I
saw for George H. W. Bush's state funeral more crowd turn-out and
"to-do" than I have seen for any other state funeral, since the
JFK assassination. It would appear that many regular Americans, regardless of their politics, really do
know somewhere in their hearts what kind of a person makes a fine
President.
Mr.
Bush's kindness and humility, his knowledge of how to govern, and
his prioritization of good-of-the-country over party (or personal)
advantage, seem quite well known. The contrast between Bush 41 and
Trump 45 could not be more stark!
Those three contrasting points are three very good reasons
not to have elected Mr. Trump to the Presidency in the first place. However,
egged-on by Russian propaganda spread mostly by social media, a big chunk of the US electorate became
disenchanted with both parties, and
voted for him instead.
They voted massively in the primaries so that Trump clinched
the Republican nomination. His
supporters hoped to send him to Washington to disrupt the “establishment”. Enough of these disenchanted Trump supporters
voted for him in rural America, to send
him to the White House. And they got
their wish: he has disrupted everything
he comes in contact with.
They have also begun to pay the price for his trade wars and
tariffs. So, there has to be a limit to how far their
support for him, which is still rabid, will go.
The rest of us are appalled by the encouragement he provides to racist
groups in their demonstrations-gone-violent in the streets (evocative of early
1930’s Germany), and the obviously racist
nature of his southern border policies.
“Truth” for Mr. Trump quite demonstrably has nothing to do
with the factualness of anything, it
only has to do with what benefits his image among his supporters. It has only taken not-quite-two-years for his
own words and statements to reveal publicly that he is an egregiously-chronic
liar, and that essentially 100% of what
he claims is false.
Now, the various
ongoing federal and state investigations have revealed certain patterns. More is to come, as all of these are not done, yet.
There seem to be some serious campaign finance violations related to the
hush money paid to his mistresses. There
may be obstruction of justice associated with his firing of James Comey, and more obstruction of justice related to the
way he has since repeatedly threatened the Mueller investigation. We’ll soon see, in that case.
There may, or may not,
have been collusion between his campaign
and the Russians, since Mueller has yet
to report. But things do not look good
on that score for Mr. Trump, as it would
appear that (among many things) the infamous Steele Dossier has slowly been
proven true, point by point. If there was provable collusion, that is indeed a very, very serious crime. So is a US President being vulnerable to
Putin’s control, by extortion.
In my opinion, no one
of these is grounds, all by itself, for impeachment. Taken together, they are indeed very good grounds. Plus,
there is also one other thing no one talks about anymore: treason of the “aid and comfort to the enemy”
type. Mr. Trump has very publicly
damaged our relations with our allies,
and thus weakened our alliances,
very particularly NATO.
One former high security official indeed termed his behavior
at Helsinki “treasonous”, and lost his
clearance for it, simple retaliation by
Mr. Trump. No one since has used that
word in public. It is my opinion they
should have, and should still. Loudly.
Damaging or weakening the NATO alliance is something the
Russians (under one or the other government) have tried and failed to accomplish
for about 7 decades. Mr. Trump did it
for them in about a year and a half,
while cozying up to Russia’s Putin,
among other evil dictators.
There is no doubt that Putin’s Russia is a foe (synonym for
“enemy”). Millions (if not billions)
have witnessed on television Mr. Trump’s words and deeds that weakened the NATO
alliance. This seems to meet the
Constitutional definition of treason (as “aid and comfort to the enemy”) and far
exceeds its witness requirements (only two).
Treason is, all by
itself, a very serious impeachable
offense; that no one can deny. Even if Mr. Trump has not quite actually
committed treason, he has skirted close
enough to it, for that close approach to
be an impeachable offense. So, I strongly recommend we add treason, or at least near-treason, to the impeachment grounds list.
Returning to Mueller’s investigation, it is my unsupported belief that his probe is
very nearly completed (and his report likely mostly written, at least in draft form), as evidenced by the recent flurry of
indictments and convictions of Trump underlings. This probe has been quite professional, as evidenced by the utter lack of leaks from Mueller’s
team, unlike most activities in
Washington, DC.
A professional effort like that will produce a whole lot (that
we have yet to see) that is provable to courtroom standards, and a lot more still to consider, that is perhaps not so provable at the
courtroom standard, but still relevant
to an impeachment process. All of this
will be in Mueller’s report to Congress. Nothing short of this would be of professional
quality.
Now, both the House
and Senate are currently controlled by the Republican Party, in turn demonstrably dominated by its extreme
right wing of rabid Trump supporters.
Mr. Mueller would be foolish to present his report to that
Congress, as the Republicans in control would
just bury it (most likely by security classification) to protect Mr. Trump “at
all costs”. And so, the public would never learn its real contents.
Later in January,
control of the House will switch to the Democrats. I believe Mr. Mueller is waiting until after
that happens, so that his report actually
cannot be buried and kept from the public.
(That is what I would do, if it
were my investigation, so as to make
sure the public learns the real truth.) That
report-to-Congress event and subsequent public revelations is when the storm
will break!
It is a majority of the House that passes Articles of
Impeachment, more or less equivalent to
a grand jury indictment in the courts.
The case is tried in the Senate,
with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding, not the Vice President, who usually presides over Senate activities. It takes a two-thirds majority of Senators to
convict.
After the Mueller report storm breaks, Senate conviction will be far more likely, due to the inevitable public outcry. This is quite distinct from most Senate
actions now, as controlled by Mitch
McConnell (who demonstrably values party advantage above the good of the
Republic, but that’s another subject for
some other time and place *** see update 12-20-18 below).
It has been recently reported that Mr. Trump is privately
concerned about being impeached, despite
his public statements to the contrary. I
just gave you multiple very good reasons for his concern.
Once the Mueller storm breaks, somewhere around the end of January or early February
(if I am right), I urge you to contact
your Representatives, and especially
your Senators, about following-through
on this urgent matter (my own have been pointedly silent in reply so far, and I will not forget that silence). Our country has suffered more than enough
damage at the hands of Mr. Trump.
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Update 12-20-18: Senator and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell chronically prioritizes party advantage over the public good. While his Senate majority leadership post demands some of this behavior, it is a danger to the Republic at the level he manifests most of the time. I wish his constituency would un-elect him soonest.
The most egregious example was his refusal to allow the Senate to consider the nomination by Barack Obama of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. It was his (and the Senate's) Constitutional duty to consider this nomination.
What the Constitution says about "advise and consent" says nothing about party political considerations. But McConnell chose party advantage over his Constitutional duty, thus violating his oath of office as a Senator.
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Update 12-20-18: Senator and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell chronically prioritizes party advantage over the public good. While his Senate majority leadership post demands some of this behavior, it is a danger to the Republic at the level he manifests most of the time. I wish his constituency would un-elect him soonest.
The most egregious example was his refusal to allow the Senate to consider the nomination by Barack Obama of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. It was his (and the Senate's) Constitutional duty to consider this nomination.
What the Constitution says about "advise and consent" says nothing about party political considerations. But McConnell chose party advantage over his Constitutional duty, thus violating his oath of office as a Senator.
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