“The framers of our Constitution knew that someday there would be a president who would threaten the foundations of our democracy. They didn’t know if his name would be Richard Nixon or Donald Trump, or what guise his misdeeds would take, but they knew that the American people would need a remedy. Waiting years until the next election to remove from office a president who engages in grave misconduct would pose a danger to the country. Thus, the framers provided for the removal of a president through impeachment, a centuries-old process with deep roots in British history.”
I agree but note that this is an expedient argument-if the President is egregiously abusing his office we can’t afford to wait to beat him next time.
Her argument is correct-it’s impeachment on the basis of maladministration-but we also need an argument based in moral principle-if the President-much less a ‘President’ like Trump-has committed ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ he must be impeached. This is not about the President as an individual but as the President. I find that a lot more people talk about indicting Trump than impeaching him. And I will say that if Trump is found guilty of legal crimes-which is not the same thing as ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ that Congress looks at regarding impeachment-then, by all means, he ought to be indicted and he ought to go to prison.
Impeachment-even without conviction-is a clear judgement against the Trump ‘Presidency’ it’s an asterisk for future generations, for social studies students, it registers a clear censure against his illegitimate regime rather than simply that he was a legitimate one term President.
When the framers first considered an impeachment clause at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, they did not even debate before unanimously adopting a provision allowing impeachment for “malpractice or neglect of duty.” Later, however, some convention delegates had second thoughts. Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris and South Carolina’s George Pinckney pushed to strike the entire provision, arguing there was no need for impeachment, that elections would solve the problem. Virginia delegate George Mason scoffed. “Shall any man be above justice?” he asked. “Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the most extensive injustice?”
James Madison-as opposed to Dershowitz-considered impeachment indispensable:
“James Madison, who played a pivotal role in drafting the Constitution and served later as our fourth President, could think of many reasons for an impeachment provision.”
“It was “indispensable”, he said, arguing that a President otherwise ‘pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.”
Speaking of betraying his trust to foreign powers, I stated in (Chapter A) that I think many are construing treason far too narrowly in terms of aiding and abetting a foreign enemy in time of war-and arguably the Russians have used a different kind of war against us never dreamed of by the Framers-cyberwar. Then too, it must be remembered that impeachment is predominantly not a legal but a political verdict-in theory Congress can decide anything is a ‘high crime or misdemeanor’ certainly conspiring with a hostile foreign power to influence and rig an American Presidential election ought to qualify if anything does for ‘treason.’
I certainly agree that impeachment shouldn’t be used willy nilly and only for very special cases but if Trump isn’t that special case that Madison and friends foresaw then nothing is.
UPDATE: In the great minds think alike category I wrote the above just yesterday morning (December 28) and that very day Elizabeth Drew published a new piece in the NYTimes that argued that at this point impeachment is now inevitable.
It’s amazing-I begun this book on December 15, 2017 when I was also running for the NY2 Democratic nomination. That campaign while rewarding and a learning experience where I did connect with many constituents didn’t go the distance-partly because I made the rookie mistake of letting party bosses talk me into getting out early.
But this book is going the distance clearly. Honestly I’ve had more than enough material since last February-I had a total of 400 pages at that point, but I want to write a book that’s like really good and takes a real historical snapshot at America the last-well I guess it’s going on four years now.
But it is gratifying to see many things I was saying over the last two years that were dismissed as tinfoil hat conspiracy territory becoming today’s conventional wisdom. I can’t tell you how many ignorant Deplorables have insisted to me that talk of impeachment is a fantasy-why they think that, well why do Deplorables think anything? or more to the point they don’t think at all, just rent out their brains to Donald Trump.
Clearly they didn’t come by this certainty that Trump will never be impeached even if the Democrats win the House-which they’ve now done-by looking at actual reality.
I’ve discussed in previous chapters how I’ve believed since July 2016 that something like a conspiracy between the Trump campaign, Wikileaks, and Russia existed-the leak of the emails timed to forcing Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to step down the very morning of the first day of the Democratic convention was a ‘coincidence’ just way too convenient for me to believe it’s any ‘coincidence.’
