{"id":35814,"date":"2019-03-05T00:38:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T00:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35814"},"modified":"2019-03-05T00:38:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T00:38:45","slug":"an-abuse-of-presidential-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35814","title":{"rendered":"An abuse of presidential power?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/scalesgavel.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-35374\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/scalesgavel-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/scalesgavel-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/scalesgavel.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I want to share a brief item posted on Facebook by Robert Reich, a fiery critic of Donald J. Trump. Reich writes:<\/p>\n<p><em>Another impeachable offense. Trump personally tried to block AT&amp;T&#8217;s merger with Time Warner as retribution for CNN&#8217;s coverage of him, according to a new report. In meetings with his advisors, he demanded that the Department of Justice&#8217;s antitrust division to stop the merger. The move would have also been a huge victory for Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News and viewed the AT&amp;T-Time Warner as a threat to his business.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If these reports turn out to be true, this would be a clear violation of the First Amendment&#8217;s protection of freedom of the press &#8212; conspiring to block a merger for the sole purpose of limiting press coverage. We must not become inured to this unconstitutional behavior.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What do we make of that? Reich, a former labor secretary during the Clinton administration, believes the president of the United States has interceded in direct violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been hearing a lot in recent days and weeks about &#8220;conspiracy to obstruct justice,&#8221; about &#8220;alleged collusion with Russian operatives&#8221; who attacked our electoral system.<\/p>\n<p>We now might start hearing more chatter about &#8220;abuse of presidential power.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has launched an expansive investigation into an array of questions regarding Donald Trump&#8217;s conduct as president of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The committee&#8217;s agenda is overflowing.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I want to share a brief item posted on Facebook by Robert Reich, a fiery critic of Donald J. Trump. Reich writes: Another impeachable offense. Trump personally tried to block AT&amp;T&#8217;s merger with Time Warner as retribution for CNN&#8217;s coverage of him, according to a new report. In meetings with his advisors, he demanded that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=35814\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An abuse of presidential power?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[491,1043,1424,1788,4044,8440],"class_list":["post-35814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","tag-att","tag-cnn","tag-donald-trump","tag-fox-news","tag-rupert-murdoch","tag-time-warner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35815,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35814\/revisions\/35815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}