Impeachment History:Johnson (1868) to Clinton (1998)
130-year gap
White House and Trump's Swamp
Impeachment looms now more than
ever some say based on this latest report from
Buzz Feed (re: “Trump directed
Cohen to lie to Congress about his Moscow Trump Tower deal.”)
Introduction:
President Donald Trump directed his longtime
attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump
Tower in Moscow (according to two federal
law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter).
Architectural rendering of
the Moscow Trump Tower
(Provided to BuzzFeed)
Trump also supported a plan, set
up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to
personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations.
“Make
it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.
As Trump was telling the public that he had no business deals with Russia,
the sources said Trump and his two children Ivanka Trump-Kushner and
Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about the real estate
development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buzz feed News just published a huge scoop:
“If it is true, this is evidence
remarkably similar to evidence used to build the impeachment counts against
Clinton and Nixon. Both Clinton and Nixon encouraged witnesses to make false
statements under oath.” (As conservative writer David French tweeted).
Operating on the assumption that it is more likely true than not, we
will probably know more in coming days since major investigative scoops like
this are usually matched by other news organizations, doing their own
reporting.
If Buzz feed’s story is
corroborated by other publications, believe it.
If a week passes and it’s not,
be skeptical.
That report comes on top of this excellent article (The
Atlantic) that lays out the elements for impeachment and removal from
office: Case of Donald J. Trump v. The United States of America. (Written by
Yoni
Appelbaum, who holds an A.B. from Columbia University, and
a Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University and is Senior Editor for politics at The
Atlantic).
Another long but very detailed article is an excellent analysis of Trump to date also published from The Atlantic (October 2017) – 10 months into the Trump presidency.
Key parts follow from my perspective: Note: We have never had a president so ill-informed about the nature of his
office, so openly mendacious, so self-destructive, or so brazen in his abusive
attacks on the courts, the press, Congress (including members of his own
party), and even senior officials within his own administration.
Trump is a Frankenstein of past presidents’ worst attributes:
· Andrew Jackson’s rage
·
Millard Fillmore’s bigotry
·
James Buchanan’s incompetence and spite
·
Theodore Roosevelt’s self-aggrandizement
·
Richard Nixon’s paranoia, insecurity, and indifference to
law
· Bill Clinton’s lack of
self-control and reflexive dishonesty
Donald Trump is a norm-busting president
without parallel in American history.
· He has told scores of
easily disprovable public lies.
·
He has shifted back and forth and back again on his
policies, often contradicting Cabinet officials along the way
·
He has attacked the courts, the press, his predecessor, his
former electoral opponent, members of his party, the intelligence community,
and his own AG.
·
He has failed to release his tax returns or to fill
senior political positions in many agencies; he has shown indifference to
ethics concerns; and he has regularly interjected a self-regarding political element
into apolitical events.
·
He has monetized the presidency by linking it to his
personal business interests.
· He has engaged in cruel
public behavior.
The list goes on and on.
Trump’s norm violations are different. Many of them appear to result from
his lack of emotional intelligence – that is “a president’s ability to manage
his emotions and turn them to constructive purposes, rather than being dominated
by them and allowing them to diminish his leadership.” (As Princeton political scientist Fred I. Greenstein put it).
Trump’s behavior seems to flow from hypersensitivity un-tempered by shame,
a mercurial and contrarian personality, and a notable lack of self-control.
A corollary to Trump’s shamelessness is that he often doesn’t seek to hide
or even spin his norm-breaking.
Put another way, he is far less hypocritical than past presidents — and
that is a bad thing. Hypocrisy is an under appreciated political virtue. It can
palliate self-interested and politically divisive government action through
mollifying rhetoric and a call to shared values.
Trump is bad at it because he can’t “recognize the difference between what
one professes in public and what one does in private, much less the utility of
exploiting that difference.” (As Henry
Farrell and Martha Finnemore noted in Foreign
Affairs).
He is incapable of keeping his crass thoughts to himself, or of cloaking
his speech in other-regarding principle.
My 2 cents: The stories above say things
much better than I can – they are worth your time to read and do further research.
This is very critical time in our
nation’s distinguished history to say the least.
Thanks for stopping by.
No comments:
Post a Comment