Throughout subsequent two and a half years-it’s really that long!-the choice has been how much you believe in coincidences vs. conspiracies. The MSM even some of those journalists who have done some really awesome investigative journalism on Trump-Russia are a very risk adverse crew and are congenitally biased in favor of coincidences, lots and lots and lots of coincidences that all prove nothing, and, hey, Trump is too ignorant and disorganized to conspire…
These folks would help themselves if they’d point out a few historical examples of the highly organized conspirers they think you need to collude with a hostile foreign power. In any case, clearly they are not criminal investigators who congenitally have to be among other things ‘conspiracy theorists.’
But literally day after day, comes victory after victory for the ‘conspiracy theorists.’ Two and a half years later the devout believers in coincidence have lost every major battle-to be sure, they latch on to any small detail that can suggest a inconsistency. It’s been quite an amazing rout for conspiracy theorists like me and the Clinton campaign, and many other folks in #TheResistance.
Another major concern in this book was for the Dems to win the House-which they’ve now done in grand style. Ari Melber had a great segment on, Thursday, December 27 that argued that even now few in the MSM are willing to fully acknowledge the breadth of the Blue Wave-it’s striking how different the coverage was of the GOP waves of 1994 and 2010-because none of them saw it coming.
I agree with Ari-and as I’ve argued at length in this book, a big part of why the media has done so little investigative work on Comeygate is because it totally implicates their absurdly indefensible Emailgate obsession-the Comey letter only had such a ridiculously outsized impact because of how absurdly they weaponized what the Washington Post editorial page would call a ‘minor email scandal’-alas WaPo who wrote this in September, 2016 was way too late; had they written this in September, 2015 this would have been heroic.
Still better late like WaPo than never like the NYTimes. Indeed, even to this day, I now prefer the Post-if a big story comes out, unless it was broken by the Times, I prefer WaPo as my paper of record-after 25 years of absurd anti Clinton bias maybe they need to be in the penalty box along with the GOP.
Melba is right to point out that the media is still failing, still totally missing the mark. He pointed out that while there’s truth in the media’s constant refrain about ‘a divided country’ that’s only half of it-the other half is that the part that hates Trump is and always has been the bigger part, three million more of us voted for Hillary Clinton-the legitimate President.
The numbers moved even more precipitously against ‘President Trump’ in November, 2018-indeed as we speak, and as I pound the drum for the Democrats taking impeachment like the serious option it needs to be a new poll came out that shows 60% of Americans now want Trump to be either impeached or censured. That’s of all voters not Democratic voters-for which it’s more like 90%…
Ok, so speaking of impeachment, back to Elizabeth Drew.
She makes a point I made in Chapter A.
The Inevitability of Impeachment
Even Republicans may be deciding that the president has become too great a burden to their party or too great a danger to the country.”
The idea that Trump could lose Republicans is totally at variance with conventional wisdom. For the MSM there’s this assumption that just because Trump’s numbers have been pretty consistently in the low 40s in his first two years, that they will always reside there and that the GOP will always refuse to stand up to him out of fear of the base.
UPDATE: Trump’s disastrous government shutdown is the proximate cause for a recent tanking of his numbers and losing some support even among those previously believed to be his base.
Nate Silver has noted this fall and asked wether it will last until 2020.
I think the answer depends on how long the shutdown goes on for-I mean if Mitch McConnell really intends to still be keeping the government closed in 2020 then no… But even presuming this finally ends at some point-when GOP Senators can’t take anymore pain-this drop may prove not to be shortlived but rather the beginning of the drop in his numbers I’ve predicted for some time.
In any case as Ms. Drew-who covered Watergate-argues the assumption Trump will never go beneath 40% is based on the fallacy of stasis.
