First of all, as I write at 3:18pm EDT MSNBC is updating the number of declared pro-impeachment-inquiry House members (includes one independent, Justin Amash, the rest Dems):
217
This is history televised in real time. The debate over the wisdom and sheer rightness of the House impeachment inquiry is all the rage today (the focus will soon, as soon as tomorrow, shift to the substance of the televised hearing testimony that will dominate all news).
Politicians and news media platforms on TV and in print are weighing in. As ever under this evil regime, the very definition of reality is the focus of a struggle between one side -- rump and his GOP hanging dingleberries -- and the other -- the community of the sane living outside the cult bubble.
Mitt Romney so far is the only Repubican who has looked at the so-called transcript of the smoking-gun phone call and acknowledged that the conversation is "extremely troubling". The rest are in tune with the bottomless Lindsey Graham whose response to the text is, "Don't believe your lying eyes! Nothing here could possibly be interpreted as soliciting foreign assistance in the upcoming election, and you'd have to be crazy to think that there's any hint of a quid pro quo in this conversation between rump and Zelensky." Most of the R's are not only dismissing any culpability by the "president" but are swiftly turning the question to the terrible scandal of what Joe Biden did.
One hilarious line of right-wing propaganda spewage is calling the impeachment inquiry a "rush to judgment". As my daughter would say, "I can't". It's too ridiculous to spend effort on a reply, but this is the party whose quadrennial convention featured chants of "Lock her up!" and a candidate who led the chants -- without objection from the jackass dingleberries across the GOP who now huff n puff about a "rush to judgment" against a proven criminal.
Then there are the great legal philosophers of the regressive right like Bill Barr from whom the BPOE gets his delusional idea that Article Two of the Constitution gives him absolute executive power. To get a taste of this legalistic lunacy taken to the highest level of mental masturbation, read John Yoo's NYT op-ed "Beware of Impeaching Trump. It Could Hurt the Presidency." Yoo for some inexplicable reason is a law professor at UC Berkeley, but more saliently for understanding his opinions about the unlimited expansiveness of executive power, you should recall that he was the writer of the despicable legal memorandum to G.W. Bush in which he opined that torture was a perfectly good policy to pursue. Yoo even implies in this piece (of crap) that rump is guilty of "wrongdoing", but the framers of the Constitution meant for the people to hold him accountable in November, not the Congress.
WTF? Seems like legal scholar Yoo continues to experience selective blind spots in his reading of legal documents. One wonders, if he were strapped to a board, leaned head down, and required to try to breathe through a water-soaked towel, would his blind spot clear up under questioning of his reading of the law?
Then there are those who question whether there is a political liability for the Democrats, as if exercising one's sworn Congressional duty as written in the Constitution and in the federal code of laws should be less compelling than one's re-election prospects.
But then there is the rest of the world, the one where the democracy and the rule of law are held dear. The Inquirer's editorial board titled the lead editorial, pasted at the bottom of this email, "Hold Trump accountable", so clearly they judge that the time for a formal impeachment investigation is now. The NYT editorial board concurs, although most of the lead editorial is spent meandering through the dramatic timeline between the whistleblower revelation and yesterday's five o'clock announcement.
On a more intimate level, last night Sue, Sam and I had an email trialogue on the wisdom and rightness of the impeachment process that I think is worth sharing. At bottom, this whole historical episode puts into deep relief what it means to be invested with the power of the people in a democracy. The relief is carved out by the cascading corruptions of this criminal crew that exemplify the abuse and misuse of that power.
SUE: Maybe ‘schmoozing with a foreign president to get dirt on an opponent’ will work, and I sincerely hope it does, but if it doesn’t the Democrats will look as if “they-are-out-to-get-him.” And we will lose the next election.
HOWARD: Repubicans
made no attempt to hide that they were out to get Hillary. That did not
secure her election.
Democrats are doing the right thing. To acquiesce in
criminal acts by the president so as to avoid the impression of biased use of
their power would be to violate their own oaths of office.
SAM: WHAT is the purpose of POWER if you do
not use it?
HOWARD: Good question. That question is inherent in
the oath of office to which we all keep referring. By taking the oath, they
become invested with the power, but in taking the oath they commit to using the
power for the purposes explicitly name out loud. The power is granted by
the people to use in serving the people — to use it for personal gain is the
essence of corruption; it is taking something that doesn’t belong to you
because the power belongs to the role you’ve sworn to fulfill, not to you as an
individual.
This crisis of
corruption prompts us to reflect on these things that are at the philosophical
heart of Constitutional democracy. Rump has no idea what public service
means. It was never his intention to serve, only to have power and
status. Everything he’s done in office is corrupt because he only
acts in what he perceives to be self-interest — or out of puerile
vindictiveness.
The power of an elected official in a democracy is defined, endowed and delimited by law. The office is a role occupied by an individual who acts in accordance with the script as written in law. In essence, the power is like a fund of money for which the holder then becomes responsible -- spending from that fund for personal expenses would be the equivalent of using that conditionally-bestowed official power for personal advantage. Sorry if this is all too self-evident to warrant so much over-analysis, but this principle is clearly one that has escaped the grasp of more than 40% OF American voters.
Hold Trump accountable
The new republic created right here in
Philadelphia in 1787 defined three coequal branches of government, one of which
was led by a president — not a monarch or dictator. It is a position imbued
with extraordinary power — and because of that, is subject to oversight of
other branches to ensure that no president is above the law or above
questioning.Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has consistently disregarded this fundamental principle that he is answerable — to Congress or the American people. From his refusal to release his tax returns, his willingness to accept assistance from Russia in the 2016 election and attempts at obstructing the special counsel’s investigation, the list goes on.
But perhaps the most egregious example of Trump’s belief that he answers to no one is his administration’s refusal to release a whistle-blower complaint to the House Intelligence Committee in clear violation of a law in place to protect oversight on the executive.
It is that violation that led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday to announce a formal impeachment inquiry into the president, citing Trump’s betrayal of the oath of office, of national security, and the integrity of our elections.
The whistle-blower complaint made by an intelligence official to the inspector general of the intelligence community was deemed to be of “urgent concern” and involved a July call when Trump pressured the newly-elected Ukrainian president to investigate Trump’s potential 2020 rival, former-vice president Joe Biden. Trump alleged that Biden had stifled a Ukrainian corruption investigation into his son, Hunter Biden. Allegedly, Trump applied pressure by delaying millions of dollars in foreign aid to Ukraine.
Trump has not denied the call or that the conversation took place. He announced Tuesday that he will release the transcript of the call.
Throughout this scandal, just like the previous ones, Trump’s response has been “so what?”
So what if his campaign met with Kremlin-connected people to get dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016?
So what if he sided with Vladimir Putin’s narrative of the 2016 election interference over the U.S. intelligence’s?
So what if he either fired or tried to fire those who investigated him?
It’s doubtful our founding fathers could have anticipated a leader who had this shrugging disregard for even the semblance of accountability or responsibility to the country and its national security — but they did put a process in place for this scenario. That process is impeachment.
Impeachment is not another word for removal from office. It is the equivalent of impaneling a grand jury — an investigation and deliberation to decide if there is enough substance for the accusation to proceed to trial.
The president has continued to insist that he is not subject to criminal investigations, and can do whatever he wants because he’s president. But no one is above the law. For his actions, and his disregard for the meaning and consequences, impeachment is a process Trump has deserved and cannot shrug off.
In a democracy, those we elect are answerable to us. Congress represents us in this matter, and its pursuit of impeachment is the first step in finding out the truth — and holding the president to account.
