Tag Archives: impeachment

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Can a POTUS defy a congressional subpoena?

I am believing we are about to find out in short order whether Congress has the stones to enforce a subpoena it would issue to the president of the United States.

Donald Trump has ordered a State Department official, Gordon Sondland — the U.S. ambassador to the European Union — to ignore a congressional summons to testify about what he knows regarding the, um, Ukraine Matter. Sondland took part in a conversation with other officials regarding the phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president, the one that has gotten Trump into so much trouble; it’s the call in which he asked for a political favor in exchange for his releasing money to help the Ukrainians fight Russian-backed rebels with whom they are at war.

There appears to be a subpoena on the horizon, don’t you think?

So, what then? Does Congress issue the subpoena and then let the White House run roughshod over its constitutional authority? Hmm. I doubt it.

We now might have a case of the president piling yet another impeachable offense on those that already are building. You know, something about “no one being ‘above the law.'” If Donald Trump believes he is “above the law,” then it well might fall on the House to throw that count onto an article of impeachment resolution.

It’s getting weird.

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Trump ‘jokes’ about asking China to ‘investigate’? Uh huh, sure

Donald “Knee Slapper in Chief” Trump just keeps cracking me up.

He strolls out onto the White House lawn and after revealing that he asked Ukraine for help in investigating former VP Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, he calls on China to do the same thing.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see him winking or smirking when he said it. Gosh, he seemed quite serious about it. Didn’t he seem that way to you as well?

He’s in some scalding water at the moment because of his solicitation of foreign governments to help him get re-elected and do destroy the candidacy of someone who might run against him in 2020. House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry and are going to impeach the president, maybe quite soon.

Oh, but now Trump’s GOP allies in Congress say he was just kidding. He didn’t really mean for China to investigate anyone, especially the former vice president of the United States.

  • U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan refused to answer a direct question Sunday morning about whether he thought it was appropriate for Trump to solicit help from China.
  • U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said Trump merely is trying to get the media riled up.
  • Sen. Roy Blunt said the president was kidding; he was making a joke.

Man, the president has to improve on his comedic timing.

Oh, but he wasn’t kidding. Any dunderhead observer who saw him make that statement didn’t presume Donald Trump was merely making a bad gag.

national news

Plot thickens rapidly with 2nd whistleblower

Well now. It appears that the “second-hand” account of one whistleblower is about to take a back seat to a “first-hand” account of a second individual reportedly with more direct knowledge of what went down in that infamous Phone Call involving Donald J. Trump.

What might the president’s defenders say to the second person who might come forward with information on what Trump said to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy?

The plot is getting thicker than a vat of gravy.

As National Public Radio reports: Lawyer Mark Zaid, who is part of a team of attorneys representing the initial whistleblower, tells NPR that the new whistleblower has talked to the inspector general of the intelligence community but has not filed a complaint, which Zaid says is not necessary in order for the individual’s account to be protected.

“By law, when a witness is interviewed by the IG, that constitutes a protected disclosure, provides them legal protection from retaliation,” Zaid tells NPR.

The second whistleblower reportedly is an individual with direct knowledge of what the two heads of state said to each other on July 25. What intrigues me is that the Whistleblower No. 2 lawyer’s willingness to announce what might be in store is that No. 2 well might corroborate what No. 1 said in that memo released to the public a couple of weeks ago.

What did No. 1 say? He or she said Trump pressured Zellenskiy into helping with Trump’s re-election; he asked for dirt on Joe Biden, a possible 2020 campaign opponent; he held up the deployment of military equipment that the United States had promised Ukraine in its fight against Russia-backed rebels; and that the White House is working to cover it up.

All of that came after the White House released a memo of the phone call that revealed it all in the first place!

So, we have the president’s words released by the White House. We have a whistleblower, believed to be an individual in the intelligence community, revealing some serious wrongdoing. Now we might have a second whistleblower with more direct, first-hand, ringside knowledge of what went down.

Are the walls closing in on the president?

I believe they are.

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‘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.

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Perry to quit Trump Cabinet, ending a quiet tenure at Energy

Rick Perry reportedly is set to quit his job as secretary of energy, returning to the private sector, perhaps in Texas, where he served as the state’s longest-tenured governor before joining the Donald Trump administration.

Some in the media are making a bit of noise about Perry’s pending departure, linking him to the growing scandal involving Trump’s relationship with Ukraine and his solicitation of the Ukrainian president to assist in Trump’s bid for re-election.

Actually, Perry has been reported ready to leave D.C. for several weeks.

