Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, it really shouldn’t be too much to ask that the president of the United States not commit felonies. It’d be nice if they didn’t perjure themselves or obstruct justice. No one wants to defend that kind of behavior and I still harbor a lot of resentment toward Bill Clinton for what he put Democrats through, despite the fact that nothing he did rose to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor and he definitely should have been defended against the attempt to remove him from office.
Despite this, I don’t really share John Podhoretz’s level of outrage about Donald Trump’s felonious violations of campaign finance law. Taken in complete isolation (which is impossible in this case, I know), I don’t think it’s a removable offense to pay off mistresses to keep silent about your affairs and then lie about it incessantly. If I thought that, I probably would not have defended Bill Clinton. Congress should have censured Clinton and been done with it, and if there weren’t a hundred other concerns about Trump’s fitness for office, that’s what Congress should do with this latest revelation.
I know it can be argued that the election was so close that Trump would have lost if not for his successful effort to cover up his affairs with a porn star and a Playboy bunny, and that does make it significantly more serious than lying under oath and hiding gifts related to a dalliance with a White House intern. Still, I’d let the voters handle this one and have Trump pay some fines and restitution once he’s out of office.
In truth, the proper way to deal with this is not to call for impeachment hearings or bray to this hilltops about how the president is a felon. The proper way to deal with it is to make it part of an eventual argument for removal that is based on the entire Mueller report. I’ve written about this a few times before, but we’re really stuck in a bad limbo until that report comes in because the Republicans aren’t going to stand up to their base unless or until they’re armed with the really damning stuff. We can’t deal with Trump piecemeal, but that’s the way revelations and developments have been playing out.
The Republicans in Congress could move to censure the president since they now know he’s committed felonies, and it’s a problem if they do nothing. But they really need more.
Obviously, Mueller is moving as fast as he can and yesterday showed how much progress he is making, but our system is so jangled at the moment that we can’t wait much longer.
I mostly agree with this, but it bears mentioning (especially given your previous piece on election integrity) that Trump is now clearly guilty of a criminal conspiracy to illegally influence the outcome of the 2016 election that is completely separate from the almost certain conspiracy with Russia to do the same.
Actually, in addition to the payoffs to Stormy and the Playmate, another atttempt to influence the election was his repeated and increasing threats about a “rigged election” and his warnings of not accepting the results of the election unless he won. That’s a pretty blatant attempt to discredit the elections. Probably does not affect the campaign finance laws but does go to the integrity of elections, which is at least a serious democratic norms violation.
And what if the RNC, or some other significant number of Republican people and organizations, were complicit in some of these, or other, conspiracies to illegally influence the outcome of the election?! For example, Priebus was on the campaign!
At the very least I’d love to see yesterday’s “Well, Duh!” revelations be successfully used to delay the Kavanagh hearings until after November 2018….but it will likely just speed them up.
. . . up into little pieces to feed into the famous sausage-grinder that is Congress?
Damn!
Killjoy.
(P.S. Betting you meant “censure” in the 2nd graf as in the next-to-last, not “censor”.)
Maybe he’s a Catholic and was referring to an incense censor.
the incense container is a “censer”.
Long time lurker, first time commenter. I respect you greatly, Booman, and think your commentary is some of the most insightful around (I especially enjoy al the dead references) but I have to disagree that it is premature to talk impeachment. The evidence is already public. Trump publicly encouraged our enemies, the Russians, to hack Hillary’s email during the campaign. Emails have been released demonstrating conclusively that his son met with a Russian agent to obtain information that Trump publicly asserted that he wanted hacked. Trump publicly asserted a day before the meeting that he would be making a speech to release information on Hillary. In Helsinki, he publicly sided with Putin over ALL American intelligence agencies. He has never said one damn thing negative about Putin although he attacked and continues to attack the lifeblood of our Democracy — the electoral process. And he has done nothing to protect our elections, against the advice of his hand-picked cabinet members and intelligence officials; continues to call it a hoax.
Forgot to mention that Trump dictated a press release misrepresenting the purpose of the meeting with the Russian agent, demonstrating, at the very least, conspiracy after the fact.
I don’t have first hand knowledge on this but a friend told me that Lanny Davis said on tv that Cohen was never in Prague. True?
