╌>

There Is A Cancer On The Presidency

  

Category:  Op/Ed

Via:  john-russell  •  5 years ago  •  21 comments

There Is A Cancer On The Presidency

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T





George Conway: Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him.


APRIL 18, 2019

So it turns out that, indeed, President Trump was not exonerated at all, and certainly not “totally” or “completely,” as he claimed. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III didn’t reach a conclusion about whether Trump committed crimes of obstruction of justice — in part because, while a sitting president, Trump can’t be prosecuted under long-standing Justice Department directives, and in part because of “difficult issues” raised by “the President’s actions and intent.” Those difficult issues involve, among other things, the potentially tricky interplay between the criminal obstruction laws and the president’s constitutional authority, and the difficulty in proving criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still, the special counsel’s report is damning. Mueller couldn’t say, with any “confidence,” that the president of the United States is not a criminal. He said, stunningly, that “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Mueller did not so state.

That’s especially damning because the ultimate issue shouldn’t be — and isn’t — whether the president committed a criminal act. As I wrote not long ago, Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal. In fact, the Constitution demands it.

[ George Terwilliger: William Barr did this nation a great service. He shouldn’t be attacked. ]

The Constitution commands the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It requires him to affirm that he will “faithfully execute the Office of President” and to promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” And as a result, by taking the presidential oath of office, a president assumes the duty not simply to obey the laws, civil and criminal, that all citizens must obey, but also to be subjected to higher duties — what some excellent recent legal scholarship has termed the “fiduciary obligations of the president.”

Fiduciaries are people who hold legal obligations of trust, like a trustee of a trust. A trustee must act in the beneficiary’s best interests and not his own. If the trustee fails to do that, the trustee can be removed, even if what the trustee has done is not a crime.

So too with a president. The Constitution provides for impeachment and removal from office for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But the history and context of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” makes clear that not every statutory crime is impeachable, and not every impeachable offense need be criminal. As Charles L. Black Jr. put it in a seminal pamphlet on impeachment in 1974, “assaults on the integrity of the processes of government” count as impeachable, even if they are not criminal.

And presidential attempts to abuse power by putting personal interests above the nation’s can surely be impeachable. The president may have the raw constitutional power to, say, squelch an investigation or to pardon a close associate. But if he does so not to serve the public interest, but to serve his own, he surely could be removed from office, even if he has not committed a criminal act.

By these standards, the facts in Mueller’s report condemn Trump even more than the report’s refusal to clear him of a crime. Charged with faithfully executing the laws, the president is, in effect, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. Yet Mueller’s investigation “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of executing undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”

Trump tried to “limit the scope of the investigation.” He tried to discourage witnesses from cooperating with the government through “suggestions of possible future pardons.” He engaged in “direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.” A fair reading of the special counsel’s narrative is that “the likely effect” of these acts was “to intimidate witnesses or to alter their testimony,” with the result that “the justice system’s integrity [was] threatened.” Page after page, act after act, Mueller’s report describes a relentless torrent of such obstructive activity by Trump.

Contrast poor Richard M. Nixon. He was almost certainly to be impeached, and removed from office, after the infamous “ smoking gun ” tape came out. On that tape, the president is heard directing his chief of staff to get the CIA director, Richard Helms, to tell the FBI “don’t go any further into this case” — Watergate — for national security reasons. That order never went anywhere, because Helms ignored it.

Other than that, Nixon was mostly passive — at least compared to Trump. For the most part, the Watergate tapes showed that Nixon had “ acquiesced in the cover-up ” after the fact. Nixon had no advance knowledge of the break-in. His aides were the driving force behind the obstruction.

Trump, on the other hand, was a one-man show. His aides tried to stop him, according to Mueller: “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

As for Trump’s supposed defense that there was no underlying “collusion” crime, well, as the special counsel points out, it’s not a defense, even in a criminal prosecution. But it’s actually unhelpful in the comparison to Watergate. The underlying crime in Watergate was a clumsy, third-rate burglary in an election campaign that turned out to be a landslide.

The investigation that Trump tried to interfere with here, to protect his own personal interests, was in significant part an investigation of how a hostile foreign power interfered with our democracy. If that’s not putting personal interests above a presidential duty to the nation, nothing is.

White House counsel John Dean famously told Nixon that there was a cancer within the presidency and that it was growing. What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump.

Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay.


Tags

jrDiscussion - desc
[]
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

This is pretty cut and dry. 

 
 
 
It Is ME
Masters Guide
2  It Is ME    5 years ago

Trumps only a "Cancer" to the "Left", because he won't kiss "thee all mighty Democrats ring"...… on ANYTHING !

They can't "Control" him....so they want him gone.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2.1  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  It Is ME @2    5 years ago

The author of the seed is a Republican and a conservative. 

