Addressing Presidential Misconduct in 2019

Update: While I'm grateful that Tengrain has linked me up to Mike's Blog Round Up this Easter morning, please don't read me! Click on the link below and go read Yoni's work in full! ...just do me a favor and keep track of this blog, pleasekaithanx (P.S. been busy writing Camp NaNo and all, haven't gotten past the intro of the Mueller Report... busy busy busy)


I'm still reading the Mueller Report - and tracking the madness on social media - so there's little I need to say on the subject right now.

Yoni Appelbaum over at the Atlantic, however, has made a compelling argument for the Democratic House in Congress to take the step Mueller is urging them to take: File articles of Impeachment against Trump.

A basic principle lies at the heart of the American criminal-justice system: The accused is entitled to a fair defense and a chance to clear his name. Every American is entitled to this protection, from the humblest citizen all the way up to the chief executive. And that, Mueller explained in his report, is why criminal allegations against a sitting president should be considered by Congress and not the Justice Department. The Mueller report, in short, is an impeachment referral.

In his report, Mueller took pains to detail why he “determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment” as to whether the president had broken the law by obstructing justice. He began by noting that he accepted the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—which issues guidance for the executive branch on questions of law—that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

That, Mueller explained, posed an insurmountable problem. A normal investigation would end with a prosecutor deciding to bring charges, or to drop the case. It’s a binary choice. But “fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought.” Ordinarily, a criminal charge would result in “a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case.” But if Mueller were to state plainly that, in his judgment, the president had broken the law and obstructed justice, it would afford “no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.” In other words, because a sitting president cannot be indicted, making such a charge publicly would effectively deny Trump his day in court, and the chance to clear his name...

But there is another, simpler way to understand Mueller’s report. A footnote spells out that a criminal investigation could ultimately result in charges being brought either after a president has been removed from office by the process of impeachment or after he has left office. Mueller explicitly rejected the argument of Trump’s lawyers that a president could not be guilty of obstruction of justice for the conduct in question: “The protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person—including the President—accords with the fundamental principle of our government that ‘[n]o [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law.’”

But if Mueller believes a president could be held to account after he leaves office, he also spelled out another concern with alleging a crime against a sitting president: the risk that it would preempt “constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.”

The constitutional process for addressing presidential misconduct is impeachment...

There is a lot of buzz in social and Beltway Media arguing that a Democratic House shouldn't try an impeachment that's doomed to fail in a Republican-controlled Senate. The fear is that trump would use the Senate vote as "vindication" - as he's shown so eager to crow every time he avoids accountability - and claim himself a victim to trick enough undecided voters to align with him again in 2020.

The thing is, the Mueller Report as we're reading it - even with redactions - is exposing an Executive administration running amok, eager to commit crimes at trump's whims and seeking out corrupt deals at the expense of the Public Trust. There are solid arguments to make that the House has to do its job as a balancing check on a corrupt administration.

Even if it doesn't mean impeachment proceedings starting this Monday... it ought to at least ramp up the oversight on every committee to hold trump and his staffers accountable for every lie and act of deceit they've done.

Back to Appelbaum about the appropriate use of Impeachment:

As I wrote for this magazine in January, impeachment is best regarded as a process, not an outcome. It’s the constitutional mechanism for investigating whether an executive-branch officer is fit to serve. It requires his accusers to lay out their evidence in public, provides the opportunity for witnesses to be cross-examined, and ultimately forces the House of Representatives to decide whether to impeach—that is, to approve charges that will force a trial in the Senate—or to drop the inquiry, thereby clearing the accused...

...Mueller has now delivered 10 credible allegations of obstructive behavior on the part of the president. For all of Trump’s bluster, those claims are now a matter of public record, and will hang over his presidency, despite the decision of his own appointee to clear him in the matter.

The constitutional mechanism for resolving this situation is impeachment. The president... deserves a chance to clear his name. The public deserves a chance to examine the evidence against him. And his supporters and opponents alike deserve the clarity that only convening impeachment hearings can now provide.

trump is corrupt. We've known that since Day One. All Mueller's done with his Report is document the atrocities. Congress has evidence now to act on that Report. They need to.