That’s being reported on The Dailly Caller
Don’t really see why it is news that a lawyer would publicly protect his client from admission to commit treason before obtaining immunity. Lanny wasn’t in a court room.
What immunity are you referring to?
Immunity granted by Mueller or SDNY to implicate the President without placing him in legal risk.
I don’t think Cohen has any immunity. He confessed all by himself with no promises, as I understand. I’m pretty sure they would or will ask him about Prague.
None of his charges related to Russian collusion and he has no agreement to coopaerate with Mueller under the plea agreement.
True enough. But the FBI can subpoena him. And then he has to answer.
They sure could. Stay tuned.
We saw it on MSNBC this afternoon. Crazy to be watching TV in the afternoon.
Can there be any doubt that both Parties and all media are probably polling like crazy to see what issues are going to stick to use in this campaign cycle? What will give each candidate a talking point that will pull them over the finish line?
I may have to agree with Chuck Todd for the first time when he said that the Rep’s should get Grassley to open an investigation into Cohen’s plea deal and how it touches Trump. Just the act of opening up an investigation gives a talking point for Rep candidates that they’re taking care of business.
If we all get our wish Mueller will give us more talking points before the 60 day rule takes effect.
60 day rule, funny! Only if you’re a Republican!
I didn’t see Chuck Todd’s segment but the idea of Grassley opening an investigation into the judicial practice of the SDNY and Cohen sounds ridiculous on it’s face and looks like an un-American trumpian attack on justice. I don’t get it…but then I’m not Republican yokel either.
Trump’s probably going to pardon Manafort tomorrow after he watches Fox interview a juror.
Did anyone seriously imagine this being the major part anyway? This was just rustling the gates to get prez on record as an unindicted coconspirator, and break Manafort. I wouldn’t agree to impeach on the implications of Cohen’s crimes alone anyway, but that isn’t the point of it.
You lay it out well, Booman.
I cringe thinking about what a juror interviewed by Fox might say. Gasoline on the fire.
Oh you hadn’t heard?
Interview tonight 11 PM
Then Donald is on Fox and Friends tomorrow. It’s gonna be lit.
Summary:
-Juror is a Trump supporter.
-Claimed that 1 holdout was all that prevented Manafort from being convicted on ALL counts.
-Holdout juror was a major part of the reason for the request to judge to define reasonable doubt.
-Juror approved of Judge shutting down the Russia angle in the trial.
-Said paper trail and law were very clear and no one above law so conviction.
-Spoke out because “America should know how close it was.”
-Unafraid of threats.
So there you go.
Boo, this piece is a trifle infuriating.. Apparently only Democrats are required to act responsibly. Is there an opening on the Times OpEd page that you heard about? The “proper”way to deal with charges that Trump paid off his sex partners to wi n the election is NOT to wait for the “really damning stuff”, it’s to blanket the airwaves 24/7 with calls for his immediate removal, on every possible front, preferably including pics of Stormy in her underwear. You want to stroke your beard judiciously as you wait for the “real charges”? Fuck that. Have we learned nothing from the way the Republicans operate? They act unfairly, irresponsibly, even illegally, and they continue to win. Would it be unfair to do to Trump what the Republicans did to Clinton? Not really. It would be a small dose of Karma, a few chickens from the huge flock, coming home to roost.
We have a long way to go in terms of fixing 45 years of the Republicans working the media until Dems can get away with behaving like Republicans.
Agree. If you want to impeach the donald, you got to get the idea out there that this man is a criminal. Yesterday he became an unindicted felon. The donald has had how many civil suits and paid out how much money? He has paid $10 million fine for money laundering. How many more federal/state civil suits are currently pending? The donald was a criminal before he ran for president and the case that his criminal behavior never stopped can be made.
I have to partly disagree. The fact that Trump allegedly ordered Cohen to pay off two mistresses in the run-up to the election, with the express purpose of swaying the election in his favor, is a direct assault on our electoral system and the rule of law. To me, that is an impeachable offense and in a different political climate, I would be calling for immediate impeachment proceedings.
In the actual political climate we have, however, I agree it is too soon for impeachment proceedings. Such proceedings would likely fail if they even got started. So, yes, we need more. Much more, if there is any hope of getting past a Republican stonewall. Even if the blue wave materializes in November.
