A Velvet Glove Revolution

The New Post-Trump Constitution


By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online

The new normal: Impeachment as a routine partisan tool, endless investigations, lying under oath with impunity, surveillance of political enemies, zero accountability …

The Left sees Donald Trump’s comportment, rallies, and tweets as a new low in presidential behavior that justifies extraordinary countermeasures. But Trump’s personal characteristics are idiosyncratic and may or may not become institutionalized by subsequent presidents. And it is not as if liberal icons such as FDR, LBJ, JFK, and Bill Clinton suddenly became saintly in office.

What is far scarier is the reaction to Trump, in both the constitutional and political sense. What follows are likely the new norms for the next generation of presidents, and they will probably be equally applied to Democrats who implemented them in the Trump era.

1) Private presidential phone calls with foreign leaders will be leaked and printed in the major media. The point will be not so much to air breaking news as to embarrass the president or to use such disclosures to stymie his foreign policy. Those who leak such information will be canonized as part of a “resistance.” Prominent officials in government will publish anonymous op-eds in the New York Times bragging about how they are daily undermining a new president’s administration.

2) Impeachment is now a casual affair. It requires no report of illegal or unethical behavior by a special counsel or special prosecutor. It will not be bipartisan but solely the action of the opposition party in the House when it is in the majority.

Public support will not matter. Much less will it be needed. Impeachment will be applied equally to a first- or second-term presidency. And it will become useful in a reelection year to help drive down an incumbent’s popularity.

Even when there is no chance of conviction in the Senate — as when the impeachment indictment is weak and the president’s own party controls the upper House — impeachment will nonetheless proceed, because it is now seen as a banal, politicized vote of no confidence and thus an occasionally useful political tool.

Will This Eventually Be The End of The Democratic Party?

Democrats Will Never End The Impeachment Show 

Trump Must Be Gone For Good

Andy Puzder
The Federalist

The Democrats have made one thing perfectly clear throughout their impeachment crusade: they will not rest as long as Donald Trump is president of the United States.

Their obsession with impeachment has little to do with anything President Trump did, and everything to do with who he is. Democrats never expected to lose the 2016 election—especially not to Donald Trump—and resolved to correct the voters’ unforgiveable “mistake” even before the president took office.

The Democrats have floated the idea of impeachment over demonstrably fake Russian collusion conspiracy theories, tabloid drivel about porn stars, and even the president’s criticism of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.

With time running out before the 2020 presidential race gets into full swing, they seized on the only thing they had left: exaggerated “concerns” with a phone call to the newly elected Ukrainian president, padded with testimony from a slew of disgruntled national security officials upset that the president wanted to make his own foreign policy decisions, and a harebrained theory about how it was all illegal.

By any measure, the charade was a monumental failure.

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

Nancy Pelosi’s Impeachment Blunder Will Play Out In 2020

Impeachment now looks more like an example of that ancient term: a partisan traveshamockery.

Ben Domenech
The Federalist


The decision by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic House leadership to depart from Washington without resolving whether the Senate trial of the president will even happen is a blunder of potentially serious proportions. It totally undermines everything the Democrats have done narratively for the past several months, embracing their role as defenders of the Constitution against a clear and present danger to its tenets. Instead, impeachment now looks more like an example of that ancient term: a partisan traveshamockery.

Pelosi’s supporters who are hard core Democratic donors and partisans may like this move, since it denies the president the surety of what is almost assuredly going to be a bipartisan vote to acquit him on both charges in the Senate. These are the same people who wanted to extend the process by forcing Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton to testify via the courts, who hold out hope to this day that the Southern District of New York will turn up something on Rudy Giuliani that will make for even more articles of impeachment. They want impeachment now, impeachment tomorrow, impeachment forever – asterisks all the way down.

But for the approximately 30 members who stood with Pelosi to make this tough vote, they don’t want impeachment to extend further into the new year – they want it over as quickly as possible. The narrative argument they can make is obvious: “yes, we voted for impeachment, we had to do it because of the Constitution, but the very next day we proved we could work with the president on trade, and we’ll work with him on prescription drug prices and other issues moving forward.” That’s how they got elected in the first place, after all – and defending those members is what Pelosi has concentrated on. It’s why she didn’t want to do this in the first place.