I don’t share the conventional view that if Mr. Trump is impeached by the House, the Republican-dominated Senate would never muster the necessary 67 votes to convict him. Stasis would decree that would be the case, but the current situation, already shifting, will have been left far behind by the time the senators face that question. Republicans who were once Mr. Trump’s firm allies have already openly criticized some of his recent actions, including his support of Saudi Arabia despite the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and his decision on Syria. They also openly deplored Mr. Mattis’s departure.
If anything, his withdrawal from Syria is so unpopular with many members of his own party that it may accelerate the process. But she’s absolutely correct. My argument has been that the reason Trump’s approval is in the low 40s rather than the low 20s is because the GOP protected him from public scrutiny by slow walking the Russia investigation, closing it down way too early but most of all, conducting what hearings they did have behind closed doors. What’s really important is not only that the Dems will reopen the Russia investigation but make the hearings public.
This will lead Trump to lose his soft support-about 50% of his 42%-ie about 21%.
More from Elizabeth Drew:
An impeachment process against President Trump now seems inescapable. Unless the president resigns, the pressure by the public on the Democratic leaders to begin an impeachment process next year will only increase. Too many people think in terms of stasis: How things are is how they will remain. They don’t take into account that opinion moves with events.
Whether or not there’s already enough evidence to impeach Mr. Trump — I think there is — we will learn what the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has found, even if his investigation is cut short. A significant number of Republican candidates didn’t want to run with Mr. Trump in the midterms, and the results of those elections didn’t exactly strengthen his standing within his party. His political status, weak for some time, is now hurtling downhill.
UPDATE: Since she wrote this we now know that Paul Manafort-Trump’s campaign manager-sent polling information to Russian intel operative Konstantin Kilimnik
The question that begs is what possible need would a Russian intel operative need with US polling data? We already knew that Manafort and Kilimnik had discussed the campaign over dinner in early August, 2016. They want us to believe that it was a ‘casual’ discussion about: the hack of the DNC. Who can think of a more innocent conversation between Trump’s campaign manager and a Russian intel operative?
Back to Holtzman:
The midterms were followed by new revelations in criminal investigations of once-close advisers as well as new scandals involving Mr. Trump himself. The odor of personal corruption on the president’s part — perhaps affecting his foreign policy — grew stronger. Then the events of the past several days — the president’s precipitous decision to pull American troops out of Syria, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s abrupt resignation, the swoon in the stock market, the pointless shutdown of parts of the government — instilled a new sense of alarm among many Republicans.
The word “impeachment” has been thrown around with abandon. The frivolous impeachment of President Bill Clinton helped to define it as a form of political revenge. But it is far more important and serious than that: It has a critical role in the functioning of our democracy.
Very good point. Indeed, after the election-hopefully we won’t hear much of this talk in the future an argument you heard among a lot of elected Dems was that after Bill Clinton we don’t want anymore impeachments. This is like Dershowitz’s strange position: perhaps his most compelling argument is that you can’t call him a Trump hack-he actually voted for Clinton and opposed her husband’s impeachment in 1999.
Of course, all his new Right wing fans supported it. But even on its own terms what does Dershowitz’s position amount to? Apparently he opposes impeachment in all cases-impeachment in his view is always wrong. But as I noted above, as well as noted by Hotlzman, the framers gave Congress the impeachment option for a reason. It seems to me that Dershowitz’s blanket opposition to impeachment no matter what the crime, level of corruption, or abuse of power is that he wants to curry favor with the President no matter who it is, so as to be able to push for his hawkish Israel policy in the Mideast.
But he argues that as he was against impeachment then and now his opinion has the real virtue. Ok, you can grant that it’s consistent but is it a foolish consistency? I mean if I fight for both the guilty and the innocent to be acquitted that might make me consistent; it doesn’t make me right or my consistency in this matter wise.
But it’s perfectly ‘consistent’ to seek acquittal for the innocent and conviction of the guilty. As Drew argues, the impeachment of Bill Clinton was petty and partisan but that doesn’t mean that this is true of all impeachment. As Drew says, the framers didn’t desire an absolute monarch even for a 4 year term.
In any case, as the Dems are sworn in on Wednesday impeachment is clearly an idea whose time has come.
UPDATE: Yuri Applebaum joints the Impeachment Train.
He makes the crucial point it’s absurd to think that impeachment is such a potent power the framers gave it to Congress with the intention of it never being used:
“Trump’s actions during his first two years in office clearly meet, and exceed, the criteria to trigger this fail-safe. But the United States has grown wary of impeachment. The history of its application is widely misunderstood, leading Americans to mistake it for a dangerous threat to the constitutional order.”
“That is precisely backwards. It is absurd to suggest that the Constitution would delineate a mechanism too potent to ever actually be employed. Impeachment, in fact, is a vital protection against the dangers a president like Trump poses. And, crucially, many of its benefits—to the political health of the country, to the stability of the constitutional system—accrue irrespective of its ultimate result. Impeachment is a process, not an outcome, a rule-bound procedure for investigating a president, considering evidence, formulating charges, and deciding whether to continue on to trial.”
He makes the point that Congress’ refusal to join the impeachment debate has far from cooled things down actually created the opposite effect, it’s increased the pressure:
“The fight over whether Trump should be removed from office is already raging, and distorting everything it touches. Activists are radicalizing in opposition to a president they regard as dangerous. Within the government, unelected bureaucrats who believe the president is acting unlawfully are disregarding his orders, or working to subvert his agenda. By denying the debate its proper outlet, Congress has succeeded only in intensifying its pressures. And by declining to tackle the question head-on, it has deprived itself of its primary means of reining in the chief executive.”
He then hits a crucial point I’ve emphasized-the folly of only opening an impeachment inquiry if the Senate math adds up.
“After the house impeaches a president, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove him from office. Opponents of impeachment point out that, despite the greater severity of the prospective charges against Trump, there is little reason to believe the Senate is more likely to remove him than it was to remove Clinton. Indeed, the Senate’s Republican majority has shown little will to break with the president—though that may change. The process of impeachment itself is likely to shift public opinion, both by highlighting what’s already known and by bringing new evidence to light. If Trump’s support among Republican voters erodes, his support in the Senate may do the same. One lesson of Richard Nixon’s impeachment is that when legislators conclude a presidency is doomed, they can switch allegiances in the blink of an eye.”
I’ve made this same point. At the present moment, Mitch McConnell won’t even reopen the government without Trump’s permission but as Applebaum says things could change a lot-the impeachment inquiry itself would likely move public opinion. Then he makes the even more crucial point I’ve argued-you do impeachment wether or not you get Mitch’s buy in:
“But this sort of vote-counting, in any case, misunderstands the point of impeachment. The question of whether impeachment is justified should not be confused with the question of whether it is likely to succeed in removing a president from office. The country will benefit greatly regardless of how the Senate ultimately votes. Even if the impeachment of Donald Trump fails to produce a conviction in the Senate, it can safeguard the constitutional order from a president who seeks to undermine it. The protections of the process alone are formidable.”
This in itself is vitally important, perhaps the most important thing to understand about impeachment-as Applebaum says it’s the process that matters more than even the destination and the process itself offers formidable protections against ‘President Trump’s’ maladministration.
Regarding these formidable protection:
“The first is that once an impeachment inquiry begins, the president loses control of the public conversation. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton each discovered this, much to their chagrin. Johnson, the irascible Tennessee Democrat who succeeded to the presidency in 1865 upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, quickly found himself at odds with the Republican Congress. He shattered precedents by delivering a series of inflammatory addresses that dominated the headlines and forced his opponents into a reactive posture. The launching of impeachment inquiries changed that. Day after day, Congress held hearings. Day after day, newspapers splashed the proceedings across their front pages. Instead of focusing on Johnson’s fearmongering, the press turned its attention to the president’s missteps, to the infighting within his administration, and to all the things that congressional investigators believed he had done wrong.”
For starters, it would take away Trump’s ability to dominate the news cycle. And:
“It isn’t just the coverage that changes. When presidents face the prospect of impeachment, they tend to discover a previously unsuspected capacity for restraint and compromise, at least in public. They know that their words can be used against them, so they fume in private. Johnson’s calls for the hanging of his political opponents yielded quickly to promises to defer to their judgment on the key questions of the day. Nixon raged to his aides, but tried to show a different face to the country. “Dignity, command, faith, head high, no fear, build a new spirit,” he told himself. Clinton sent bare-knuckled proxies to the television-news shows, but he and his staff chose their own words carefully. Trump is easily the most pugilistic president since Johnson; he’s never going to behave with decorous restraint. But if impeachment proceedings begin, his staff will surely redouble its efforts to curtail his tweeting, his lawyers will counsel silence, and his allies on Capitol Hill will beg for whatever civility he can muster. His ability to sidestep scandal by changing the subject—perhaps his greatest political skill—will diminish.”
Again, this needs to be emphasized-impeachment is a process, impeachment is a process, impeachment is a process. It is not solely about achieving the goal of forcing the ‘President’ out of office.
“As Trump fights for his political survival, that struggle will overwhelm other concerns. This is the second benefit of impeachment: It paralyzes a wayward president’s ability to advance the undemocratic elements of his agenda. Some of Trump’s policies are popular, and others are widely reviled. Some of his challenges to settled orthodoxies were long overdue, and others have proved ill-advised. These are ordinary features of our politics and are best dealt with through ordinary electoral processes. It is, rather, the extraordinary elements of Trump’s presidency that merit the use of impeachment to forestall their success: his subversion of the rule of law, attacks on constitutional liberties, and advancement of his own interests at the public’s expense.”
“The Mueller probe as well as hearings convened by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have already hobbled the Trump administration to some degree. It will face even more scrutiny from a Democratic House. White House aides will have to hire personal lawyers; senior officials will spend their afternoons preparing testimony. But impeachment would raise the scrutiny to an entirely different level.
Applebaum argues that the Democrats need to begin the impeachment process now. He points out that an impeachment inquiry takes many months-and he argues persuasively against the apparent hope that Mueller will do the Democrats’ job for them.”
“Pelosi and her antediluvian leadership team served in Congress during those fights two decades ago, and they seem determined not to repeat their rivals’ mistakes. Polling has shown significant support for impeachment over the course of Trump’s tenure, but the most favorable polls still indicate that it lacks majority support. To move against Trump now, Democrats seem to believe, would only strengthen the president’s hand. Better to wait for public opinion to turn decisively against him and then use impeachment to ratify that view. This is the received wisdom on impeachment, the overlearned lesson of the Clinton years: House Republicans got out ahead of public opinion, and turned a president beset by scandal into a sympathetic figure.”
Instead, Democrats intend to be a thorn in Trump’s side. House committees will conduct hearings into a wide range of issues, calling administration officials to testify under oath. They will issue subpoenas and demand documents, emails, and other information. The chair of the Ways and Means Committee has the power to request Trump’s elusive tax returns from the IRS and, with the House’s approval, make them public.”
UPDATE: Speaking of the tax returns, Richard Neal continues to dither-sometimes he seems to be no more excited for the public to see Trump’s tax returns than Trump is. If this were Hillary Clinton who refused to show the public her returns-in fact her and Bill released 40 years-the GOP would-rightly-have already released them.
Neal says his committee is “methodically” drafting the request and plans to submit it this year.
Wait-he’s going to submit it this year?! So possibly not till say December? And that’s just submitting it, not acquiring the returns much less making them public. Again, the GOP would already have released Hillary’s.
“It’s going to involve precedent, it’s going to involve legality, and it’s also going to be ‘what do you do when you get them, if you get them,’” Neal told HuffPost earlier this month.
It’s possible Neal won’t be able to get the returns, at least not right away. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, said last year that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin would review a tax return request “for legality” ― hinting that Mnuchin might not obey the law and that a long court battle could ensue.
“If it’s not done carefully and the case ends up in court, then it could conceivably be sent back to you based on procedure,” Neal said.