… and now Lanny Davis confirms that Cohen was in the room when Donny and Jr were discussing taking the Russian meeting. The problem with Democrats failing to call out the known treasonous actions of the President for what they are and endorse the only meaningful consequence to his actions is that, with each passing day, they are normalizing such conduct and implicitly excusing it. If directly conspiring with a Russian agent isn’t impeachable, you keep raising the bar until that bar is so high that no illegal conduct reaches the impeachment threshold. That’s the road the Dems have embarked upon and it is perilous.
During Whitewater, Ken Starr addressed this unprofessionally but head on nonetheless by leaking “status” information about the investigation to the press which “reported” on it. And republicans claimed it was within their right to call Clinton out publicly on specific accusations, verifiable and not, as the special counsel investigation progressed. This allowed the public to get a sense that the investigation was not for nothing.
To his credit, Mueller’s shop isn’t leaking, however nothing is preventing democrats from calling Trump out on what is known and verifiable about his criminal activity, and they would not be out of bounds for doing so. And yet, the democrats have swallowed the okey-doke once again, and have told their own members to not even talk about impeachment and the charges supporting it.
The silence on this is why it may feel like to some that the investigation is dragging on and not bearing fruit. And every time the press reports breathlessly, breaking news, of some event, like Cohen confessing, and then nothing happens from the perspective of the general public that would seem to further the process along, it gives the republicans a basis for their phony arguments, that “there is no evidence of collusion” and the need to have the investigation end quickly, which certainly serves the purpose of Trump et al.
Enough is known about Trump, certain family members and associates, supported by known evidence, to call him out now. Democrats should be doing that. something there.
. . . allegation, not the finding of a formal legal proceeding. Even if such legal proceeding did reach such a finding, the further finding that Cohen’s telling of what occurred there is accurate (e.g., via corroboration by others present) would still be required to arrive at “known treasonous actions of the President” in any legal sense.
(Think I’ve made perfectly clear my own personal belief that the evidence made public so far makes “collusion” [aka its legal synonym “conspiracy”, which would be the actual charge] case-closed; and that Trump’s treasonous behavior is blatantly obvious and — especially in concert with all his other exposed criminality — clearly merits impeachment; and that Banana Republican congresscritters are obviously in violation of their oaths of office to defend the Constitution by doing nothing at all about any of it so far. That’s all a long shot from evidence-based findings in a formal legal proceeding, though. All that and a buck-fitty might get me a buvable cuppa joe at Starbucks.)
I think Dems (especially “leadership”) should be consistently highlighting and forcefully condemning Trump’s many outrages as he commits them on a daily basis. But not focusing mainly or exclusively on that to the point it gets in the way of articulating a positive vision for governing. I think Dem candidates should somewhat vaguely commit to accountability in accordance with the constitutional oversight duty they will swear to; but not prematurely to impeachment specifically. Something along the lines of “I pledge if elected to hold the President, as with everyone else in government, accountable under our laws and the Constitution for their actions, in adherence to my oath of office. I await the official findings of the Special Counsel to form a judgment about what form any such accountability should take.” (But certainly not explicitly ruling out impeachment!)
Campaigning on impeachment per se is premature.
I am sorry that you “still harbor a lot of resentment toward Bill Clinton for what he put Democrats through.” If this is a reference to the Lewinsky affair, I wonder whether it is an aspect of the problem within our tribe, blaming the victim, and also going off to hide in the woods when the MSM and the “vast right wing conspiracy” make frivolous, unfounded accusations, spreading misinformation, outright lies and propaganda. [See The Daily Howler]
You may recall that, after nearly eight years and upwards of $100 million, the Clintons were never charged. As the world’s leading authority puts it, “Indeed, no one ended up happy with the Whitewater investigation; Democrats felt that the investigation was a political witch-hunt, Republicans were frustrated that both Clintons had escaped formal charges, and those without partisan involvement found press coverage of Whitewater, which spanned four decades, difficult to understand.”
Yes, Bill’s behavior was bad. However, he was dealing with Gingrich, Scaife (and the “conspiracy”), et alia, as well as The New York Times, an institution that has seen better days.
Is Mueller going to report before the Mid-terms? All questions of impeachment are moot unless the Democrats win both Houses in the mid-terms and that is not going to happen unless there is a wave election against Trump and Republicans.
