired his Attorney General (Elliot Richardson), the Deputy Attorney AG (William Ruckelshaus) in order to force the Solicitor General (Robert Bork) to fire the investigating Special Prosecutor (Archibald Cox) pressing for the release of the White House tapes. The pushback was so strong that Bork appointed Leon Jaworksi as replacement Prosecutor, who then continued (successfully) to go after the tapes. (The “Saturday Night Massacre.”)
DJT: Has fired more of his appointees at this point in his term than any other president to this date, including numerous senior members of the DOJ, FBI and CIA who have not supported his defense claims.

10. The Stonewalling:
RMN: Fought turning over any documents under “executive privilege,” until overruled by the courts. Tapes turned over by Supreme Court ruling.
DJT: Citing “executive privilege,” fighting turning over any documents; forbidding any Executive Branch testimony (people testifying anyway); claiming a president cannot be subject to ANY step in the judicial process (including being investigated); claiming impeachment process itself is illegal; appealing (mostly losing) adverse court decisions.

11. The Impeachment Charges:
RMN: Charged with obstructing justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.
DJT: Likely to be the same; other charges potentially to be added.

12. The Outcome:
RMN: On July 30, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved three Articles of Impeachment and sent them to the House floor for a vote. On August 7, senior Republican Senators Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott, and Representative John Rhodes advised Nixon that he had no chance of surviving an impeachment vote by both political parties. Nixon resigned as President the next day, before the full House could formally vote on the Impeachment charges. President Gerald Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon of Nixon on September 8. In all, 69 associates of Nixon were indicted on various charges; 48 were found guilty. After his resignation, around 1/3rd of the American voters continued to express support for Richard Nixon.

DJT: To Be Determined.

*****

How this current impeachment process, or the election in November 2020, will ultimately work out is unknown. Virtually nothing has been foreseeable and expectable for the past three years. Will it follow historical precedent? Will it chart a brand new course? What is assured is that America’s structures will be further pulled apart, our relationships with each other will be even more deeply divided, and our country’s core values will be tested as never before. This course of events will prove unhealthy and dangerous regardless of one’s political views and positions, requiring years of deliberate work thereafter to set right. In the end, will facts, the rule of law, and our principles of Constitutional government prevail? The jury is literally still out on these critical questions.


©   2019   Randy Bell               https://ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com


Friday, October 4, 2019

Invitation To Impeachment


For months, Donald Trump taunted Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats by daring them to impeach him. When the day came that Pelosi decided to open an Inquiry into his conduct, Trump was surprised and caught entirely flatfooted in his response. His surprise was somewhat surprising itself, because Trump is inevitably his own worst enemy and brings most of his bad press on himself. In this case, if he wanted to start an impeachment inquiry into himself, he certainly took the steps necessary to do just that.

Step 1: Announce in a nationally broadcast interview for all to see and hear that, if offered political dirt (“oppo research”) on an opponent by a foreign entity (ILLEGAL), you would certainly take it, and “maybe” tell the FBI after you reviewed it.

Step 2: On a phone call, solicit help from a foreign leader to dig up political dirt on a potential political opponent in your 2020 reelection campaign. It is a CRIME for foreigners to involve themselves in a U.S. election – as well as to request such involvement from them.

Step 3: Add emphasis to your request by holding up Congressionally budgeted and authorized foreign aid until that leader “plays ball” with your requested help. Congress has the exclusive power to appropriate taxpayer funds per the Constitution. Holding up (or redirecting) such funding, as well as hiding that fact from Congress, is Constitutionally ILLEGAL. Trading that funding as an inducement for that leader to commit an illegal action is somewhere between Extortion and/or Bribery – a CRIME.

Step 4: Hide the evidence of your criminal conversation with that foreign leader. Hiding or destroying evidence of criminal conduct is a CRIME of cover-up. Misclassifying the security level of the transcript of your phone call in order to further hide evidence is a CRIME.

Step 5: When a whistleblower reports your criminal activity through established and protected legal channels, threaten to a) disclose his/her identity, and b) retaliate &/or arrest &/or execute that person. Threatening a whistleblower with exposure and/or retaliation is a CRIME.