Liberal groups have spoken out against Neal’s delay. And so has Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the independent Tax Policy Center, who said it was a mistake for Neal not to make the request immediately. But he said it does matter how the request is made, and that it should relate to a legislative purpose.
“There are a variety of legitimate legislative purposes, including how the IRS is administering the tax law,” Rosenthal said.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) has defended Neal, saying the chairman is juggling the tax return issue with other committee priorities, which include not only taxes but also health care and Social Security. But Trump’s tax returns are still in the top four, he added.
“We got a lot at stake here,” Pascrell said. “We want to see if the president of the United States has a conflict of interest that he brought with him or that he created since he got here. The only way to do that is to get his tax returns.”
Honestly, even this talk of a legitimate. legislative purpose gets me ‘queasy’ to speak Jim Comey’s language. The legitimate purpose is that the public has a right to see them as they have seen ever previous President’s taxes going back to Nixon. That is more than sufficient while admitting there are plenty of other ways that it is also in the public interest.
The Democrats do so much worrying about being too mean to ‘President Trump’ and somehow this leading to a backlash, why don’t they worry about disappointing the public which wants to see his tax returns-as they have every right to?
Unlike previous presidents ― most of whom released their tax returns as a matter of course ― Trump hasn’t divested from his businesses, meaning he could be making policy decisions that directly enrich his family.
In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 57 percent of respondents said they think Democrats should investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and 61 percent said Democrats should look into the president’s financial ties to foreign governments.
Even 39 percent of conservatives and a quarter of Republicans said Democrats should try to obtain Trump’s tax returns, which would reveal information about his sources of income.
Yet the Democrats are acting all-squeamish.
People Want Democrats To Get Trump’s Tax Returns, Please
But Dems are taking their sweet time so far.”
Taking their sweet time so far. This applies not just to getting Trump’s tax returns but all matters regarding investigating Trump. Now that the Dems are allowing Cohen to testify behind closed doors it’s over 2 years and not a single public Russia hearing. The Democrats don’t think 50% of the country already supporting impeachment is enough-though the GOP impeached Clinton without about 19% support. But if you won’t hold public hearings-for whatever reason-how will we ever get a chance to see if 50% can become 70%?
The country elected the Democrats for a reason and that’s not only to talk about good policy ideas and debate Howard Schultz’s vacuous ones. Regarding the tax returns, they should also have Tim O’Brien-the one man who actually has seen Trump’s tax returns- testify. Why not do that now?
UPDATE: Wow turns out great minds think alike-me and the House Dems! After grousing just yesterday morning and arguing they ought to do a hearing if getting the returns will take time, later in the day the story broke that they are going to do just that.
The secrecy of President Donald Trump’s tax returns will be the subject of a hearing next week, Democrats in the House of Representatives announced Thursday.
Democrats have had the power to request Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service since they assumed control of the House this year, but they’ve hesitated. To build the public case for disclosure, the House tax committee’s oversight panel will examine its authority to obtain the president’s tax returns at a Feb. 7 hearing.
Trump was the first major presidential candidate in 40 years not to release tax returns, which would have revealed detailed information about his sources of income and how much tax he pays. Democrats vowed to get the returns themselves, but haven’t done it yet.
Pressure is building, with an ABC News/Washington Post poll showing a healthy majority of Americans support the move. Tax March, a coalition of liberal groups, has been pressuring Democrats to hurry up, and Democratic members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have been getting antsy, too.
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the chairman of the tax committee, has said he wants time “to lay out a case” for the move and that staffers drafting the request are doing it “methodically” and need time.
Trump’s tax returns could show whether he evaded taxes, as a blockbuster New York Times report alleged that he and his father, Fred Trump, did for decades in the 20th century. The returns could also provide information about the sources of financing and debt at his multi-billion dollar real estate business.
As part of the public case, Democrats introduced legislation by Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) that would require presidential candidates to disclose 10 years of tax returns.
