Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial: McConnell is the "Fly in the Ointment or Monkey Wrench"

Senate Impeachment Trial: Fair, Honest, and Just

(Not on McConnell’s watch)

Senate Impeachment Trial Added to this Graveyard

(Nothing gets passed by “Moscow Mitch”)

This story comes from The Washington Examiner in full here and below formatted to fit the blog.

Un-redacted documents reported on by Just Security help show:

(1) The Senate should hold a full presidential impeachment trial, and

(2) Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine were improper and illegal.

The documents show the repeated warnings from DOD officials to White House personnel that Trump’s delay in releasing legally mandated aid to Ukraine was unlawful.

Consider that is only one of three ways in which Trump’s actions were so inappropriate as to be impeachable.

First: Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was, on its own, wildly out of bounds. As former ambassador Bill Taylor testified, the president has no authority to ask a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen based on that nation’s laws rather than our own.

Second: To turn the request into what amounts to an extortion demand, the now-famous issue of a quid pro quo, is to misuse presidential power while unlawfully seeking a “thing of value” from a foreign entity for use in an American campaign. Even some of Trump’s most learned and eloquent defenders admit, the existence of a quid pro quo was obvious. 

Gordon Sondland’s testimony clip below:

Third: as has been argued for months, it was illegal for Trump to withhold the military aid even if he had not asked the Ukrainians for anything of personal and political value in return.

By delaying the assistance beyond the point at which it could actually be obligated before the budget year ran out, Trump violated the 

Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and, probably, the Constitution.

That 1974 law provides that once an appropriation has been duly passed and signed into law, the president cannot withhold it for policy reasons without formally notifying Congress. Even then, the money must be spent unless Congress approves the president’s request.

While the Impoundment Control Act makes these requirements explicit on statutory grounds, Supreme Court precedent implies (but does not explicitly say) that presidential impoundment of duly appropriated funds is also unconstitutional.

Cite: Train v. City of New York (from Cornell Law) decided in early 1974 (based on facts and laws predating the 1974 impoundment act) the high court determined that a president is required to enact the full scope of programs legally mandated by Congress and signed into law. The court relied even then on statutory language rather than citing a specific constitutional violation made by then-president Nixon. Yet by denying the president the authority to stray from the statutory language, the high court in essence ruled that statutory spending language enjoys constitutional weight.

The newly un-redacted documents show that Pentagon officials repeatedly warned the White House that its funding delays were unlawful. By August 26, acting Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker was telling the White House that “impoundment paperwork” was “now necessary” because the delays ordered by Trump made it impossible to “obligate” the funding “consistent with the Impoundment and Control Act.” 

Required by law, more than $35 million of that assistance total never made it out the door by the legally required Congressional September 30 deadline (end of the Fiscal Year law). That alone was a Trump violation of the law.

Trump’s defenders have said, in essence, that the president is a free agent in determining American foreign and defense policy. That assertion is flat-out false. While presidential power is certainly at its most robust on such matters, the president still remains beneath, not above, the law. In this case, he violated the law. The violation should not go unpunished.

Republicans struck on Trump for illogical reasoning: For the past couple of months, Republicans in Congress have been demanding that Trump have the opportunity to defend himself in the proceedings:

Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-LA): “I find it unconscionable that they have not allowed the president to defend himself on the House side.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “Will he (Trump) be able to defend himself?” 

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH): “He has no way to defend himself.” 

Also, White House chief counsel Pat Cipollone in his letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) (December 7th) said in part: “House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade. You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings.”

Trump tweeted: “If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business.”

By that, Trump himself has invited the House to move forward expeditiously with impeachment, assured that he would continue to obstruct the investigation, regardless of its length (e.g., he wants no witnesses and no documents).

There is only thing that can stop this process in Trump’s favor is the proverbial “monkey wrench” which at this point Trump already knows will happen. 

That monkey wrench is held by Sen. Mitch McConnell who already said he is basically ready to toss it in and stop any more movement in the shortest and most-historically confusing and PR-run trial ever.

My 2 cents: Not much to add to this except to say to any Republican who did not vote for impeachment and any who will not vote to remove Trump from office is this:

How can you look at yourself in the mirror without seeing someone in office who stands by and with Trump with all this overwhelming evidence and not want to see him out of office? You are putting him and his illegal antics before the country’s very soul and foundation – shame on you.

Hopefully the voters will feel the same way and take steps at the polls to remove you from office, and that will be well-deserved and self-inflicted.

Thanks for stopping by.