Step 6: Threaten those persons who gave information to the whistleblower with similar retaliation / arrest / execution for being “spies.” Attempting to influence testimony, tamper with or block witnesses from testifying freely and honestly in court or to Congress is a CRIME.

Step 7: Assert “executive privilege” to keep administration personnel from revealing actions, or conversations, about illegal activity. Similar to the restriction on attorney-client privilege, if the conversation is in regard to the commission of a crime, the right to executive privilege is VOID.

Step 8: Accuse the whistleblower of being a “partisan hack” driven by political motives, and basing his/her accusation on “2nd-hand knowledge”(i.e. hearsay). Then release your own “Notes” from the phone conversation that corroborates the whistleblower’s accusations nearly 100%. If the accusation is proven true, it does not matter what the whistleblower’s motivation was or what was the source of the allegation. The only relevant issue is that you admitted to being GUILTY as accused.

Step 9: Extend a web of conspiracy to achieve this political “dirt digging” objective by referring the foreign leader to various personnel within the U.S. State Department as well as the U.S. Attorney General for follow-up. Government employees are prohibited from doing political campaign work on business time; to do so is a CRIME. Assisting anyone in the commission of a crime is also a CRIME.

Step 10: Send your unpaid “personal attorney,” who is not a government employee and was supposedly hired to defend you against the Mueller investigation, overseas to work out with relevant people the details of the foreign political interference. Non-governmental, private citizens who purport to be acting for the government and seek to conduct foreign policy affairs with other countries are committing a CRIME.

Beyond the above CRIMINAL steps, not all bad decisions are a crime. Sometimes those bad decisions are just plain stupid.

Stupid 1: For three months, wage a reasonably successful media campaign to convince your base voters that the Mueller Report (erroneously) “exonerated” you from colluding with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. Then do a national television interview and say you would absolutely accept opposition research from a foreign power even though it would be ILLEGAL – such illegality supposedly made clear to you at the time. (See Step1 above.)

Stupid 2: Two months later, actually solicit such dirt from a different foreign leader, and then confirm that in your phone call Notes. This essentially said to American voters that, “I got away with it once. Why not do it again?” This arrogance made the allegation of 2016 cooperation with the Russians all the more plausible – if not likely.

Stupid 3: Continue to deny that Russia took actions to help with your 2016 election. The entire American intelligence community – along with several foreign intelligence agencies – as well as the Senate Intelligence Committee have all agreed that Russia did so. Your continued rejection of their conclusions, and (mis-)using the Attorney General of the United States to discredit all of these agencies, only confirms voters’ doubts about your intentions and your inexplicable continued fealty to Vladimir Putin. However it happened, you won the 2016 election. Declare victory once and for all and move on. Trying to rerun the 2016 election is likely to defeat you in the 2020 election.

*****

It is truly sad, even if somewhat inevitable, that the last three years have brought us to this place. This impeachment inquiry is not just a matter of Donald Trump. There are many other casualties that are, and will be, caught up and hurt in this event. One is American democracy and our shared citizenship. Another are the various civil servants across the government who have been, or will be, dragged into this. Some will be innocent of motivation, simply trying to do their jobs as they know it, with their reputation shattered nonetheless. They deserve our compassion. Others will be active perpetrators, blinded by ambition for power and fame, their reputations deservedly shattered.

The biggest loser is Ukraine and Europe. For around 70 years, America has been the backbone of European peace and security – to our great benefit – by its NATO commitment to aid others if they are attacked. That commitment was extended to Ukraine on a bipartisan basis in 2014 when it was attacked by Russia. It is a “hot war” that Ukraine continues to fight to this day for its very existence. By his series of actions, Trump has pulled the rug out from  under Ukraine in favor of satisfying Vladimir Putin. That alarming message to Ukraine and Europe – that America no longer has your back and can no longer be counted upon – will take years to correct. That is the biggest loss of all.

Taking all of the above together, this is why the Impeachment Inquiry is underway. Mr. Trump, you asked for this. You created the means for this. You got what you wished for. Now what?


©    2019   Randy Bell            https://ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com