Tag Archives: US Constitution

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Former acting AG: ‘Abuse of power is not a crime’

I am not a lawyer; nor do I portray one on TV.

However, I have read the U.S. Constitution. I have been following the Donald Trump impeachment saga with considerable interest. So, when a former U.S. attorney general says “Abuse of power is not a crime,” I am left to scratch my noggin and wonder: How did this guy become — if only briefly — the nation’s top law enforcement official?

Matthew Whitaker, a staunch defender of Donald J. Trump, said in public that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t specify that abuse of power is a crime. Therefore, according to Whitaker, the grounds for impeaching Trump are, um, without basis.

According to Salon: Invoking the Constitution, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker claimed that “abuse of power is not a crime” as he rushed to President Donald Trump’s defense after the nation’s top envoy to Ukraine testified to Congress that Trump had withheld military aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigating his political opponents.

“I’m a former prosecutor and what I know is this is a perfect time for preliminary hearings where you would say show us your evidence,” he told (talk show host Laura) Ingraham. “What evidence of a crime do you have? So the Constitution — abuse of power is not a crime.”

Oh, my. Yes, it’s a crime.

Salon points out the obvious fact of history, which is that President Nixon would have been impeached on an abuse of power count; except that he resigned before the House could impeach him. Moreover, one of the House’s counts against President Clinton, who it did impeach, included, um, abuse of power.

So, how does this “former prosecutor” assert that abuse of power is not a crime and, therefore, is not an impeachable offense?

Donald Trump has abused the power of his office by seeking foreign government help in his re-election bid. He has abused the power of his office by firing an FBI director because he was conducting an investigation into the “Russia thing.”

I don’t have a legal background. However, I know a crime when I see one. I believe Donald Trump’s abuse of power is a crime for which he can be impeached and, by all means, removed from office.

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This impeachment inquiry is legit; let it proceed

Efforts to subvert, undermine, torpedo, derail and discredit the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s presidency are shooting blanks.

The inquiry launched by a formerly reluctant House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are rooted in the belief among House Democrats that Trump has committed impeachable offenses. That he has violated his constitutional oath. That he has broken federal law. That he has besmirched and belittled the high office he occupies. That he has abused his power and that he has obstructed the pursuit of justice.

All of these matters are serious and all of them are being pursued legitimately.

They are not intended, as Republican critics have suggested, to “overturn” the results of the 2016 presidential election. Trump will be recorded forever as the victor in that campaign, given that he won enough Electoral College votes to take the oath of office.

It has been the revelations that are coming out now that have created this concern among congressional Democrats.

His seeking political favors from a foreign government; his search for political dirt on his opponents; his efforts to obstruct the investigation into whether he colluded with Russians in the 2016 campaign; his incessant lying about who he knows or doesn’t know with regard to the Ukrainian matter; his request that China and other foreign powers investigate political foes here at home.

These are serious matters even if the House were to consider them separately. Taken together, they amount to a huge body of evidence against the president.

Then we had that ridiculous effort to censure House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for reciting an obvious parody of the conversation Trump had with the Ukrainian president. They have bellowed that Schiff misrepresented what Trump said. Hello? Anyone listening to Schiff’s comments in real time knew in the moment that he was spoofing the president.

Donald Trump is likely to be impeached by the House. It might come before Thanksgiving. Then the Senate will conduct its trial. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t want to drag it out. He wants it disposed of sooner rather than later. He doesn’t want it to linger into the election year. I agree with the leader on that matter. Get it done quickly!

But as President Ford said when he took office on Aug. 9, 1974 after President Nixon quit in the midst of another scandal: “Our Constitution works.”

It did then. It is working now. Let the House do its job … just as the Constitution prescribes.

national news

Where are the ‘strict constructionists’?

I am bewildered.

Donald Trump took time today to belittle the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution, contained in the very first article of our nation’s governing document. He called it “phony.”

By bewilderment rests with the shocking non-response, the stone-cold silence among the president’s staunchest defenders  who in other arguments have argued on behalf of what they say should be a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. They are the “strict constructionists” who accept the founders’ work as the law of the land. There can be little if any deviation from what they wrote, these Trump defenders would contend.

Why, though, are they silent on the president’s denigrating of the founders’ words? The Emoluments Clause was written to prevent presidents from profiting during their time in office. They should accept no gifts or favors from “kings, princes or foreign governments.”

