The call for the impeachment by Congress of the POTUS is solidifying among Democrats following Robert Mueller’s public clarification of his devastating 400 page report. In an unprecedented media appearance the Special Counsel underlined the facts that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential elections as well as the fact that a President could be prosecuted if he was no longer in office. Mueller also pointed out that the immediate forum for addressing the President’s alleged infringements of the law was Congress.
In summary he conclusively illustrated that the Russians intervened on behalf of Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election, that the Trump campaign had 140 contacts with the selfsame Russians and that there were 10 instances where the Special Counsel could not clear the President of obstruction of justice.
Currently there are 50 Democratic members of Congress, one Republican and most of the Democratic Presidential Candidates who want to move forward with an impeachment enquiry. The irony is that the principal objective of the Democrats to deny Trump a second term may well be hampered if they attempt, under current circumstances, to impeach him.
MUELLER'S REPORT FAILED TO RESOLVE PUBLIC DEBATE ON IMPEACHMENT
The Mueller report as everyone had hoped, did not resolve, in the public’s mind, the debate as to Trump’s innocence or guilt in obstructing justice - in fact due to Attorney General Barr's cover up, just the opposite. Mueller, as he extensively documented, was deeply disturbed that the first public pronouncement of his conclusions was not the team’s prepared for publication Executive summaries but rather Attorney General Barr claiming that his report had totally exonerated President Trump of “collusion” with the Russians and more importantly of obstruction of justice.
It took Barr a month to release Mueller’s report, much redacted, and by then that perception that Trump was “innocent” was indelibly etched in the public square. Barr has consistently maintained that he is right and Mueller is wrong about his own investigation thereby solidifying the opinion of those in the electorate who are against impeachment of the President.
RETICENT MUELLER PUNTED TO CONGRESS THE CHARGING OF TRUMP WITH OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
Robert Mueller went into great detail of the stratagems Trump used to obstruct the workings of the his probe. These alleged attempts by Trump were mainly to hinder Mueller’s attempts to ascertain the extent of the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russian agents. Mueller spelt out why he could not come to a conclusion as to Trump’s guilt in that as it was the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a President.
The Special Counsel underlined that the Constitution provided the only mechanism to charge a sitting President. Congress is entrusted with oversight of a President and could charge him with “ high crimes and misdemeanors” that the ten instances of obstruction of justice implied. The problem is that the Constitutional provision provides for “the impeachment and removal of the President” and the Republican controlled Senate have made it quite clear that they have found the President not guilty without a trial. So as matters stand if the House of Representatives impeach Trump the Senate will clear him.
Mueller, the consummate public servant, whose studied understatement has been trampled over by the crude onslaught of a rogue President and the more sophisticated and consequently more dangerous distortions and lies of his newly appointed Consiglieri, William Barr, has no appetite for the political rough and tumble needed to save the Republic. The fact that he even wrote letters contradicting the Attorney General for deliberately distorting his conclusions and then publicly summarized them before riding into the sunset, shocked those that had worked for him, as they never conceived that he would ever venture into the public arena.
Mueller has publicly announced that he wants out of the process. A process if it is to reach its natural conclusion cannot do so without him.
The Special Counsel had done what he was supposed to. In the world that this 74 year old had come from that should have been enough. Mueller is of the school that you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. The post truth world of Trump and Barr is totally foreign to him and his way of coping with the aftermath of his report is to get out of town.
Mueller had carefully explained in terms of policy and precedent why he had not made a finding of guilt or not and Barr just flat out said he disagreed with him and promptly found the President not guilty. This Barr did after a two day reading of a four hundred page complex legal document compiled after two years of investigation. Barr out and out lied under oath to Congress, denying that Mueller had contacted him and had expressed reservations as to Barr’s mutilation of the reports findings. The fact that a thousand prosecutors - Republican and Democrat have stated that on the evidence they would have no compunction in indicting the President doesn’t fuzz Barr one jot. There have been no similar petitions from law officials backing Barr.
The Democrats are not inclined to let Mueller off the hook. They served notice that despite his categorical statement that he did not wish to elaborate further, that they needed his testimony and a public explanation of his thought processes to advance their theory that Trump had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
One even wonders whether it is too late to hear from Mueller because the Republicans buoyed by the narrative of Consiglieri Barr want to attack Mueller for even conducting his review when they allege that the enquiry was merely a Hillary Clinton motivated conspiracy to down the POTUS - such is the degradation that the standard bearers of the once proud Republican Party have sunk to. They have some how ignored Mueller’s final statement that Russia interfered with the 2016 election which fact should disturb every American.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY DILEMMA ON IMPEACHMENT
The Democratic Party’s dilemma is magnified by the argument that the House of Representatives have a constitutional obligation to expose Presidential misconduct versus the political damage and division that this process will cause in an electorate that is divided on the issue. The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knows that the one metric that Trump has got going for him is the divide on impeachment. Polls on the parameters whether the citizens will vote for Trump again and whether he is a liar or not, for example, are 60 - 40 against Trump. The 2018 midterm demographic where close on ten million more people voted for the Democrats than the Republicans apparently still holds for the 2020 polls. In the 2018 election, where Trump inserted himself holus bolus, the Democrats focussed on policy issues and allowed Trump to rant on.