How has he done as energy secretary? I wish he would have devoted as much, um, energy to alternative power sources as he did when he served as Texas governor from 2000 to 2014. Indeed, Texas emerged as a leader in wind-power technology during Perry’s stint as governor.

He ran for the Republican nomination for president twice, in 2012 and 2016. Perry once called Donald Trump a “cancer on conservatism,” then swallowed his criticism when the president nominated him to become energy secretary.

Perhaps most ironic is that Perry — during a presidential candidate joint appearance in 2012 — became the source of the infamous “oops” quote when he couldn’t name the third agency he would eliminate were he elected president; that agency was the Department of Energy.

Whatever … Perry became an advocate for fossil fuels when he took the Cabinet post. Yes, he also pitched alternative energy development, but with hardly any of the verve he did while in Austin.

I haven’t a clue whether the Ukraine scandal is going to swallow Perry along with Trump and possibly others within the administration. The president reportedly told a GOP audience that Perry asked him to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy, which has produced much of the evidence that Trump has violated his oath of office by soliciting the Ukrainian for re-election help along with dirt on former VP Joe Biden.

That part of the saga will play out in due course.

As for Secretary Perry’s record at the Department of Energy?

Eh …

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Just think … they impeached Bill Clinton for lying about sex!

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If there is a hint of reflection among congressional Republicans who are resisting calls to impeach Donald J. Trump on allegations that he is endangering national security, they need to ponder what their political forebears did 20 years ago.

President Bill Clinton in 1998 became the subject of a special prosecutor’s probe into a real estate deal in Arkansas, where Clinton served as governor before he was elected president in 1992. The investigation broadened way beyond its initial mandate.

Prosecutor Kenneth Starr then started sniffing out reports of a relationship Clinton had with a White House intern. He summoned the president to testify before a federal grand jury about that relationship. Clinton took an oath to “tell nothing but the truth.” He didn’t uphold that oath. He committed an act of perjury because, apparently, he was too embarrassed to reveal what went on with him and the intern.

Congressional Republicans decided to launch an “impeachment inquiry” into that matter. They then impeached the president ostensibly for committing a felony: that would be perjury.

However, the complete impeachment context has to include sex. The House impeached Clinton because he had a sexual relationship with a young woman working in the White House.

The Senate acquitted Clinton in the trial it held.

Here we are, two decades later.

Donald Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry of his own. The allegations are no longer really allegations. Trump has said it out loud, that he has sought help from Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. He doubled down after that by saying China should do the same thing.

What’s more, Trump withheld arms shipments to Ukraine until it agreed to aid in his re-election effort. Those shipments include weapons Ukraine wants to deploy against Russian troops who have invaded Ukraine.

Ukraine is an ally. Russia is an adversary. Hmm. Can you say, “national security threat”?

Republicans in the House and Senate so far have been far too reluctant to climb aboard the impeachment hay wagon. These folks, I need to remind everyone, belong to the same political party of those who were so very quick to impeach an earlier president for lying to a grand jury.

What in the name of constitutional defense is more critical: a president’s personal misbehavior or a president who violates his oath to adhere to the nation’s governing framework?

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What the hell is going on with POTUS?

Donald J. Trump

✔ @realDonaldTrump

Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!

What you see here is a tweet that Donald Trump fired off after Sen. Mitt Romney criticized him for admitting to asking for China to “investigate” Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

I am virtually speechless over this.

Think for just a moment about this.

The president is likely to be impeached by the House of Representatives over his soliciting foreign government assistance in his re-election, an act forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.

A House impeachment means the president stands trial in the Senate. Mitt Romney is a Republican member of that body and will serve as one of 100 jurors in a trial to determine whether the president is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Is this how you talk to one of those jurors? Is this a prescription for conviction, particularly if Romney is able to persuade other GOP senators that the president of the United States has lost his ever-lovin’ mind and must be removed from office?

Not smart, Mr. POTUS. Oh wait! I almost forgot. Trump says he’s the smartest man in human history.

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Never saw scandal topping Watergate, but this one has done it!

I’ll admit it right up front.

I always thought Watergate was as bad as it could get, short of a president of the United States actually spying for an enemy nation. Then the nation in 2016 elected Donald John Trump as its 45th president.

Now he is embroiled in a scandal that looks for all the world as if it’s going to surpass Watergate in its gravity.

I’m old enough to remember what happened on June 17, 1972 when some burglars got caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington. The media treated it initially as a police story. They buried the initial reporting inside the papers. Then it got worse … in a hurry!

