Tag Archives: Impeachment

What May Come

Law, Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

With all the ‘talk, talk, talk’ going on about the Impeachment investigation I thought it would be nice to lay out the possible paths we may be fallowing in the near future. I’ll start with where we are now, with the Secretary of State Pompeo not honoring the House subpoenas for depositions by State Department employees. We can now ignore, or prune, that branch of the tree that starts with full cooperation.

What are the possible actions now? In no particular order of preference there seems to be three possible branches. Branch one: Increased resistance by the Executive branch. The next Branch is that the resistance stays as low key as possible and the final branch is acquiescence to the subpoenas.

I do not find the third Branch likely but it is the cleanest/simplest. What can follow it is that the House Committees either find sufficient evidence to recommend to the House to vote Impeachment or It doesn’t. If the person(s) being investigated are truly innocent of any impeachable actions this would be the best course for everyone concerned. Given the current evidence available to the public this does not seem likely as it does seem to show that Donald Trump did, in fact, attempt to get a foreign government to provide a thing of value for his upcoming campaign. Of course it is possible for the President to argue that Op Research is not a thing of value. Also it can be argued that he really didn’t ask for this. The problem is both arguments are quite thin and really don’t play well with an impartial jury.

So let us take on the first Branch of the tree, complete non-compliance subpoenas has and total resistance to giving evidence to the House Committees. This branch leads very quickly to either the House caving in and waiting to see just what the election in 13 months brings. Or the house can attempt to use it’s more usual method of enforcing it’s subpoenas by asking the Justice Department to bring criminal contempt charges. This would lead to another set of branches, the JD could honor the request or just ignore the request or responded that they see no merit in the request.

Let’s look at this last one first. Finding that the request for criminal contempt was with out merit would force the House to either just cave in or move quickly to using inherent contempt. More on inherent contempt later. Just ignoring the request has the advantage of burning time while leading eventually to the same two branches of finding no merit. As far as honoring the request for Criminal Contempt this leads to the problems of having the Attorney General go against the wishes of the President, something the current President doesn’t take well. Look for this to happen if Pres. Trump has found a way to get someone else to take the fall. In any case this path leaders inevitably to either the House passing/not passing a bill of Impeachment.

So now let us look at the possibilities of those branch’s above that lead to the use of inherent contempt which will entail having the House Sargent at Arms arresting the person or persons. As inherent contempt has not been used since 1934 (85 years) it is almost anyone’s guess on just how it will be worked now. Something to what for is actions taking place in the House Sargent at Arms office and in/around the cells in the House basement. This action by the house could quite easily lead to one of two events/branches. First, and most likely is that the person or persons peacefully submit to arrest. They also could resist the arrest. The resisting could take many forms, all the way from just not letting the persons from the House Sargent at Arms into the building the person to be arrested is in all the way up to having the persons own security detachment forcefully protecting their charge from the people attempting to make the arrest. This last would be very bad for all concerned and while possible I really don’t see it happening.

Let us look at the breach that leads to the person or persons who are defying the Congressional Subpoena(s) being taken into custody. The House would have to hold a trial and this trial could be long or short depending on the House Membership and just how strong the person(s) being held is. It is customary to drop the Contempt Charge(s) if the person so charged takes action to make amends. If the House does find them in Contempt they have several options ranging from fines to imprisonment. This can last till the current congress expires in just over a year from now. It is also possible that if these persons are of sufficient rank, that is they hold a non-selective service job (and in some cases even if they do) they too can be impeached and removed from office. (Please note that being removed from office by conviction on impeachment is tantamount to being fired for cause and you loose all benefits etc.)

That is all I can foresee for now. More later as thing become either more murky, less murky, or stay the same.

“No Me, Gim Do It.”

Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

When I and my Cuz Shari were toddlers our mothers put us down for a nap in the same play pen. The then went into the kitchen for coffee and a chat. Sometime later there was a great crashing noise from the room we were in. When the mom’s got there they saw the pen had totally collapsed. Shari, standing in the middle of everything looked up and said “No Me! Gim Do It.” Even tho it was obvious to the moms that is had been Shari’s doing.

This is exactly what I think is starting to happen with the Trump Administration and the Ukraine scandal and why I have used the illustration above. While it is Tammany Hall, and thus Democrat Party it is still very illustrative of what is happening now. (Note: I know enough political history to know that both corruption and shifting of blame is an All Parties phenomenon.). While we currently only have three people in the ring (Trump, Pence, and Giuliani) and this is more of a triangle I feel confident that more will be added soon. Some of them will be totally uninvolved, others on the side of ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’, and others guilt of some involvement. This is a classic Mob tactic, throw everyone you can under the Bus in hope you will get away scot free. That is why the Impeachment hearings in the house are so important.

Like in chess, Mobsters, try and complicate things when they are loosing. This is about the only way you can get your opponent to make a mistake and that is their only hope of winning. The American people need to see in the simplest, clearest terms just what Pres. Trump did, and what his henchmen did. All of the underbrush being tossed out by the suspects need to be clear away. The facts of the case need to be stated in the simplest, cleanest, clearest manner for all to see. This is why the hearing(s) need to be as tightly focused on the attempt to use the Ukraine to become involved in our 2020 election. While the Impeachment is just an indictment the American people need to be able to see that if the Senate does not Convict, that vote was totally motivated by partisan need and not by any reasonable doubt of culpability.

