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 1/3^rd 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

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 “2^nd-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

Mueller And His Investigation

On Friday, March 23, 2019, Robert Mueller finished what he was charged to do, which was a portion – not everything – of a vast, far-reaching series of investigations. He turned over a report recapping what he did, and (perhaps explicitly or implicitly) what he did not do, and what conclusions he formed from that investigation. With the submission of that report, the investigation moved out of his hands.

This report was always destined to be a letdown for its political and mass audiences. Some portion of that audience was hoping to get a secret spy story competing with Hollywood’s best. Others wanted a roll call of lawbreakers – national and international – to be brought to justice at the public docks. Still others were waiting for vindication of their political hero, at long last defeating his antagonists with a vindictive “I told you so.” In the end, none of these scripts worked out as anticipated. So what do we truly know?

1. Only a few DOJ officials have actually seen “The Mueller Report.” The rest of us have seen the “Attorney General Barr” report – Barr’s four-page personal summary of Mueller’s findings. We know what Barr says did/did not happen; we have no substantiated idea what Mueller actually found. Beyond Barr’s four pages, all else is factually unknown. Given that Mueller’s report is reputed to be greater than 300 pages long, it is perhaps a concern that Barr could properly summarize it in just 36 hours after receiving it.

2. The official narrow charge to Robert Mueller was a) to investigate whether Russia operatives interfered with our 2016 election, and if so, b) whether members of the Trump campaign conspired with them to effect that interference. If other areas of wrong-doing were discovered in the course of his investigation, he was free to follow that trail and to refer such matters over to regular DOJ offices for follow-up (as apparently happened with Michael Cohen), but such avenues were not his focus. The exception to this scope was the added question of c) did Donald Trump commit “obstruction of justice” by seeking to undermine, impede, or block Mueller’s pursuit of his investigation.

3. According to the Barr report, Mueller concluded that: a) yes, Russia did interfere. Almost three dozen indictments of Russians confirmed that conclusion; b) no definitive evidence was found that Trump campaign officials criminally conspired with the Russians to commit that interference; c) whether Trump committed “obstruction of justice” was left unanswered – with both yes/no evidence being found, the question was deferred to the Attorney General to decide to answer. Barr  has said no; whether that answer is based on the evidence, or the DOJ’s 1974 internal opinion (now policy, not law) against indicting a sitting president, is not clear. (See previous essay, “Indicting A Sitting President,” March 9, 2019, on this blogsite.)

4. Trump seized upon the Barr report as definitive, and as usual, immediately lied about the findings. Trump correctly noted that Barr’s report exonerated him with about Russian collusion, but he also claimed that it cleared him of obstruction – which it most certainly did not. Barr has said he will not prosecute Trump on that charge, but has not clarified the basis of that decision. (Always playing the victim, Trump went one step further and lied that the entire investigation was illegal, which it most certainly was not.)

5. All of this ambiguity reinforces the need to release Mueller’s full report and supportive evidence, consistent with legitimate concerns of national security and grand jury secrecy. Given Barr’s views of the laws and power applicable to the presidency, as well as his written advance judgement about the investigation, he should have recused himself from its oversight. Coming into the investigation after the fact, appointed by the President being investigated – a President who has consistently demonstrated minimal respect for the law or DOJ/FBI agencies – makes Barr a non-credible interpreter of the Mueller investigation.

6. Congress has requested a copy of the original Muller report and supporting investigative materials, stating that Barr’s summary is inadequate for proper information, assessment, and potential Congressional follow-up. In his confirmation hearing, Barr committed to sharing the full report for “transparency,” consistent with “confidentiality requirements and applicable law.” This release needs to happen. It is reasonable that a review of the extensive background materials will take some time, but “all deliberate speed” should be the priority given the degree of unhelpful speculation that arises out of the silence.

7. The troubling concern from this “conclusion” of the Mueller investigation is the seeming many loose ends and unanswered questions that remain from this process, and therefore what may come next – or need to come next.

- It has been publicly acknowledged that several Trump campaign and/or transition officials (e.g. Flynn, Don Jr., Kushner, Stone) had conversations with Russian officials. If these conversations were so innocuous and non-conspiratorial, then why did so many lie so frequently about them?

- There are several investigations and indictments over Russian interference that are in process or not yet concluded by Mueller (e.g. Flynn, Stone, Butina). What will happen to these, and who will complete these actions? Barr has provided no guidance regarding these outstanding processes.

- Clearly some investigations have been handed off to, or initiated by, various DOJ offices. These cases cover a wide range of issues beyond Mueller’s original narrow charge. It is assumed that these cases will continue, including those with “sitting president” complications. Again, the guidance or decisions will Barr make regarding these legal processes is unknown.

- There are also federal and state investigations and lawsuits regarding the defunct Trump Foundation, Trump Company real estate dealings (tax, insurance and bank fraud), Emolument Clause violations, and campaign finance violations against Trump and others. These also need to run their course. The to-do list remains long.

- What ongoing, or new, investigations are occurring within the various field offices, out of the public view, that we do not even know about?

The most disturbing thing about this end-of-investigation phase, and the assessment thereof, is this: how can a top-level FBI investigation conclude that there was no Trump campaign/Russia collusion, or no obstruction of justice regarding that investigation, yet never have interviewed the key campaign players of Don, Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and Jerod? Or, for that matter, a live interview with Trump himself? Or, since supposedly agents/prosecutors usually interview only witnesses, not the “targets” of an investigation, is a different supposition warranted?

In the meantime, as this follow-up period unfolds, House Democrats should pursue legitimate investigations of potential wrongdoing. However, they need to focus their scope towards truly primary issues, not overreach and scattershot their energies. (The Senate should be doing the same thing, but this will not happen under the blind-eye rule of Mitch McConnell.) In the meantime, Congress should remember that there is a government to run, and a citizenry to serve – all of which has been done very badly the last several years. If Democrats – or much of the country – are looking to remove Trump from being the President, impeachment is not a feasible option (unless some far more damaging and convincing evidence surfaces). It must happen at the 2020 ballot box, and simply running an anti-Trump campaign will not be sufficient to win that election.

We need to deal with facts – both from the past and those still to come – not the speculation. The presidential storm may have paused, but it is far from done. Only one of many investigations has concluded; there are legitimate and necessary other investigations that need to continue. There is still far more to come, and it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. Stay tuned.

©   2019   Randy Bell             www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com