Yet there was the president, granting his own business — Trump Doral National Country Club — an expensive government contract to play host to the 2020 G7 summit of industrialized nations. Would he have profited from this event? Well … yeah. Bigly!

OK, he pulled it back after Republicans and Democrats alike condemned the decision to bring the G7 to Doral.

But then the president today blamed the media and Democrats for the pushback that erupted. That’s when he called the Emoluments Clause “phony.”

I have been waiting all day to hear from leading conservative politicians in Congress condemn the president in stark terms for his denigration of the constitutional provision. It is no phony document. It is real. It is vital. It is intended to prevent presidential corruption — although that last item clearly has taken deep and serious root in our executive branch of government.

The only “phony” aspect of this entire discussion, in my view, is linked to the idiocy that continues to pour out of the mouth of the president.

This individual is a disgrace.

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Mr. POTUS, there’s nothing ‘phony’ about the Emoluments Clause

Pay attention to me, please, Mr. President.

Your White House rant today about the “phony Emoluments Clause” compels to defend what the nation’s founders had in mind when they wrote that item into the U.S. Constitution.

They intended to prohibit the president from profiting during his time in office. Your initial decision to host the G7 summit of industrialized nations at your glitzy Trump Doral National Country Club was in direct violation of the Emoluments Clause.

You see, you cannot award yourself a government contract, which is what you sought to do. You cannot direct government business onto your privately owned, for-profit property, where foreign governments are going to pour millions of dollars into your pocket.

Good grief, Mr. President! There can be no clearer violation of the Emoluments Clause than that.

And yet your blaming of the media and Democrats and your insistence that President Obama somehow profited from a book deal while he was in office steers the discussion away from your own responsibility to do right by the office you occupy. While I’m at it, I need to wonder out loud whether you’ll ever get over your “hate affair” with your immediate predecessor.

And just to be clear, Barack Obama signed his book deal after he left office. It’s a non-starter, Mr. President.

We have a big country out there, Mr. President. It is endowed richly with many fine resorts to play host to the G7 summit. None of them has a single thing to do with your business interests.

Why in the name of presidential due diligence can’t you get your “fine-tuned” White House staff to find a spot that would serve as a fitting venue for this event next year? Moreover, why can’t you just do the right thing without making a mess out of it?

The Emoluments Clause isn’t “phony,” Mr. President. It is real and it is a legitimate hedge against presidential corruption … which I am certain is why you’re in such trouble at this moment.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump shows his ignorance one more astonishing time

Wow! That was a wild 72 hours in the world of Donald J. “King of Hospitality” Trump.

He announced plans, via Twitter, to play host to the G7 summit of industrialized nations at his Doral Country Club in south Florida, a decision that clearly violates the Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution.

Then he announces, again via Twitter, that he’s changed his mind. He won’t host the summit there. He’ll look for another suitable location.

Does that make it all better now? Is the president clear of impeachable offenses? Uhh, no. He’s not.

The Emoluments Clause bans the president from benefiting from his public office. Hosting the G7 summit at Doral would have lined his pockets considerably, given that he never divested himself of his many business interests after becoming president. There are the other matters still to be considered, though, regarding probable impeachment by the House of Representatives. We’ll get to those another time.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney went on Fox News this morning to say Trump was “surprised” at the pushback. No surprise there. Trump’s ignorance of constitutional matters is well-known and well-chronicled.

Mulvaney said Trump still considers himself in the “hospitality business” and wants to put on the best show possible for the foreign dignitaries. But he’s the president of the United States, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace reminded him. Mulvaney said hospitality is part of Trump’s “background.” Yeah. Let’s move on.

The United States of America is full of resorts that could play host to this event. Here’s a thought: How about Camp David, the official presidential retreat tucked in the Maryland mountains not far from the D.C. hustle and bustle? Sure, Trump has said he considers Camp David to be a dump. However, it has been the site of many important gatherings.

What’s more, it is a publicly owned site reserved for presidents to relax and, yes, to welcome foreign dignitaries. It also has not a single thing to do with Donald Trump’s business empire.

Trump got the pushback he deserved when he made his initial Doral decision. No, it wasn’t, as he said on Twitter, the result of what he described as “Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility.”