To achieve this Democrats have to achieve a difficult balancing act: motivate their own base to vote in mid-terms where their turnout is historically relatively low,and avoid giving Republican’s easy talking points which they can use to bring out their own base.
So the optimum process is for revelations against Trump to become increasingly serious, for Trump’s behaviour to become increasingly bizarre, and for Republican’s to become increasingly divided at swing congressional district level as to how best to respond.
You need a pretty broad consensus amongst voters and in Congress to achive an actual impeachment, and then all you get for your troubles is Mike Pence.
So the optimum outcome is not an actual impeachment, but the increasing division and demoralization of the Republican/Trump base combined with their incapacitation in terms of achieving their actual political agenda and winning any elections for the foreseeable future.
I know it sucks having Trump as your President for at least another 2.5 years, but it is better to have a lame duck Trump than a focused Trump with a working congressional majority.
We have been saved from a lot of bad things by Mr Trump’s complete incompetence. Competence + what we know about his authoritarian nature now (this is different from his narcissism), we’d be done.
A complete incompetent running the government in a dangerous world is a huge risk. This is the situation that causes empires to fall. And by fall I don’t mean give up their colony in Remotia I mean have your troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC.
Even without that kind of outcome, there’s (will be) a gigantic opportunity cost, and massive amount of expenditure in the future to repair the damage from 2 more years of this nonsense.
As it is, US institutions are being and will continue to be weakened, setting the stage for a competent despot to take advantage at some point in the near future. The next decade or two are ones that should be particularly concerning.
More unsettling, whether our institutions degrade to the point such a takeover is possible or not is almost entirely in the hands of Trumpshirts like the interviewed Manafort juror.
Where they see the line between their civic duty, the rule of law, and “political witch hunt led by the deep state conspiracy against Real Americans ™” will be critical, especially when and if Democrats start retaking power at the Federal level.
We’ve been deciding our 50-50 elections for the past few decades on the votes of low information voters and now maybe the whims of a cult.
What can be done about this? We want the wisdom of crowds, not the stupidity.
What can we do about this?
Maybe we can require that anyone elected to a federal office provide complete financial disclosure, or no oath of office. Better before the election, so voters can deal with the information.
There are a lot of details to making this work. The side effect is that it should raise the bar for sociopaths to get into power. But it’s only a side effect, and not immune from gaming by a competent sociopath (so details).
The constitution needs a lot more work than this, but is this somewhere to start? The founders understood about bad intentioned people but didn’t know what we know about personality disorders and apparently thought gentlement would keep the lid on the snake pit (but in fact some are snakes too).
“Is Mueller going to report before the Mid-terms?”
I found this question very intriguing. Could it be that Mueller finds enough malfeasance to feel it is his civic duty to let the public know prior to the midterms? I could see him doing that, in which case the answer is yes.
As for Pence – if Mueller’s evidence points to the campaign and Trump’s collusion that de-legitimizes the results of the election then isn’t Pence illegitimate as well? Shouldn’t Pence’s resignation be demanded as part of the cleansing process?
He can be impeached by a majority vote of the House (which, of course, the Dems need to win first) and he NEEDS to be impeached so he can’t issue himself a preemptive pardon from legal action that may be taken against him after he leaves the Presidency. Impeachment is the only Constitutional exception to the pardon power, and it does not expressly require conviction and removal by the Senate, only Impeachment by the House. Impeachment therefore is an end in itself that should be pursued. Moreover, the evidence that will come to fore during impeachment proceedings will grind Trump and the Republican Party into sand. Voters will be incensed and we may very well get a conviction or resignation. Regardless, the public will be so sick of the Republicans by 2020, that they will be toast (see the Democratic Party in 2000 after Impeachment over a BJ). This is treason, not a BJ!
Things change. When the center cannot hold…
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/case-mueller-firing-break-glass-democrats-prep-emergency-plan-n9025
26
Fixed Link
Thanks!
I feel like it will take a well documented paper trail of financial crimes to get the Repubtards to turn on dump. Obstruction of justice and conspiracy to influence the election will simply be rationalized as a case of: ‘it’s just politics, both sides do it’.
This is not the crime Cohen confessed to. He confessed to knowingly violating campaign finance laws and named Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator.