Monthly Archives: November 2019

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‘Jury tampering’ mixes with political necessity

I have laid out already the notion that the president of the United States, while launching a charm offensive with potential U.S. Senate trial “jurors,” might have committed an act of jury tampering.

However, I also am enough of a realist to understand that presidents who seek to govern effectively need to talk to legislators about the enactment of bills that become the law of the land.

Thus, Donald Trump is facing a serious governance quandary as he awaits the near-certain impeachment of him by the U.S. House of Representatives. The House then would hand it off to the Senate, which will put the president on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Trump met with GOP senators this week to talk about the impeachment trial that is sure to occur. What did he discuss? Did he seek to persuade them to stand by him? That sounds like jury tampering to me.

However, what about their legislative initiative? Or the president’s legislative agenda? Or the agendas awaiting action by Republicans and, oh yes, Democrats in the Senate?

Were the president to invite senators to the White House to discuss those issues — and stay far away from the impeachment trial that will be looming soon in the Senate — well, that would be OK with me.

That, of course, requires that the president understand how government works and how he must be able to compartmentalize the issues that lay before him. President Clinton was able to do that when the House impeached him in 1998. This president is consumed by the impeachment battle and it is getting in the way of him doing the job to which he was elected.

Sigh …

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Is this a case of ‘jury tampering’?

Hey, hold on for just a minute or maybe two!

The House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach the president of the United States in connection with allegations that he solicited a personal political favor from a foreign government. Once the House approves the impeachment articles, the matters goes to the Senate, which then will have a trial.

Why, then, is Donald Trump schmoozing with “jurors” who will have to weigh the evidence presented to them and decide whether to convict him of assorted high crimes and misdemeanors.

Trump launched a charm offensive by inviting some Republican senators to the White House. He talked with them — privately, of course. Some of those GOP lawmakers include at least a couple of them who might be inclined to want to convict the president. I refer to Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine. Hey, there might be a lame-duck GOP senator in the mix, too.

I know it’s not a fully legal proceeding that the Senate will launch. It’s a political one, steeped in partisanship. However, some legal principles are brought into play here. One of them surely must be this quaint idea that “defendants” shouldn’t “tamper” with the jury pool.

The Senate’s 100 members are going to serve as jurors in this upcoming trial. The Republican members need not hear sweet nothings whispered into their ears by the Republican president whose conduct in office has brought us to this sorry and sad chapter of our nation’s political life.

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If I had an impeachment vote, I would …

… Vote to impeach Donald John Trump, the president of the United States.

I managed to watch a lot of the impeachment inquiry hearings that the House Democrats brought into our living rooms. I didn’t see all of it. I mean, I do have a life and I had to run some errands and do some other things that pulled me away from the TV set.

But I’ve heard enough to believe that Trump has committed at least two impeachable offenses.

He sought that political favor from Ukraine’s government; that favor would allow for Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 election, just as Russia did in 2016 when it sought to engineer Donald Trump’s election as president.

Trump sought that favor to bring down the political fortunes of Joe Biden, who well might be a 2020 opponent facing Trump.

That’s one impeachable offense.

He has sought to obstruct justice by prohibiting key White House aides from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was a no-show when subpoenaed by the Intelligence panel; so was former White House counsel Don McGahn.

That’s another potentially impeachable offense.

Trump has lied repeatedly throughout the impeachment inquiry. Now we hear that House Democrats want to examine whether he lied to former special counsel Robert Mueller during his probe into “collusion” regarding the Russian attack on our election in 2016. Trump provided written answers to questions from Mueller’s team. Was he truthful? Or did he commit perjury?

Yep, that’s impeachable offense No. 3 … maybe.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff noted passionately today that the “day after” Mueller filed his report that effectively cleared Trump of colluding with Russia, the president telephoned Ukraine to ask the favor that has gotten him into trouble now.

Schiff said that act provides evidence that Trump believes he is “above the law” and said there is nothing more dangerous than to have a president who holds that view.

If I had a vote on whether to impeach Donald Trump, I would vote “yes” to send this matter to the U.S. Senate, where the president will stand trial.

I have heard enough to persuade me of what I have suspected of the president all along.

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Painful to acknowledge … but ex-VP Biden likely is finished

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It hurts to say what I am about to say, but here goes.

As much as I like and admire Joseph R. Biden Jr., I am concluding that his time has past and that he is not the right man at this time to become the next president of the United States.

The former vice president remains the frontrunner for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. To be honest, I do not yet know how I will vote when the Democratic primary parade rolls into Texas in the spring. Biden’s presence on the ballot likely will complicate my choice.

I have become afflicted with a bit of “joint candidate appearance fatigue,” which means I did not watch the latest one Wednesday night. I have heard about Joe Biden’s latest gaffe, when he said he has earned the endorsement of the “only” African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate; he was referring, I presume, to former Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun … but she isn’t the only one elected. The other African-American female senator stood on the podium along with Biden; her name is Kamala Harris.

This kind of stumble-bum rhetoric is grating on me. I don’t doubt Biden’s mental acuity. I believe he remains intellectually intact. I also believe he gets too worked up, too excited, wound too tightly to offer measured and reasonable pronouncements at all times.

I believe Democrats should nominate someone on what I would describe as the center-left portion of the spectrum. That would be Biden. Except that he keeps tripping over his own tongue. I do not want that in the next president.

I once posited that Democrats need to look for a newcomer, someone who jumps out of the tall grass, someone no one had heard of before the start of the current election cycle. That someone also should stand toward the center, but lean a bit left.

The individual who seems to fit that bill is Pete Buttigieg. He is intellectually sharp; he is a political moderate; he has executive experience as the mayor of a smallish American city; he is veteran who has served in a war zone.

I don’t want a flaming lefty. I don’t want a socialist, or a “democratic socialist” or someone who is trying to make some sort of a statement to be nominated and then elected. Nor do I want yet another billionaire business mogul.

We have a long road to travel. There will be plenty of twists, turns perhaps even a crackup or two along the way.

Perhaps the former veep can pull it together. However, the seeds of doubt are beginning to sprout.

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Discussion and debate over Trump crimes has become futile

It is crystal clear to me that we have crossed a line as this saga over Donald Trump’s conduct as president of the United States is playing out.

The line defines the terms over which both sides can debate and discuss the merits of the argument over whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

I believe he has committed multiple impeachable offenses. I believe he deserves to be kicked out of office. However … I am not going to have a vote in either of those decisions, other than being able to vote for or against the elected representatives who will make that decision ostensibly on my behalf.

U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Plano and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas are up for re-election in 2020. How I cast my vote in the election next year well might depend exclusively on how they vote on Trump’s impeachment and Senate trial. They’re both Republicans; they both have defended the president against the onslaught of the evidence.

Do you get my drift here?

But I am going to continue to speak out through this blog, which I distribute on various social media platforms. I likely won’t seek to change anyone’s mind. I realize at this point in this drama that folks’ minds are made up, they have dug in, they won’t be swayed to change by those on the other side of the great divide.

As I told a High Plains Blogger critic who challenged my lack of discussion on this impeachment matter, I already suffer from high blood pressure; I take a mild medicine to curb it. I do not need to t have my BP spike over angry exchanges.

I am not enjoying this process as it is.

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After impeachment, then what? An election!

I am quite able to accept the notion that once the House impeaches Donald Trump over abuse of power, violation of his oath, bribery, extortion and assorted other high crimes and misdemeanors that the Senate is likely to keep him in office.

Then what?

The president can campaign for re-election in 2020 as the only individual ever to seek a second term under the cloud of impeachment. How do you think that will play?

It then likely would fall on whoever runs against him to make the case that Trump encompasses, in fact, all the traits laid out in the articles of impeachment. He is ignorant of government; he is self-serving, self-aggrandizing and self-indulgent; he denigrates dedicated public servants; he is corrupt to the core.

Is that what we want in our president, in our head of state, in our commander in chief? Of course not! Then again, I don’t need to be persuaded of any of it. I have believed it since the moment the Reality TV Celebrity in Chief rode down the Trump Tower escalator and declared (a) that he would run for president and that (b) Mexicans are rapists, drug dealers and murderers.

Perhaps the speaker of the House was right all along. Trump won’t be kicked out of office by a Senate conviction because the GOP majority lacks the courage to do the right thing; so it falls on the voters to remove him on Nov. 3, 2020 when they cast their ballots for president.

The impeachment inquiry is going to lead to an impeachment. I have reversed myself on that matter. It should proceed. I have heard enough from the witnesses who have talked publicly to the House Intelligence Committee.

Donald Trump is even more unfit for the presidency than he was when he entered the 2016 campaign. He needs to be defeated. Trump needs to evicted from the White House and sent home to Mar-a-Lago, where his heart has belonged all along anyway.

I say this believing that Senate Republicans will hold firm against the tide that will impeach the president. That’s my view today.

There well might be a glimmer of hope, though, that lightning will strike and that GOP senators can be persuaded by their “bosses” at home that they need to suck it up, step up and stand for the Constitution they took an oath to protect and defend.

It’s only a glimmer but … one never knows.

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Maloney channels Jordan

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney got rough and tough today with Gordon Sondland. The New York Democrat asked the U.S. ambassador to the European Union “who would benefit” from an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Sondland was a witness at the impeachment inquiry hearing being conducted by the House Intelligence Committee. So, Maloney asked the question. He asked it repeatedly. Maloney’s voice became brusque. He bristled at Sondland’s initial semi-response.

I watched the exchange today and, to be honest, it made me uncomfortable. Then I recalled what I have witnessed from the get-go from a member of the Republican lineup on the committee, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

Jordan was brought onto the committee to act — as I see it — as the designated hatchet man for the GOP House minority. He has been roughing up witnesses throughout the impeachment inquiry process, not to mention tossing insults at his Democratic committee colleagues, including Chairman Adam Schiff.

So, was Maloney totally out of line today? Maybe at some level. Sondland said he had testified in good faith to the committee, but Maloney wasn’t taking that bait. He mentioned that Sondland’s initial closed-door testimony didn’t go well and that he had to issue a clarification of what he said initially.

“I appreciate your candor,” Maloney said in a near-shout at Sondland, “but look what it took to get it out of ya.”

As a spectator with an admitted bias about these proceedings, I am left to suggest only that Sean Maloney was channeling his colleague Jim Jordan. He was dishing out just a little of what Jordan has been delivering all along.

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Corruption, Mr. President? That really concerns you?

Donald J. Trump’s proclaimed interest in rooting out government corruption around the world rings about as hollow as anything the president has declared since he entered the political world.

Trump has asserted that corruption in Ukraine was at the root of his concern over former Vice President Joe Biden’s business concerns and those of his son, Hunter. It was corruption that prompted the president to ask the Ukrainian president for help in investigating the Bidens before he would release money for weapons that Congress had appropriated for use by Ukraine in its struggle against Russia-backed rebel forces.

Oh … really?

Let’s take a quick look at some indisputable facts.

  • Russia is among the most corrupt nations on Earth. Strongman Vladimir Putin orders the killing of those who oppose him. He runs the nation with an iron fist. Organized crime has run rampant ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Where is Donald Trump’s outrage there? Once again, why hasn’t the president condemned the Russians for their blatant and malicious attack on our electoral system in 2016 and their effort to do the same thing, or maybe worse, in 2020?
  •  Turkey also is corrupt. It also is run by a strongman. It has slaughtered Kurds along its border with Syria and Iraq; and the Kurds have been allied with the United States in the never-ending struggle to put down the Islamic State.
  •  North Korea is the world’s pariah state. It is a chief sponsor of international terrorism. Kim Jong Un orders the murder of opponents. His government allows mass starvation of North Koreans. Has the U.S. president ever tied his “love affair” with Kim Jong Un with demands to bolster human rights?

All of this just touches the outlines of corruption in governments on every continent on Earth. Why has the president remained silent on the issue … until now?

It’s more than just a wild coincidence, it seems to me, that Donald Trump’s interest in “Ukrainian corruption” just happens to involve business dealings concerning a potential political rival; that would be Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Donald Trump is no more interested in curbing corruption than he is in apologizing for defaming his fellow Americans.

He is a disgrace.

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Sondland brings it, but won’t change many GOP minds

Gordon Sondland brought it today to the House Intelligence Committee.

He said Donald Trump linked aid to Ukraine with a personal political favor. Sondland said everyone within earshot knew it. He has confirmed what has been reported for months: that Trump asked a foreign government for personal political help and put our nation’s security at risk by withholding weapons slated for Ukraine, which uses them in its war with Russian-backed rebels.

There. That said, I have some bad news to offer. The U.S. ambassador to the European Union’s testimony today likely did not change many — if any — Republican minds on whether to impeach the president, let alone remove him from office.

This is the huge hurdle facing those in the House who want to impeach the president. No matter how many witnesses they trot out to implicate Trump in what I believe are impeachable offenses, the Republicans who serve in the House and Senate remain locked in to their fealty to a president who likely doesn’t give a rat’s tush about any of them individually.

What might move the needle? I suppose these lawmakers will need to hear from their constituents back home. Perhaps there might be enough of their “bosses,” the voters in their states or congressional districts, who will express appropriate outrage at what the nation is hearing in these public impeachment inquiry hearings.

I am left simply shaking my head.

Gordon Sondland told the nation what many of us knew already. That Donald Trump’s transactional philosophy has put the nation in peril. Why? Because he was interested in digging up dirt on political foes and doesn’t give a flying crap about corruption in Ukraine. 

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Will he resign or stay … and get pummeled?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly wants to serve in the U.S. Senate. How does he do that if he is serving in the Donald Trump administration? Obviously, he cannot.

He also is being dragged feet first into the impeachment inquiry sausage grinder that has cranked up in the House of Representatives.

Pompeo hails from Kansas. He once served in the House from that state. Sen. Pat Roberts is retiring at the end of 2020. Pompeo wants to succeed him.

Does he stay on at State or does he enter the campaign from Kansas? He ought to run for the Senate. I don’t believe he needs to be elected from that state, given that I believe he has disserved his fellow diplomats at State. How? By not standing behind one of his more stellar ambassadors, Marie Yovanovitch, who has been smeared by Donald Trump, who fired her from her post as ambassador to Ukraine.

The impeachment inquiry is getting messy for Pompeo. He now has been revealed to have been in on that phone call Trump made to Ukraine’s president in which he asked for a favor in return for weapons sent to Ukraine to use against rebels backed by Russia.

Yahoo.com reported that Pompeo wants out, that he wants to run for the Senate. The State Department denies it … naturally!

Since the denial comes from the Trump administration, I cannot accept it at face value.

I tend to believe the reports that Donald Trump is going to look for the third secretary of state who is willing to endure the misery the president seems all too willing to inflict on those he selects to serve.