We found out that President Nixon’s re-election team was involved. Then we learned that the president told the CIA to head off an FBI probe into what occurred. Then we learned of tape recordings of President Nixon saying precisely that. Then came congressional hearings and all hell broke loose. Then the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn the tapes over. Then the president learned his goose was cooked in the Senate if the House impeached him.

Then the president resigned.

Why is this worse? Because the president of the United States has dragged foreign nations into the act of working for his re-election, just as Russia did in helping elect him in 2016. Donald Trump also has used those solicitations for help as bargaining chips in delivering aid to an ally fighting a hostile power; Ukraine asked for military aid, Congress appropriated the funds, but the president held them up until Ukraine delivered on Trump’s request for aid in digging up dirt on Joe Biden, a potential 2020 political opponent.

Donald Trump, with that act, put our national security at risk. It emboldened that hostile power and has sown the seeds of mistrust among our other allies around the world into whether the United States can be trusted to keep its word.

I never thought I would see a day when a presidential scandal could eclipse Watergate. I believe, ladies and gents, that we have reached that stage.

The absolute absence of any public service experience in the president’s background is coming starkly into full view. He has built his entire professional career on self-service, self-enrichment and self-worth. He brought zero understanding of the U.S. Constitution into the Oval Office when he became president. He has made not only a mockery of the office he occupies, he has turned in a frightening display of the consequences of electing someone whose entire professional life has been build on demands that others act according to his whims.

That isn’t how good governance works.

We now are set to pay a painful price for the president’s astonishing ignorance and arrogance.

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Is it OK to ask foreign governments for partisan political help?

This note is directed at you, U.S. Rep. Van Taylor. I have asked your staff for an answer, but haven’t gotten one, so I’m asking you directly, through this blog.

Here is my question: Is it all right for the president of the United States to ask foreign heads of state for help to get him re-elected, and is it all right for POTUS to ask those heads of state for dirt on a potential political foe?

I have looked through your website. I have tried to find a comment from you on the crisis that is metastasizing in the White House. I have come up empty.

I know you’re a freshman member of Congress. I also am acutely aware that you are not a blowhard in the fashion of some of your Democratic colleagues who have found ways to get their names in print and their faces on TV all … the … time! I admire that aspect of your still-brief service on Capitol Hill, congressman.

However, I want to know what you as a dedicated Republican think about what Donald Trump has acknowledged openly has done. He told the world that he is urging China and Ukraine to “investigate” Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

I believe the Constitution is clear that presidents must not use their office for personal gain, or political advantage. I also believe the president has violated that prohibition. He said so himself. We don’t need a “whistleblower” to tell us something the president himself has admitted to doing.

Why, though, do you and your fellow Republicans remain largely silent? This is unacceptable! Members of Congress who aren’t revolted and repulsed by the president’s conduct are derelict in their duty.

I want at the very least for my congressional representative — that would be you, congressman — to at least declare publicly that you will not tolerate any betrayal of a solemn and sacred oath that the president has taken.

I believe the president has betrayed his oath. I also want you to stand up for the principle of defending the Constitution.

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Where is the GOP outrage over this fundamental betrayal?

Republicans in Congress continue to astonish and astound me.

We see a growing mountain of evidence that the president of the United States, Donald John Trump, has betrayed the oath he took when he became president. He vowed to defend the Constitution, then he — by his own admission — solicits foreign government help in getting re-elected, something that the Constitution expressly forbids.

Almost all of Trump’s GOP allies in Congress remain silent. They express no outrage over this blatant, purposeful flouting of the Constitution … which they all vow to defend and protect!

OK, a few of them have spoken out. Sen. Mitt Romney is one. So is Sen. Ron Johnson. And Sen. Ben Sasse. The rest of ’em? Silence, man!

Think back just a few years ago when President Barack Obama showed up in the White House press room wearing a tan suit. Do you remember the GOP response then? I do. They worked themselves into a virtual frenzy over the alleged “disrespect” the president showed by wearing something other than a dark suit while speaking to the nation on matters of state.

Indeed, Republicans also got mighty worked up in 1998 when another president, Bill Clinton, lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a young White House intern. Why, we can’t have a president who acts as if he is “above the law,” they said then. The House of Representatives impeached him, then put him on trial in the Senate, which then acquitted the lame-duck president of the charges brought against him.

Where in the name of constitutional protection is the righteous outrage now?

Have these individuals been taken hostage by the cult of personality that Donald Trump has developed and nurtured while serving as president of the United States?

The president put his hand on a Bible and swore to God Almighty he would protect and defend the nation’s governing document. He has failed to keep that pledge.

Where is the outrage?