It was based on Donald Trump’s utter incompetence and his expressed belief that he can do whatever the hell he wants, even if it flouts the U.S. Constitution.

national news

Simple, singular impeachment matter is getting complex

There goes the simple, narrowly focused articles of impeachment that the U.S. House of Representatives was likely to file against Donald J. Trump. What I thought would be a singular event is turning into something far more complex.

The House launched that impeachment inquiry based on the president’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zellenskiy in which he asked for help — allegedly — in getting re-elected. He also wanted some dirt on Joe Biden, a potential opponent in 2020.

Oh, boy. You can’t ask for that kinda help from foreign governments, Mr. President. It’s against the law and, um, the Constitution. It’s also an impeachable offense.

But wait! Now we have Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, being investigated by federal prosecutors over his conversations with Ukrainian officials regarding the president’s re-election campaign.

Oh, and then there’s the testimony about whether Trump sought a “quid pro quo” — with Trump getting something in return for the re-election help. That’s another no-no.

Trump seems to be coming unglued. His Twitter fingers are getting a serious workout. I heard something today about Trump sending out 33 tweets in 20 minutes over the weekend. Good grief, man! Doesn’t the president have actual work to do?

This kind of reminds me of a runaway grand jury, which judges sometimes impanel to look at evidence regarding specific crimes, but then launch into other matters that take investigations far afield.

Runaway grand juries occasionally produce blockbuster indictments. Might that be happening now? Hmm. I am thinking that’s possibly the case.

As for the impeachment timetable, it well might be pushed back a bit while various congressional committees pore through the mountain of evidence that is building and which well might doom the president.

Is this a happy time? Of course not! It is a sad time for the government, for the country or for Americans who are concerned about where this all leads us.

However, the House impeachment inquiry must proceed.

national news

Impeachment has nothing to do with success

Donald Trump keeps yapping and yammering the same thing repeatedly.

House Democrats “can’t impeach” a president who presides over the “best economy in history,” or someone who has managed to “restore and rebuild our military that had been depleted,” or is “making America great again.”

Actually, the House of Representatives can impeach a successful president. The House did that very thing in 1998 when it impeached President Clinton for far less than what is on the table today. Clinton lied to a grand jury about a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. That was all House Republicans needed to hear. They impeached the president, who then stood trial in the Senate, which acquitted him.

What were the presidential atmospherics at the time? Oh, let’s see: The president, working with a GOP-controlled Congress, managed to cobble together a balanced federal budget; private-sector payrolls were exploding; we were at peace, relatively speaking.

The House still impeached the president.

You see, the president’s job performance has not a damn thing to do with whether he deserves to be impeached.

I am more than willing to accept that Donald Trump has presided over a successful economic condition. However, the House is considering whether to impeach him over improper contacts he has had with foreign governments and whether he sought foreign help in his re-election effort and whether he has asked foreign governments for dirt he can toss on the campaign of a potential presidential foe, former Vice President Joe Biden.

I won’t argue whether the current economic prosperity is facing any risk of imploding. As I said, the economy is not the issue. Nor is world peace. Nor are any of the issues on which a president can claim credit.

Impeachment is a narrowly focused political exercise. Its aim is to determine whether a president has committed a “high crime and misdemeanor” while serving in the nation’s highest office. There appears to be ample evidence of the commission of such a transgression.

None of this will result in Donald Trump changing his tune. He’ll keep blathering about what a great job he has done, apparently thinking that enough Americans will buy into it and suggest that all that happy talk means it’s all right for a president to solicit foreign interference in our electoral process.

Actually, it isn’t all right. It is an offense worthy of impeachment, conviction and removal from office.

national news

Mr. POTUS, impeachment is quite ‘constitutional’

Donald Trump, as it has been noted repeatedly, doesn’t know what is in the U.S. Constitution.

Thus, when he complains that efforts aimed at impeaching him are “unconstitutional,” he merely reveals his utter ignorance of the nation’s founding document.

It’s in Article I, the part of the Constitution that lays out legislative responsibilities. It refers to how the Senate shall have the “sole responsibility” to try the president for crimes brought by a House impeachment. It’s near the end of Section 3. Really. It is!

And in Section 2, it says the House shall have the “sole power of impeachment.”

It states that impeachment shall reach no further than “removal from office” of the person being impeached. That includes the president. Yep. It’s in there, too.

So, there you have it. Donald Trump seems to believe the House is acting outside its constitutional authority.

Hmm. No. It isn’t. It is acting solely within its authority. It is following the letter of the law and of the Constitution.