The idea that Pelosi would hold on to these articles isn’t envisioned in the process or rules. Noah Feldman, who testified for the Democrats during their proceedings, maintains that Trump isn’t actually impeached until the House sends over the articles. It also prompts a host of questions about whether the Senate could hold a trial even if the House does not transmit the Articles of Impeachment. Weird granular debates about legislative rules seems like exactly what’s needed to increase the momentum toward removal, guys – great job.

Embarrassment At Large

4 Reasons Trump’s Impeachment Is The Weakest In U.S. History

Critics of Trump note that no crime is necessary to impeach the president. While that's true, it speaks to how weak the Democrats' case against Trump is.

Mollie Hemingway
The Federalist


President Donald Trump joined Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson in the club of impeached presidents Wednesday night. Like the other two, Trump will be acquitted by the Senate once the articles of impeachment are delivered.

The case for Trump’s impeachment is the weakest of the three. If we include Richard Nixon, who resigned on his way to impeachment, it’s the weakest of the four. Here’s why.

1. No Actual Crime

Previous impeachments at least had a crime. Andrew Johnson was the first U.S. president to be impeached. He faced 11 articles of impeachment, mostly built around his violation of the Tenure of Office Act of 1867. That act limited the power of presidents to fire employees in Senate-approved positions without the consent of the Senate. While the law was blatantly unconstitutional, Johnson did violate it by getting rid of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Clinton was impeached for actual crimes that would get the rest of us in a whole lot of trouble. He was impeached for lying to a grand jury about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, false statements he’d made in an earlier deposition, and false statements he allowed his attorney to make about witness tampering. He was also impeached for obstructing justice in a case filed against him by encouraging Lewinsky to make a false statement and give false testimony, by hiding gifts he’d given to her, getting her a job in exchange for favorable testimony, attempted witness tampering with his secretary, and making false and misleading statements to jurors.

Nixon would have been impeached for obstructing an investigation into the unlawful break-in by his Committee to Re-Elect the President at the Watergate building and using the IRS and other agencies to violate others’ privacy.

By contrast, President Trump was not impeached for any recognizable crime. Critics of Trump note that no crime is necessary to impeach the president. While that’s true, it speaks to how weak the Democrats’ case against Trump is.

2. Punishing Trump for Exercising Constitutional Privileges

Trump is being impeached for abusing his power and for obstructing Congress.

A Brief Primer on Impeachment

Alan Dershowitz: It’s “Unconstitutional” To Impeach Trump


 “Obstruction of justice — that’s not a crime.”


STUART VARNEY (HOST): Now, we have the perfect guest on impeachment. He is the author of the new book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo. The author is Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor, with me in New York today. What's the significance, if you can wrap it up for us, of this second transcript that President Trump will reveal tomorrow?

ALAN DERSHOWITZ (AUTHOR): Well, first of all, I want to thank every veteran who served and protected us. Today is a day that we ought to take very, very seriously. Second, I don't know what's in the second transcript. But there are two issues: What happened on those phone calls, and is there any possibility that there is an impeachable offense? Let's get to the second one first — the answer is no. There is no possibility. Take the worst, worst, worst-case scenario — the president abused his foreign policy power to gain political advantage. How many presidents have done that over time? It's not among the listed impeachable offenses. It's not a crime —

VARNEY: It's not a high crime or misdemeanor.

DERSHOWITZ: It's not any kind of a crime. It may be a political sin — that's a good reason for deciding who to vote for — but it's not a good reason for removing a duly-elected president.

A Holiday Season With Little Rest

No Let Up, No Winding Down

As things wind down to the much anticipated summer holidays, the news and international events show no let up.  Top and centre in New Zealand has been the tragedy of tourists being caught in an eruption at White Island.  This has resulted in deaths and in terrible burns (external and internal) to the tourists and some of their guides.

The globe continues to shrink.  As a result tourists from all over the world can be found holidaying in New Zealand.  Most New Zealanders find themselves grieving the dead and wounded.  We are such a small country that, for many, these things are personal.

The United States is witnessing another impeachment of its current President.  This, too, is historic.

Democrat Mendacity

Schiff’s Report Will Not Attract New Impeachment Supporters

In no serious, objective investigation would the tribunal deny one side the opportunity to present its case, and then write a report concluding that no evidence supported that side’s position.

By Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review Online

The most striking thing about the impeachment report filed Tuesday afternoon by the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) is how unapologetically partisan it is.

Don’t get me wrong. Chairman Schiff is fiercely partisan and no one would have expected him to call it down the middle. A serious impeachment effort, however, has to try to attract support from Republicans and independents. Schiff gives us not a feint in that direction. His narrative is the Democratic base’s political case against Trump. There is no pretense of at least presenting the other side of the story, even if only for the purpose of refuting it.

To repeat what I argued in Faithless Execution (2014), impeachment is counterproductive if there is no plausible chance of removing the president from power. To impeach under circumstances where the president is certain to be acquitted at the eventual Senate trial (where a two-thirds supermajority is required for conviction and removal) is only to encourage further executive excesses.

That is why impeachment is a historical rarity even when the House (where only a simple majority is needed to file articles of impeachment) is controlled by the president’s opposition party. Prudent lawmakers grasp that it is not merely a waste of time to pursue impeachment in futility; doing so fosters divisiveness in society and dysfunction in government.

Schiff is not trying to develop a broad public consensus that the president should be removed from office. His report is a 2020 campaign document. Its heavy-handedness is only going to irritate Republicans. That includes many who are not particularly enamored of the president but want to see a fair process.

There is also the point I made in Tuesday’s column: If there were truly an impeachable offense, one that was patently egregious and provoked grave doubt about the president’s fitness for office, there would be no need to spin it. All that would be necessary would be a straightforward, nonpartisan recitation. Schiff, to the contrary, is spinning at every turn.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow, Idaho

Impeaches & Cream

Douglas Wilson
Blog & Mablog

Introduction

The House Democrats are discovering, and may have already discovered, that undying animus is not the same thing as a plan. The Wile E. Coyote memes appear to be writing themselves. Our deep state denizens are coming to grips with the fact that their unceasing attempts to take our normal kind of dirty politics up three corruption levels was perhaps not—as they so wanted to believe—all impeaches and cream.

The Rant of a Simple Man

The various faults and foibles of our president may be said to have passed into the category of received wisdom. No serious person disputes them, and it is not my purpose to go over all of that in any depth here. His rally speeches are inarticulate. He muscles through gaffes. He keeps absolutely everybody, from the North Koreans to the Washington Post, completely off balance. Some say this is the technique of a master negotiator and 3D chess master, meaning that these faults and foibles are intentional and purposive, while others say that his survival thus far has simply been a series of mind-bending flukes, and the next time will be his downfall. All we have to do, the House Dems are saying to themselves, is light the fuse on this Acme rocket, and the rest of it will just take care of itself.

So the faults and foibles are obvious. Let us grant them. This being the case, our respectable establishment does not comprehend how the president got elected in the first place. They do not grasp why he continues to fill up stadiums with cheering throngs. They do not understand how it is even conceivable that the American electorate might well return him to the White House for a second term. And yet it is conceivable, and so these firm believers in democracy want to remove any possibility of the world’s greatest democracy disgracing itself for a second time.

Why does the respectable establishment not understand the continued viability of Donald Trump as a candidate? Why do they not get it? What the respectable establishment does not understand is this—that they are not respectable at all.

Oh, Dear. What a Shame. Nevermind.

Democrats Concede Their Impeachment Argument Is Failing

Blame the Obtuse Ignorance of the Republican Voter

David Marcus
The Federalist


CNN reports that in a private meeting this week, top Democrats conceded that the polls on impeachment were unlikely to shift, and that their basic message is failing to break through for huge swaths of Americans. This is very close to admitting that their ultimate goal, of removing president Trump from office will not be achieved.

The reason this would mean game over for the removal effort is that only a significant uptick for impeachment in polling, especially among Republicans who have been rock solid in support of Trump, could lead to GOP votes to convict in the senate. This may sound cynical, but why should Republican senators defy the wishes of the vast majority of their voters based on the Democrats’ vague and shifting arguments?