The majority of the Democratic base that delivered in 2018 are angry and want blood. They are ignoring the fact that 36 of the 41 Republican seats they captured were as a result of the intervention of those that were not card carrying members of the base.
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership are not about to throw Trump a lifeline and impeach unless circumstances change radically.
THE FOUNDING FATHERS VIEW OF THE IMPEACHMENT PROCESS
The Founders assumed that the Legislators would view the issue of removal of a POTUS as an objective process divorced from politics. Indeed there has always been the risk of politicization as the Founders never defined what constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors”. This lead President Gerald Ford to opine that “high crimes and misdemeanors” are whatever Congress decides they should be.
There are two precedents of impeachment proceedings in living memory - those of Richard Nixon and William Clinton. In the former instance bipartisan consensus was reached that Nixon’s behavior, which involved obstruction of justice, abuse of power and lying to the public, was unbecoming of the Presidency. Nixon was impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and before being removed by the Senate he resigned. In the Clinton situation the Republicans decided that lying under oath about a consensual extramarital affair was a “high crime and misdemeanor”. This allegation was perceived by the public as a patently political assessment and Clinton’s poll numbers increased dramatically as a result. This allowed the Democrats to vote against removing him from office thereby vindicating Clinton’s claim that the whole process was politically motivated.
Trump’s strategy from the word go Is to argue that he was in a Clinton like scenario and the Republicans are backing him to the hilt. The urgency of Trump reaping the benefits of being impeached without being “removed” have grown exponentially as his failed presidency stutters on. This would allow Trump to change the narrative of his failure to introduce a better health care plan, build a wall, drain the swamp, get North Korea to denuclearize, persuade China to stop stealing intellectual property, bring back manufacturing jobs and reopen the coal mines to “The crooked Hillary Democrats are trying to reverse the will of the people by a political coup”. The process he will argue as he did before he won the election, “is rigged”.
HOW TRUMP IS THWARTING THE DEMOCRATS
The Democrats through the various House of Representative committees that they control are trying to follow the Nixon Watergate pattern. Numerous hearings were held where evidence was gleaned in relation to the Watergate burglary and Nixon’s attempts at obstruction of justice. There was a parade of witnesses from Nixon's Administration, many of who were subsequently indicted. When the bipartisan committee believed that what they had learned constituted impeachable offenses they referred the matter to the House Judiciary Committee to hold an impeachment hearing. The Democrats are being stymied in their efforts to follow this process. Trump has simply forbad any present or former member of his Administration to give evidence. In addition supported by his new sidekick Willam Barr no documentation is being forwarded either.
The Democrats have challenged this in court and have had success as they are within their constitutional rights to oversee the President. However, every ruling has been appealed and Trump believes that the process will not be resolved till he is reelected again. The one worry he might have is that the process has been put on a fast track by the Courts and may well be heard by the Supreme Court by the end of the year.
Another threat to the Trump strategy is that Barr’s Justice Department has point blank refused a Judge’s order to provide a tape recording of a conversation between his convicted former National Security Advisor and the Russian Ambassador where it is believed there is evidence of Trump’s complicity with the Russians. That issue will come to a head pretty soon as the Judge is apparently furious.
All this begs the question as to what the Democratic leadership might do with growing pressure within their ranks to impeach.
WHAT NOW?
With the Presidential candidates joining into the fray, (it is easy for them as their immediate electorate is the base of the Party), with the pundits who believe the whole institution of the Presidency is threatened if this behavior goes unchecked joining in and with the growing numbers of Democratic legislators crying for impeachment the pressure is mounting on Speaker Pelosi to pull the trigger. There is little doubt that she won’t short of large numbers of Republicans backing the process and for that to occur they need to be pressured by their constituents which, if the Watergate precedent is anything to go by, needs public hearings.
Pelosi knows as matters stand on the day to day issues such as health care and inequity in wealth her Party is way in front. She also is aware that just allowing Trump to sound off has already lost him the independent and the suburban Republican white woman vote. She also can hope and pray that the judicial process will speed up and that the witnesses and documentation will start rolling in. To satisfy her base she might go for impeaching Attorney General Barr as he has committed impeachable offenses. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has opened hearings into the Mueller Report which also may act as a proxy for an impeachment hearing. In addition the Democrats may well pursue more subpoenas and contempt citations.
Whatever Pelosi decides and whatever transpires The Speaker has only one thought in mind and that is that Trump does not serve another term. Eight years of Trump will irreversibly change the values that America purports to stand for. She has also been around long enough to appreciate that the representation of Republicans in Congress must continue to bleed as they unconditionally support this authoritarian yahoo. So with a bit of luck and a ton of savvy the Democrats can clean sweep the House and Senate as well s regaining the Presidency. Nancy can then retire in the full knowledge that America and the world will be a safer and a happier place for her grandchildren.
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