 
 
 
It Is ME
Masters Guide
2.1.1  It Is ME  replied to  JohnRussell @2.1    5 years ago
The author of the seed is a Republican and a conservative. 

Really ? jrSmiley_87_smiley_image.gif

So ! jrSmiley_90_smiley_image.gif

One Republican out of how many Republicans don't like Trump ?

It's still on the Democrats heads....this TRUMP guy. 

 
 
 
XXJefferson51
Senior Guide
2.1.2  XXJefferson51  replied to  It Is ME @2.1.1    5 years ago

Conway is a cancer on the GOP. It’s like he’s begging for attention and trying to make enough noise to cause the administration to part ways with his wife.  No spouse Should be trying to openly try to damage the other ones career.  Conway should look at the marriage of Carville and Matalin and support his wife even if he doesn’t care for who she works for.  

 
 
 
It Is ME
Masters Guide
2.1.3  It Is ME  replied to  XXJefferson51 @2.1.2    5 years ago
Conway should look at the marriage of Carville and Matalin and support his wife even if he doesn’t care for who she works for.  

Tada !

 Kellyanne might want to ……. "Re-think" things. jrSmiley_18_smiley_image.gif

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
3  JBB    5 years ago

History is replete with Republics felled by tyrants enabled by the unscrupulous...

 
 
 
It Is ME
Masters Guide
3.1  It Is ME  replied to  JBB @3    5 years ago
History is replete with Republics felled by tyrants enabled by the unscrupulous...

I just don't see any "Felling" going on in this Country !

In "FACT", there are many gains ….. AGAIN.

What is the real problem now ?

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
4  Sean Treacy    5 years ago

The Democratic leaders in Congress know impeachment is a sham. That's why they are already running away from it. 

Even Nadler is lying about the contents of the report to try and keep alive the collusion aspect because he knows they'll never be able to remove a President who didn't interfere with an investigation into a crime that never occurred. 

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
4.1  Tacos!  replied to  Sean Treacy @4    5 years ago
The Democratic leaders in Congress know impeachment is a sham.

Here's one reason we know it's all bullshit. They've been talking about it since LONG before he was even elected. The article linked below was published on April 17, 2016 - seven months before Election Day - and it references several examples of impeachment talk that had been going on for some time already.

Could Trump be impeached shortly after he takes office?

It’s not unusual for controversial presidents to be shadowed by talk of impeachment, once they’ve been in office long enough to make people mad. But before he’s elected? Before he’s a nominee? Constitutional experts of all political stripes say it’s surprising for impeachment talk to bubble up this early

And yet it did. And it continues. And intelligent people are supposed to take this seriously? I don't think so.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
4.2  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Sean Treacy @4    5 years ago

Trump is perfect. His followers have zero standards for his behavior , so in that sense he literally can do no wrong. 

To say this is not the way the executive branch should be regarded is an understatement. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
4.2.1  Sean Treacy  replied to  JohnRussell @4.2    5 years ago

Trump is perfect in that his enemies throw away facts, reality and legal standards in their attempts to bring him down.

By falsely calling him a traitor since he's been inaugurated, you've managed to make him a sympathetic figure. Congrats on that. Didn't think it was possible. 

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
6  Tacos!    5 years ago
George Conway:

Aanndd . . . I stopped reading because I already know from past experience that nothing rational will follow. The guy is a broken record with an apparent obsession problem. I recommend counseling, not that he'll be heading that advice.

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
7  Bob Nelson    5 years ago

The choice, to impeach or not, isn't simple. The most telling phrase I've seen is "What would be the lesson taught by Congress if the President's conduct is not formally examined?"

 
 
 
Snuffy
Professor Participates
7.1  Snuffy  replied to  Bob Nelson @7    5 years ago
"What would be the lesson taught by Congress if the President's conduct is not formally examined?"

But when does it become over-reach?  We've spent the last ten years watching congress spend so much time and energy in obstructing the sitting president. We have a main-stream media who's much more interested in making their money than actually telling us what is going on so naturally they are going to push the stories that provide more revenue. We the People are not seeing all the truth,  nowhere close and the national cheerleaders are doing their best to continue to divide and rule. When are people going to realize that this is all theater designed to separate us into tribal units in order for the two party system to maintain it's power over us.

Man I miss the days when people thought for themselves instead of the constant pushing of party lines.

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
7.1.1  Bob Nelson  replied to  Snuffy @7.1    5 years ago
Man I miss the days when people thought for themselves instead of the constant pushing of party lines.

I'd agree... but I can't seem to remember such a time...  jrSmiley_82_smiley_image.gif

 
 

Who is online

fineline


72 visitors