“Before 2016, presidential candidates routinely disclosed their tax returns,” Pascrell and Eshoo said in a statement. “Donald Trump refused to clear that low bar, and as a result, the American people remain in the dark about the extent of his financial entanglements and potential conflicts of interest.”
The legislation will be part of the hearing, but the big topic will be how Democrats present their case to obtain Trump’s tax returns. Pascrell has sought Trump’s tax returns since February 2017 through resolutions invoking Section 6103 of the tax code. This provision allows the committee to obtain any individual’s tax returns from the IRS for the purposes of an investigation. Republicans on the committee have blocked Pascrell’s resolutions more than a dozen times. All the chairman has to do, though, is send a request to the IRS.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has hinted that he will not comply with the Democrats’ request, which could get tied up in court for months.
Committee Democrats previously told HuffPost that they would get Trump’s tax returns if they won a House majority in the 2018 midterm elections. This hearing is the first step in that process.
Having said that, it’s no wonder the CPC is ‘getting antsy.’ While you have to applaud the hearings, Richard Neal’s feeling that the Democrats need to ‘build a case for it and get the public on their side’ is rather surreal.
Digging into Trump’s personal finances was supposed to be one of the top priorities under the House Democratic majority. But to the frustration of many rank-and-file members, newly minted Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) has taken a go-slow approach, saying he wants to build a public case for the idea first.
“People are grumbling, ‘Why can’t we have this? Why can’t we at least make the effort to get this?’” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), former co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Monday. “I hope we do go forward. … This is something we want.”
The CPC is in the process of drafting a letter that will urge Neal to obtain both Trump’s personal and business tax filings, while also making clear that they think the effort should happen as quickly as possible, according to sources. Trump is the first president in decades to refuse to release his tax returns, and several liberal advocacy groups have been ratcheting up pressure on Neal to immediately seek the documents.
“We’re hearing people are really concerned about not getting both the personal and the business tax returns, and doing it quickly seems like a no-brainer,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the CPC. “We are trying to make it clear that that’s an important position for us to take.
“We think it should happen right away,” she added.
It should and while this hearing is a welcome step, it’s not a substitute. And you really do wonder why Neal still thinks the public case for getting Trump’s tax returns needs to be made-the public is there as the numbers above show.
The clash between emboldened progressives who are eager to investigate Trump and cautious veterans who are worried about partisan overreach is an early preview of the internal battles to come, with Democratic leadership in the difficult position of balancing those competing interests in the caucus.
For his part, Neal is wary of immediately going to war with the Trump administration, and wants the public to be on the Democrats’ side before they start to dig into the president’s finances.
What?! He’s wary of going to war with Trump’s illegitimate ‘administration?!’ Does he not realize that the public expects meaningful and aggressive oversight? It’s arguable as many argue-starting with Yuri Applebaum, Elizabeth Hotlzman, and Elizabeth Drew-that an impeachment inquiry should already be started. At the very minimum the Dem leadership itself is talking about aggressive hearings. And Neal is worried about confronting Trump?!
What did Neal think the next two years are going to be about-he and Trump-as Trump would put it ‘hugging and kissing’, while singing kumbaya?
Plus, the first major piece of legislation that House Democrats plan to take up includes language requiring Trump and all future presidential and vice presidential candidates to release their returns.
However, that is unlikely to satisfy the rank-and-file members who are eager to move quickly on the issue. I mean making the major presumption that this gets through the Senate, is this only prospective? If so it doesn’t solve the problem that we have a right and have demanded to see his tax returns now not simply that future candidates will have to show them.
“This is what I ran on,” said freshman firebrand Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). “There’s a sense of urgency.”
As there should be not just regarding the taxes but Trump’s entire illegitimate regime. As Elijah Cummings himself pointed out on 60 Minutes, two years is not a lot and they have much less than two years-more like 8 months over the next two years.
A chief concern among progressives is that the push to obtain the president’s tax filings will likely be tied up in legal challenges, and could eventually wind up at the Supreme Court. They worry that if they don’t act soon, Democrats may not be able to resolve the years-long mystery of uncovering what’s in Trump’s tax returns until after the 2020 presidential election.
