It's Draft Time: Impeachment Edition

[Dill]

(05-12-2017, 01:18 AM)hollodero Wrote: OK, agreed. Firing an FBI director because the Russia story is made up, though... that seems like a serious offense. The only thing lightening my stance is that he said it so free and openly that it can't possibly be that bad. But he really said it like that. When deciding to fire Comey, he thought of the made up Trump/Russia story. What do your articles and whatnot say about that. 

I am not sure it is an "offense" in the sense of breaking a law. And he said it "openly and freely" because he does not really understand (or perhaps care about) the consequences of his official actions in any normal sense (he does care very much about his "ratings" and whether he is perceived to be better than Obama).  It was bad judgment--bad enough that it makes sense to at least ask if it was criminal--and more confirmation for anyone outside the bubble that Trump should not be commander in chief.
 
The determination of "high crime" depends a lot on prevailing conceptions of duty and reasonable judgment, not to mention intent, and may also be very partisan.  Some will find oral sex in the Oval Office grounds for impeachment, some not. Virtually everyone would find accepting a bribe sufficient grounds. Dereliction of duty, failing in due diligence can also be a high crime, e.g. if a president randomly sends a Seal time on some dangerous operation without proper prep and disregarding Pentagon advice, and the team members all get killed. I should mention that Congress can CENSURE a president, which won't remove him from office, but is a big black mark for sure. Polk was censured for fabricating a pretext for the Mexican war, Bush was not censured for fabricating a pretext for the Iraq war. So like I say--determination of high crime depends a lot on prevailing conceptions and which party controls Congress.

So here is the problem: our articles and what not say that Congress decides whether to impeach an elected official or not. And the Senate then tries whoever is so impeached.  So a Republican Congress, dependent on Trump to pass the legislation they want passed, has to decide whether his actions rise to the level of impeachment--which embarrasses the party more: impeaching or not impeaching? The bar will be higher for them than for a Dem congress. And as I said above, the press and a significant number of ordinary citizens have to back impeachment as well. The press must explain the "crime" and precedents etc. to the public.

It indeed looks like Trump fired Comey to stop an investigation. His words seem to confirm that, though indirectly. A president can, in his judgment, decide that an investigation is going nowhere.  VERY PROBLEMATIC when the investigation concerns your own people though.  Like I say, most people would know what to think if this were local government and a mayor fired a police chief investigating him.

But again--and I cannot emphasize this enough--for anyone who thinks the Russian investigation is "fake news." Trump's actions simply do not rise to the required level of dereliction/incompetence.  Beyond violating appearances, he has not shown bad judgment at all for those folks. This dampens any groundswell of outrage which might prompt even Republican Congressmen to act. Doubtful we could even get a presidential censure here.

This is why so much right wing rhetoric and spin in the US public sphere at the moment are focused on the Democrats rather than Trump. This is really about their anger over a loss (so the deflection goes). First they hate Comey because he helped Trump, then they like him because Trump fired him, so it's all just Trump hate and shows their despicable, inconsistent character.  If you are a rightist, it is important to keep that going, loud, strong persistent--all over radio and tv and blogosphere every day. Rank and file may really believe the Democrats are just sleazeballs tarring a president trying to do the right thing, but Rush and Hannity understand the strategic importance of keeping denial front and center in the public discussion.  When that stops, when the rank and file finally no longer follow Rush et al., then impeachment/censure will become real options.  The midterm elections may make this possible.