The president needs to look at the document he swore to defend and protect. It’s not a difficult thing to do.

national news

Yes, it’s time to impeach the president of the United States

You may now count me as an American who has changed his mind on whether to impeach the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

I had been in the camp of those who said impeachment was a potential political loser. I had joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in digging in against impeaching Trump. Why not wait until the 2020 presidential election? Why allow the Democratically controlled House to impeach Trump, only to allow the Republican-controlled Senate to acquit him?

That’s all changed. In my view, the president has delivered impeachable offenses to the House and to the Senate.

We had that memo taken from the transcript of the phone call Trump had on July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zellenskiy, when Trump asked Zellenskiy for help in getting him re-elected. Oh, and then he asked for that “favor, though,” when he indicated he would withhold shipment of arms to Ukraine until after Zellenskiy did as Trump had asked.

The president is not allowed to seek foreign government assistance in that manner. It’s in the law. It is implied in the Constitution. Trump has broken the law and broken faith with the oath he took to defend the Constitution.

The House must not wait any longer than it needs to wait.

As for the Senate, I remain skeptical about that body’s collective courage, doubting senators will be able to muster the two-thirds majority it needs to convict the president and, thus, boot his sorry backside out of office.

Trump won’t cooperate with the House committees seeking information about what the president said and when and to whom he said it. He keeps insisting that he did nothing wrong, that his phone conversation with Zellenskiy was “perfect.” OK, then, why does he dig in and resist at every turn? Why does Trump insist that he didn’t ask Zellenskiy for dirt on a political foe, Joe Biden, when the memo already published suggests that he did that very thing?

He blasts the media, Democrats and even the few Republicans who’ve shown the guts to criticize the president. Trump says the impeachment drive is “illegitimate” and calls it an attempted “coup” to reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election.

Come on! The House is pursuing a legal attempt to hold the president accountable for his own acknowledged actions.

And then we have the whistleblower, acting under the protection of a law that aims to protect these individuals who reveal corruption in our government. One of them has filed a report with credible evidence that Trump has sought to use the power of his office for personal political gain. He or she has “indirect” knowledge. Then we hear about a second individual with “direct” knowledge of what already has been alleged.

Trump wants to reveal the identity of this individual, or both individuals. He is threatening them with the same punishment we hand out to those convicted of espionage.

If that isn’t witness tampering, or obstruction of justice or abuse of power then there is no standard that fits any of those misbehaviors.

Donald Trump needs to be impeached. The House needs to act with deliberate speed.

national news

‘Emoluments’ have become a matter of interpretation

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Donald Trump has violated his oath of office. I stand by that assertion and will continue to stand by it for as long as I am able to stand by anything.

But I have received a fair question from someone who commented on a recent blog post. The question, in part, asks this:

“[N]o Person holding any office of Profit or Trust under [the United States] shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.”

If this is the part of the Constitution that he has allegedly violated, then I guess the theory is that he was seeking a present from the President of the Ukraine in the form of an investigation into Burisma and the Bidens.

The blog reader asks for a blog post that explains what Donald Trump has done to call for his impeachment.

I believe the Emoluments Clause is a tangential element in the argument that he has violated his oath.

My greatest concern is the “favor” he sought from Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zellenskiy. The Ukrainian president said in that July 25 phone call that he appreciated the help coming from the United States in the form of weapons Ukraine is using against Russia-backed rebels. Then the next thing that came from Trump referred to a favor he wanted “though” in exchange for the funds already appropriated by Congress. He said he wanted Ukraine to investigate allegations that Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, profited from a business relationship that Hunter Biden had with a Ukrainian businessman.

Therein lies the violation, in my view.

You see, the president withheld money approved by Congress to aid a U.S. ally in its fight against a U.S. foe, Russia. Therefore, he put our national security at risk. Thus, he violated the oath he took to protect and defend the Constitution and to protect Americans against foreign adversaries.

Congressional Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry that appears headed toward a certain impeachment of the president. I don’t know what the inquiry will reveal. There will might be something to allegations that the president is actually profiting from his office, with foreign governments spending money at the glitzy resorts he still owns.

First things first. The inquiry needs to come to grips with this patently frightening notion that the president of the United States is stiffing an ally, benefiting an adversary and in the process putting Americans in jeopardy.

If it were up to me, I would call that an impeachable offense.