Even more telling than the concession that polls won’t be moving is the admission their messaging is failing. This can only really mean one of two things. Either Adam Schiff and his inquiry have failed to prove Trump engaged in impeachable and removal offenses or the 44 percent of Americans who oppose impeachment are too stupid, or brainwashed to accept the case for impeaching Trump.

It’s pretty clear which of these two things Democrats think is going on.

Let's See How This Runs

House Democrats Were Always Going To Impeach President Trump

According to many House Democrats, Trump’s 'high crimes and misdemeanors' include criticizing NFL players and tweeting mean things about the Squad.

John Daniel Davidson
The Federalist

In a strictly partisan vote on Thursday, Democrats approved a resolution in favor of the ongoing anti-Trump investigation masquerading as an impeachment inquiry. Not a single Republican voted for the measure, and two Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in voting against it.

Many Democrats used the occasion to declare how seriously they take their constitutional duty to hold President Trump accountable. Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “This is a solemn day in the history of our country.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the impeachment inquiry was a “sad” and “prayerful” process. Ahead of the vote, she declared the resolution was “about the truth, and what is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy.”

Listening to this mawkish stuff, you’d think the Democrats, against their better instincts and in sorrowful duty to their sacred oaths, have finally been pushed to act for the sake of the republic. “Nobody comes to Congress to impeach a president of the United State,” said Pelosi. “No one.”

Well, except for the dozens of Democrats who clearly did come to Congress for that purpose.

Histrionics On A Grand Scale

So, They Want to Impeach the Dog

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

Introduction

[Let's hope the Democrats vote to impeach President Donald Trump.  In the words of Captain Jack Ross, they "will have no evidence at all, but it's going to be entertaining". Ed.]

So I posted a meme the other day, promising to follow it up with an article explaining myself, and so here I am, in fulfillment of my word. In what I write about this, please try to cast me, in your mind’s eye, as a disinterested commentator on public affairs, as an objective analyst, and not as an engaged or bitter partisan. That said, however, I am the kind of objective analyst who might, from time to time, lace his fingers across his tummy, and shake with quiet, bemused laughter.

I am going to do my level best to stay out of the weeds, and just concentrate on the politics of the thing. And it is important to remember that this thing is all politics, all the way through and all the way down.

A Brief Civics Lesson

When a president is impeached, this means that he has been indicted. It does not mean that he has been tried, and it does not mean that he has been found guilty. It means that he has been indicted, and that there is going to be a trial. In the history of the United States, there have been two presidents who have been impeached. They were Andrew Johnson in the aftermath of the Civil War, in 1868, and Bill Clinton, in 1999. Both presidents survived their trials, and remained in office. Richard Nixon, under threat of impeachment, resigned his office in 1974. He probably would not have survived a trial in the Senate.

When a sitting president is indicted in this way, it is the House of Representatives that must vote to take this action.

Lifting The Poisoned Chalice to the Lips

Democrats Have No Choice But to Pursue Trump's Impeachment

From an outsider's perspective an awful lot of time and effort has been expended to find just cause to impeach President Trump.  The mammoth effort has been going on for nigh on two years and it seems as remote a possibility as ever it was.

Doubtless a demand that Trump be impeached sounds important and weighty.  But problems abound.  One is that the process and rules surrounding an impeachment have to be followed.  There are checks and balances in place--deliberately so placed to maintain the separation of powers.

The Democrats now have a big problem on their hands--one of their own making.  Now that they are taking control of the House of Representatives they (theoretically) have the majority power to issue impeachment proceedings against the President.  Then the matter would pass to the Senate, which would then decide whether the President were guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Alan Dershowitz, one of the more celebrated Harvard law professors with more than a passing knowledge of impeachment procedures and processes, was once a commentator of record when it came to discussions on impeachment.  Not so now.  He has published a book in which he has argued that if the Democrats continue attempts to impeach Trump, it is likely they will fail.

"You can't impeach on the basis of minor derelictions or even crimes," Dershowitz said at the time. "You need a high crime and misdemeanor, and you know every campaign has violated some technical election law."  Dershowitz in July released the book, "The Case Against Impeaching Trump," which landed on The New York Times best-seller list.  [The Hill]

Liberals don't like what they have been reading in Dershowitz's book.