{"id":39425,"date":"2019-10-23T23:19:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T23:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39425"},"modified":"2019-10-23T23:19:11","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T23:19:11","slug":"former-acting-ag-abuse-of-power-is-not-a-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39425","title":{"rendered":"Former acting AG: ‘Abuse of power is not a crime’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I am not a lawyer; nor do I portray one on TV.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Salon:\u00a0Invoking the Constitution, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker claimed that \u201cabuse of power is not a crime\u201d as he rushed to President Donald Trump’s defense after the nation’s top envoy to Ukraine testified to Congress that Trump had\u00a0withheld military aid in order to pressure Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0to investigating his political opponents.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a former prosecutor and what I know is this is a perfect time for preliminary hearings where you would say show us your evidence,\u201d he told (talk show host Laura) Ingraham. \u201cWhat evidence of a crime do you have? So the Constitution \u2014 abuse of power is not a crime.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, my.\u00a0Yes, it’s a crime.<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

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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: … Continue reading Former acting AG: ‘Abuse of power is not a crime’<\/span> →<\/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":[8],"tags":[129,2253,8091,5043],"class_list":["post-39425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","tag-abuse-of-power","tag-impeachment","tag-matthew-whitaker","tag-us-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39425","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=39425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39427,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39425\/revisions\/39427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}