These hearing(s) need to be done quickly, too. Not only for the nation as a whole, but for the Republican Party. The worst possible outcome would be for Donald Trump to win the Republican Nomination and then be convicted in the Senate. So to the House Of Representatives I say move with ‘all deliberate speed’. To the Democrats I say, do everything you can to see that the truth is shown clearly, to Republicans I say remember you are Americans first and Republicans second and work toward the best interests of the nation, remember what America stands for. This is the only way you can save your party from going the way of the American Party.

What has A.G. Barr sold his Soul For

General, Politics, , ,

“[] it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world…..but for Wales?”

Some of you may recognize that the quote above is from “A Man for all Seasons”. I think it is quite appropriate to ask just what AG Barr has sold both is reputation and, possibly his friendship with Mueller, for. After yesterdays performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee where he lied, obfuscated, and figuratively threw his longtime friend Robert Mueller under the bus I think it is well for us to ask just what is he getting out of this. After all this is the age of transactional politics, or so says Pres. Trump.

Tit for tat, this for that, nobody does anything for nothing. Everything can be monetized, even ethics and morality when dealing with the Trump Whitehouse and, now a am afraid the GOP. It has been over 45 years since an USAG has placed himself in legal jeopardy like this (See John Mitchel and the Watergate Scandal). I want to know just what AG Barr is getting out of it. At least with Richard Rich we know he was getting a title in Wales to sell his principals to support Henry VIII. Or maybe I am doing AG Barr a disservice here. Maybe he is standing up for principal.

Maybe he truly holds that the President is above the law, at least when it comes to obstruction of justice. Maybe he truly believes that because there was no demonstrable collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russian agents it is no big deal that the Russian government proactively acted to influence the results of the 2016 election. So someone may or may not have hacked election computers systems of one or more states, so what? No one has shown it effected the results so no harm, no foul. Maybe it is he holds that “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.” An it doesn’t matter what you do if you win, just win.

I put it to you, it really doesn’t mater from a practical since, both are equally horrendous and AG Barr has to go. It is time for the House of Representatives to start looking into forcing William Barr to leave the United States Attorney Generals office. If he did for the first reason, he is corrupt. If he did it for the second, he is immoral and unethical. An while it does matter in the long run, in the short run we, the people, need to do the same thing. So write your Congress people, House and Senate, Democrat or Republican and tell them that AG Barr has to go. If you don’t then don’t complain about how justice is done in this country in the future. Remember “We get the country we work for.”

Some Thoughts on Impeachment

General, Politics,

I am Back! Sorry to be absent for so long, no excuses I just didn’t feel like writing when I didn’t have much to say.

Before I start let me point out that I do not like/approve/support in anyway Pres. Donald J. Trump. I have disliked him long before he came down the ‘gold’ escalator. Mostly I disliked him because I saw too much of my Grandmother ‘S’ who suffered from the same mental disorder. So on with my thoughts on impeachment.

At this time I do not support the Impeachment of Pres. Trump at this time. My reasoning is simple, the 2020 is just about 20 months away and Impeachment takes a long time. Don’t be leave me, just look how long it took to impeach both Nixon and/or Clinton. In both cases the investigation to the House passing the Impeachment took almost as many months as we have left till the election. If the sole purpose of Impeachment is to remove from office Pres. Trump it is a great waste of time. It also could lead us into even bigger problem. Could an Impeached President be elected to the Presidency in a later election.

Thought Experiment:

It is September 2020 and the Senate votes conviction of Donald J Trump. On 3 November 2020 Donald J Trump is re-elected President. Now what? Do we have to go thru the whole Impeachment process once more? Do we hope (and pray) the Electoral College has the good since not to elect him President?

Some will say this is far fetched. I agree but in October 2016 Trump wining the election was far fetched. As was the blatant influence of our election by Russia. I keep remembering what my statistics professor kept telling us…”Low probably doesn’t mean No probably.” So when dealing with Pres. Trump we should always remember November 2016.

Some thoughts on “National Emegancy” and Impeachment

Law, Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

Bomb

As we pass thru the 34th day of what I call the ”Great Wall Impass” and others the Government shutdown we once more hear about the Trump Whitehouse talking about declaring a “National Emegancy” to get his wall built.  If this happens I think the House of Representatives will have good grounds to start the Impechment process.

I do not take this step lightly but if Donald J Trump does declare a National Emegancy it will be, in my view, a High  Misdemeanor.  Specifically it will be the abuse of power under the color of law.  It is clear from the both the congressional debates on the law that grants the President the power to declare a National Emegancy (and from the use of this power by all other holders of the office) that the event(s) that require the President to declare a National Emegancy are both catastrophic and time sensitive.  The situation on our southern boarder is neither catastrophic nor time sensitive.

To declare a National Emergancy to both defy the will of Congress on the expenditure of tax money and to  seize private property to build his wall would be a gross misuse of Presidential power.  Even if the courts rule agains Donald J Trump in these actions it will not change the facts at issue.

Finally, we can not let any President, ever, to act in such a gross and blatant use of power.  On that road lines the end of American democracy.