Tag Archives: impeachment inquiry

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Impeachment inquiry confirms many of our worst fears about POTUS

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As I watch the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry drama unfold, I am drawn back to what many of us said about this man when he declared his presidential candidacy.

We said he was unfit for office. We wondered how in the name of political sanity could this guy ever get elected to anything, let alone to the presidency of the United States. We feared the worst about this guy’s instincts.

I do not relish watching this drama play itself out, let alone delivering evidence that our worst fears are being revealed to all the world.

Yes, I am acutely aware that not everyone shares the view of many of us. Many other Americans are lining up behind this guy. They are attacking the process that has produced the impeachment inquiry. They question the motives, even the patriotism and love of country of many of Donald Trump’s critics.

But at the base of all this drama we are left with wondering about the core values of the man who scored arguably the most remarkable political fluke in U.S. history by being elected to the only public office he ever sought.

He brought not one single moment of public service to the 2016 presidential campaign. He crafted his entire adult life around one goal: self-enrichment. He worried exclusively about his own fortune. He didn’t know a thing about the complexities of governing, let alone how the nation’s government was constructed.

Now we are in the midst of an inquiry to determine whether he should be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What lies at the base of those crimes? Complete ignorance, or perhaps willful flouting, of what the Constitution prohibits.

It doesn’t allow a president to solicit foreign governments for political favors. That is what has been alleged against Donald Trump. Nor does it allow a president to profit from his public office. That allegation hasn’t been made formally, but it well might be in the offing once the House completes its impeachment inquiry.

This all arcs back in my mind to the very questions that so many millions of us had from the very beginning of this man’s candidacy for America’s highest and most exalted public office.

Donald John Trump had no business being elected to this office. Yet he was elected. He had some unforeseen help, to be sure. We now are watching the drama resulting from that election play out before our eyes.

It isn’t pretty. However, none of us should turn away. We need to stay alert and engaged while awaiting the final curtain.

And yes, many of us saw this drama coming.

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Trying to grasp logic of POTUS’s resistance to inquiry

So help me, I am trying like the dickens to grasp the logic behind Donald Trump’s strategy in resisting the impeachment inquiry launched by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The president says he has done not a thing wrong; his phone call with the Ukrainian president was “perfect”; he calls the inquiry a sham, a hoax and a the worst witch hunt in U.S. history.

OK, then why in the world does he obstruct Congress’s efforts to question his key aides, former Cabinet officials, former legal counsel?

The president has employed the same strategy that he used in resisting Robert Mueller III’s probe into alleged Russian “collusion” involving the attack on our electoral system during the 2016 election. He said there was “no collusion, no obstruction,” yet he fought Mueller every step of the way.

Mueller determined that that was no provable conspiracy to collude with the Russians, but left the door open on the obstruction of justice matter.

So, here we are. The House Democratic caucus believes there’s reason to launch an inquiry into whether Trump sought foreign government help to promote his re-election. The House is inquiring into whether impeach Trump. The president says the House is on a fixing expedition. He says there’s nothing to expose.

Why, then, does he keep obstructing Congress? I must be missing something. Help me!

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Circus is coming to Capitol Hill … maybe

It looks as though they’re going to roll out the big top under the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C., if Republican members of Congress get their way.

The House Intelligence Committee is taking its hearings into the public arena next week with the first televised hearings into the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s term as president.

Congressional Republicans want to hear also from Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and the individual known only as The Whistleblower.

Why do you suppose they want those two individuals to appear? I can make a guess: They are running out of legitimate defenses for the president’s conduct in office and are trying to divert attention from Trump to the son of a potential 2020 campaign opponent and an individual whose report to Congress spawned the impeachment inquiry in the first place.

At issue, of course, is that July phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump asked for a “favor, though,” in exchange for releasing the weaponry that Ukraine asked for to fight Russia-backed rebels. Quid pro quo, anyone? It’s against the law!

Now the GOP caucus wants to question Hunter Biden over his business relationships in Ukraine, which Ukrainian prosecutors have said broke no law. They also want to quiz The Whistleblower and likely want to question his or her motives in squealing on the president.

The hearings get started with a bang this week when the House Intel panel summons career diplomat William Taylor to testify in public what he has said in private, that Trump did seek a favor from Ukraine, which is — shall we say — against the law!

Get ready for the circus to start. The GOP will seek to provide plenty of distractions from the serious and sober business at hand in the House of Representatives.

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POTUS works overtime to hide ‘nothing’

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting he has done nothing wrong. He calls the Democratic effort to impeach him the “greatest witch hunt in our history.” The president calls it a hoax. He calls the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution a “phony” proviso.

All that said, why in the name of presumed innocence does he keep acting like someone who’s trying to hide things from congressional inquisitors?

The House is getting ready to impeach the president. They have a trove of issues on which to decide. They include obstruction of justice, abuse of power, violating his oath of office, possible bribery.

However, the president says he has done nothing wrong. That July 25 phone conversation with the Ukrainian president in which he sought a “favor, though” in exchange for weapons was “perfect,” as Trump has described it.

His newly installed press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, said Trump “has nothing to hide.”

C’mon, gang! With nothing to hide, with there being no “there” there,” why does Trump keep acting like someone who’s trying to keep the goods out of Congress’s hands?

He did the same thing when special counsel Robert Mueller III was trying to ascertain “collusion” with Russians who interfered with our 2016 election. Trump is continuing the same tactic now as House Democrats proceed with their impeachment inquiry.

Hey, I am sitting in the peanut gallery. I get that I am nowhere near the center of the action. Still, from my perch out here in Trump Country, Donald Trump is acting far more like someone with plenty to hide than the victim of a “witch hunt.”

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GOP demands more transparency … then rejects it!

I must have missed something in the translation.

Congressional Republicans have spent the better part of the past month or so trashing their Democratic colleagues because, they say, Democrats are conducting “secret” impeachment inquiry hearings into the conduct of Donald J. Trump.

Democrats are not doing anything in secret. Republican members of Congress have been taking part right along with Democrats as witnesses are deposed in private sessions.

So then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed suddenly this past week to hold a vote of the full House of Representatives to formalize the impeachment inquiry. The result of the vote will launch the public portion of the inquiry.

Yes, committees will open their hearings up to the public. Americans of all stripes will get to witness the hearings on TV in real time.

However, the vote that the House approved Thursday didn’t collect a single Republican vote. Not a one of ’em decided to endorse the public inquiry. What gives with that?

I feel the need to remind y’all that the vote in the House was to formalize the inquiry. It was not an impeachment vote. That will come later. Then again — even though it is highly remote — an impeachment vote might not occur. Suppose most of the House decides that they lack the evidence they need to decide on articles of impeachment.

I know. That seems so distant these days, given the mountain of evidence that is piling up that Donald Trump sought personal political favors from a foreign government. That is against the law and it violates the oath the president took. It’s impeachable, man!

Back to my original thought: If congressional Republicans demand more transparency in these hearings, why didn’t they vote for the measure that the Democratic House speaker laid at their feet?

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Rep. Gohmert invokes the ‘civil war’ canard … sheesh!

Leave it to U.S. Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Loony Bin, to add an extra element of hysteria to the debate over whether to impeach Donald J. Trump.

After the U.S. House of Representatives today voted along partisan lines to proceed with its impeachment inquiry, Gohmert — an East Texas Republican — called it a “coup” against the president and invoked the possibility of a “civil war” erupting if he’s removed from office.

Good grief, dude!

Gohmert was among the 196 House Republicans to vote against the inquiry resolution. At a time when calm and reason might work well for the political process, we hear from Gohmert during a House Judiciary Committee meeting yapping, yammering and yelling about “coup” and “civil war.”

This is the guy who, I should add, continues to foment the idiocy about President Barack Obama’s place of birth.

But … I kinda/sorta digress.

The impeachment inquiry is no “coup” against the president. And for Gohmert, a member of the legislative branch of government, to invoke the prospect of open warfare in this country is reprehensible on its face.

He should be as ashamed of himself as I and other Texans are ashamed that this individual represents our great state under the Capitol Dome.

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Let the fecal matter hit the fan

Well now. That went about the way observers had predicted it would go.

Almost all House Democrats voted today in favor of a congressional resolution to proceed with an impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump; all House Republicans voted against it. One former Republican who’s now an independent cast his vote in favor of the measure.

What happens now?

The House of Representatives will proceed with its inquiry into whether the president committed impeachable offenses by soliciting a foreign government for personal political help and/or whether he has sought to cover up that allegation. Let’s toss in an abuse of power allegation and an obstruction of justice charge as well.

Republicans who voted “no” have said they don’t want the inquiry. Democrats favor it looking more deeply into these disturbing allegations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called today’s vote a sad day for the country. It is all of that … and much more.

It is going to produce public hearings. It will enable the president’s legal team to cross exam witnesses. It will drag into full public view all the things that have been said in private, behind closed doors as House members deposed witnesses.

It’s all been legal. It’s all being done according to the Constitution.

Today’s vote, moreover, should have stemmed phony GOP complaints about there being a star chamber aspect to this inquiry. It won’t stop Republicans from seeking to protect a president of their own party.

They will yap about politics driving the inquiry while invoking their own brand of politics to block it. Do you see the irony in that?

The public portion of this sober process does mean at a minimum that the fecal matter is about to hit the fan. The remaining question for me — and millions of other Americans — is whether any Republicans will be persuaded that Donald J. Trump has broken the law and should be removed from office.

I am not holding my breath.

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Secrecy? What secrecy in impeachment probe?

Donald Trump and his Republican allies are yapping about “secrecy” in the impeachment inquiry underway in the House of Representatives.

They are all wet. They are dead wrong. They are blathering out of both sides of their mouths.

House committees are meeting behind closed doors. There is nothing “secret” about what’s going as they take depositions from witnesses with information to share regarding whether the president has committed potentially impeachable offenses.

All the committees are staffed fully by Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress. Their staffs are present, too. GOP lawmakers are able to ask questions of the witnesses, just as their Democratic colleagues are doing so.

What’s more, they are operating under rules established in 2015 by a GOP-led congressional majority.

These hearings are taking place the way the Watergate hearings commenced in 1973 and the way the “Benghazi hearings” occurred in 2012. House members took testimony in private then flung the doors open for the public to see and hear for itself much of what had been discussed in private.

Yet the Republicans are bitching about what they contend is an “illegal” impeachment inquiry. Give it a break, ladies and gentlemen of the right wing.

There will be a public moment or two of reckoning to take place. The House is going to open its doors in due course, possibly quite soon, for the public to see for itself what it is learning.

I am one American who is willing and quite anxious to see and hear what is occurring. I know the House will do what it has done before and what it is doing now under the rules it has established.

Republican attacks on the process seek to divert attention away from congressmen and women are examining. The process doesn’t worry me. What gives me pause and deep concern is what the process is going to produce.

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Now it’s a newbie GOP blowhard who gets all this attention

I have spent a bit of blog time and effort criticizing Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s instant fame in the House of Representatives. I have suggested she hasn’t earned all the attention she craves … and receives!

In fairness, I now shall blast a GOP blowhard who for the life of me I don’t understand how he gets all this publicity.

Step up, Matt Gaetz, a GOP congressman from Florida. He’s been in the House all of one term already; he is serving his second term.

But this is the clown who led that Republican assault on Capitol Hill this week that disrupted House committee hearings on the impeachment inquiry under way against Donald J. Trump.

Gaetz is a fanatic Trump supporter. He has attacked the “process” rather than defending Trump on the issues that are likely to result in his impeachment. Those issues deal with whether he violated his oath by seeking foreign government help for political purposes. Gaetz won’t say that Trump “would never do such a thing.” Oh, no. He’s attacking the alleged “secrecy” surrounding the closed-door hearings in the House.

The hearings will be made public. Probably soon at that. They are being held under rules established in 2015 by a Republican-run House, and signed by then-Speaker John Boehner; yep, he’s a Republican, too.

Now we have Gaetz showboating, prancing, preening and bellowing in public about so-called “sham” hearings.

This guy hasn’t earned his time in the spotlight any more than AOC has earned her time.

Settle down, young man. Rep. Gaetz, how about letting the process run its course as prescribed by the rules? 

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Do not worry about U.S. government’s strength

Donald Trump can boast all he wants about how impeachment is “good” for his re-election chances and for the Republican Party. The truth has to be that in his private moments he is worried to the max.

To be candid, so am I. So should the rest of the country be worried about the course on which this man’s presidency is about to take.

It’s about impeachment, man!

The House of Representatives has taken on this task three times in the nation’s history: Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton all have traveled down this perilous path.

Johnson and Clinton both were impeached and acquitted in Senate trials; President Johnson survived by a single Senate vote, by the way. Nixon quit the presidency as the House Judiciary Committee submitted articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives.

Now it well might be Donald Trump’s turn.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed sadness at what she has announced, that the House will launch a full “impeachment inquiry.” Yes, she should be sad. So should the rest of us, even those of us who out here who detest the man who occupies the office we hold so dear.

He has denigrated, defaced and disgraced the office. He has insulted our allies, stood shoulder to shoulder with some of our international opponents, some of whom are dictators/killers/tyrants. His behavior has been reprehensible.

Now we hear reports that he allegedly sought a foreign government’s help in bringing down one of his political foes at home.

Is this the kind of thing that gives anyone joy? Are we supposed to cheer the prospect of the House traipsing down the impeachment path? Hah! No. We aren’t.

We should be sad. We should be worried.

I don’t worry about our system of government. Our nation’s founders crafted a system built to withstand this kind of tumult and turbulence. Indeed, as President Ford told us during his inaugural address moments after being sworn in after President Nixon left the White House for the final time, “Our Constitution works.”

If the House proceeds with impeachment, the burden then falls on the Senate to conduct a trial.

Therein rests what I consider to be where this matter could derail. Republican senators who comprise a Senate majority do not appear at this moment ready to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting the president of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

This will play out over time. It will get ugly. It will soil and sully our system of government and our politics.

It will sadden all of us as we await an outcome. However, I will argue that we shouldn’t worry about the strength of the government system under which this drama will unfold.