In order to access and eventually release the documents, Neal would have to tap an obscure law that allows the chairmen of Congress’ tax committees to view anyone’s returns.
Progressives also argue that obtaining Trump’s tax returns isn’t as politically divisive as impeachment, which Democratic leaders have kept at an arm’s length.A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 60 percent of Americans say Democrats should use their congressional authority to obtain Trump’s tax returns, compared with just 40 percent who think Congress should launch impeachment proceedings.”
Regarding these numbers, other polls have shown the number closer to 50% and then there’s the poll that shows that 60% want Trump to be ‘either impeached or censured.’ But even 40%-which is something of an outlier on the downside-is much more than ever supported impeaching Bill Clinton.
On the other hand the numbers who favor getting his tax returns-60%-is in line with other polls. The question that begs is why Neal thinks they have to ‘build a public case’ to get Trump’s tax returns when clearly the public already gets the case and wants to see them?
“This is not like we’re calling for impeachment. This is not like we’re saying, ‘You colluded.’ This is not like we’re accusing anyone of any criminal intent. What we’re asking is: ‘Show us your tax returns,’” Grijalva said. “So to me, it’s pretty straightforward. I don’t know why it’s difficult for people.”
“His base is not going to take to the streets because we are seeking his tax returns,” added liberal Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). “Impeachment is a very serious thing.”
By the way-I don’t care if they do. Maybe Neal and Barney Frank and other ‘sensible centrists’ should stop worrying about the Trump base taking to the streets if they get his tax returns or impeach him and worry that their own base may take to the streets if they don’t.
All I can say is thank God for the freshman Dems-like Rashida Tlaib. Alexandra Occasio-Cortez, or Joe Neguse who don’t spend every day apologizing for being a Democrat and apologizing for being mean to President Trump.
The Democrats really need to consider that maybe they lose 2020 by disappointing their own base rather than ‘President Trump’s.’
But a good move with the hearings though it’s not a substitute and while I don’t see why Neal thinks the case hasn’t been made-it’s very simple, every President going back to Nixon has shown their tax returns, the public has a right to see Trump’s and in the interest of the public’s right to know the Democrats should make them public. The polls already show a strong majority want to see his tax returns. It couldn’t be more simple yet Neal is somehow making it complicated.
And the reason we’re going to get these hearings is thanks to the progressive Democrats, Neal was hoping to be Trump’s buddy the next two years.
I should also give credit where credit is due on the Dems’ first piece of major legislation-to strengthen and protect voting rights. That Mitch McConnell felt compelled to condemn it as a power grab shows that it’s a very effective piece of legislation. A power grab? By who? By the people:
The GOP think of it as a Dem power grab as a larger electorate means a more Democratic electorate.
Back to Applebaum:
“Other institutions are already acting as brakes on the Trump presidency. To the president’s vocal frustration, federal judges have repeatedly enjoined his executive orders. Robert Mueller’s investigation has brought convictions of, or plea deals from, key figures in his campaign as well as his administration. Some Democrats are clearly hoping that if they stall for long enough, Mueller will deliver them from Trump, obviating the need to act themselves.But Congress can’t outsource its responsibilities to federal prosecutors”
I really hope the Democrats understand this-my great fear is they don’t.-they just care about a policy contrast and 2020. If they fail this time I don’t know were this will leave either the party or the country.
No one knows when Mueller’s report will arrive, what form it will take, or what it will say. Even if Mueller alleges criminal misconduct on the part of the president, under Justice Department guidelines, a sitting president cannot be indicted. Nor will the host of congressional hearings fulfill that branch’s obligations. The view they will offer of his conduct will be both limited and scattershot, focused on discrete acts. Only by authorizing a dedicated impeachment inquiry can the House begin to assemble disparate allegations into a coherent picture, forcing lawmakers to consider both whether specific charges are true and whether the president’s abuses of his power justify his removal.