Attorney General Barr accuses the left of systemic 'sabotage' of Trump administration
By: Paulina Dedaj
Our Attorney General is exactly right in every point he made in his speech. His defense of the executive branch was correct and how he described the “resistance” was exquisitely perfect in every way.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Attorney General Bill Barr accused congressional Democrats Friday of “using every tool” to “sabotage” the Trump administration by setting a “dangerous” precedent in implying that the government is illegitimate.
During a speech at the Federalist Society’s dinner in Washington, Barr took aim at the “resistance,” accusing liberal lawmakers of attacking the very foundations of the Constitution.
“I deeply admire the American presidency as a political and constitutional institution,” he began. “Unfortunately over the past several decades, we have seen a steady encroachment on executive authority by the other branches of the government.”
Barr said the “avalanche of subpoenas” and constant attempt to derail appointments by the Trump administration have only served to “incapacitate” the executive branch.
“Immediately after President Trump won the election, opponents inaugurated what they called the ‘resistance’ and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the executive branch and his administration.”
“The cost of this constant harassment is real,” he continued.
Barr likened the language used by Trump’s opponents to that of groups who attempt to overthrow militant rule of seized governments.
“Now resistance is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous and, indeed, incendiary notation to import into the politics of a democratic republic.”
He continued: “They essentially see themselves engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.”
Barr claimed that while Trump’s presidency falls outside the norm of previous administrations, he was elected with the public fully aware of this.
“The fact is, that, yes, while the president has certainly thrown out the traditional beltway playbook and punctilio, he was upfront about what he was going to do and the people decided that he was going to serve as president."
Barr’s comments came on the same as Congress held a second public hearing in the House impeachment inquiry.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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“Now resistance is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous and, indeed, incendiary notation to import into the politics of a democratic republic.”
He continued: “They essentially see themselves engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.”
Barr claimed that while Trump’s presidency falls outside the norm of previous administrations, he was elected with the public fully aware of this.
“The fact is, that, yes, while the president has certainly thrown out the traditional beltway playbook and punctilio, he was upfront about what he was going to do and the people decided that he was going to serve as president."
Now that is some victimhood! This stupid, and I am going to say it, FOOL is actually saying people who try to get Donald to behave in office are guilty of a crime. "Wordiness aside." Well, Barr is a fool. So I won't waste time trying to dissuade him of his choice.
Independent voters. Here is your clarion call! The Trump Administration is making it clear for you each and every day. Side with 'Trump, Inc.' or be deemed to be an insurgent against the new existing state of 'America.'
Trump ain't changing. He intends to make the rest of us conform to his insane ambitions, all for some abstract and shallow sense of holding on to land, power, influence, and of course, wealth. In other words, sell out your friends, family, community and national pride, all for a 'ride' on 'Trump Inc.'
Attorney Barr is clear. President's should be able to do whatever they want to whomever they want whenever they want.
Independent voters: You decide. Are you down with that logic?
Indeed. We just need to let our progressive friends know that regarding their impeachment attempt we will literally scorch the earth in defense of our great President who is doing a fine job of keeping his campaign promises to the voters. If Trump loses the 2020 election fair and square, well 💩 happens and we’d have to live with it. Impeachment is another matter and we wil not quietly accept that.
First, you sound so "authoritative" when you write words like, "we will accept. . ., or we will not go quietly." Mind filling us in on who "we" represent?
Second, where is your border wall? "Promises kept?"
Third (and final), Donald Trump has not demonstrated a fair 'bone' in his body. What he wants is three for him, two for donalders, and scraps for liberal thugs and 'Not their bests'!
Therefore, it appears "we," as in y'all, will not go quietly.
That's not really what they want - thus the impeachment! The people deciding again is what the left fears!
They are desperate to impeach him and remove him before the 2020 election.
Oh fyi, I don't see you changing anytime soon. I am only talking to the independents who are not sold out to the almighty dollar!
Independent voters for whom justice and Rule of Law are not expected to come after execution of outlaw justice.
"Elevated independents." "Enlightened independents." "Spirit filled" Independents. "Whole country" independents.
Do you know anybody like the above? That's who I am addressing there.
We have to impeach "the Willing." Donald won't get out of the center of the impeachment ring! He keeps stumbling "dead-center" of Impeachment. Poor Nancy! She simply has no choice, whatsoever. Donald Trump intends to systematically impeach himself! And, it saddens everybody to see it happen to a president. Still, Donald just won't get out of the way of it!
There will likely be no impeachment and certainly no conviction and removal by the senate. At this point as a Trump supporter, I will view his impeachment by that swamp infested House as a badge of honor an an incentive to work all the harder for his re election.
And the polling is moving away from support for impeachment. All I can say is that if there ever were impeachment and removal both, that very evening I will pull everything I own out of the stock market and bond market going all in on cash, precious metals, and commodities, particularly carbon energy. My participation in the economy is dependent upon not overturning the prior election results this why I didn’t sell out because Obama was elected. Democrats need to realize that we will pull the plug on our market involvement if they remove our President
Yup, bloody him up and have the impeachment tag placed onto his legacy. What rotten souls they are!
You can forget about them. All they have to do is listen to what those radical leftists are saying in the DNC primaries. If that doesn't scare the life out of them, they can tune into the Soviet style trial that Adam Schiff is conducting.
Do you know anybody like the above?
I do and I've listened. You are facing a massive defeat in 2020.
And our victory will be extra sweet and deliciously savored after all that the resistance has said and done.
It's funny that the left didn't learn from previous elections, they believe their own propaganda. they don't even have a candidate yet but they think President Trump is going to lose. the reality is people are not going to vote for a socialist in a good economy.
Question: How do you know when Donald Trump is telling the truth? I want to understand your thinking process-give please.
Sorry, I do not allow myself to respond to words like "leftist" and "soviet" in commentary. Shame, too. Because it might have been an interesting sharing between us.
I have seen a lot of strange shit in 18 years on internet forums , but your concept that Trump is a man of honor who is being abused by others is probably the strangest thing I've ever seen.
You know after reading this thread I am really offended.
I am one of those independents looking at a possible dem.
I am not a socialist. I am not a radical. There are people that are running that are not "out there".
I never wanted Trump. I never wanted Hillary either. I know a lot of people out there like me.
I am looking for a centrist. Someone who will pull the country together.
I am a realist. A massive defeat will only happen if the Dems don't come up with a moderate, and I think that is still too early to decide. We have 2 new entries. I will be interested in what they have to say.
And I have to agree with CB when he says:
Because that is the problem with politics today. The need to name call and label, instead of discussing something of substance. The need to mock. None of this appeals to me.
No, I am not in denial. I see the political scene right now for what it is. A total mess. I am just hoping for a miracle that we can come out of it.
Indeed.
Unlike you, I actually know why Trump is not an honorable person, and can put it into words. You just parrot right wing drivel.
Let's hope so, considering the alternative.
MUVA,
The fact that you can call all 10+2 socialist either means you don't know what a socialist is, or you are willing to look away at a man who can't even conduct himself, presidential while addressing the nation. Personally, I can't put up with that for another 4 years.
Oh, Wally! " There you go again."
As a means of heading into the new year 2020 I am simply letting the 'hot rhetoric' chill out. It's divisive and noisy. It's meant to dehumanize and absolve us of our common decency to one another. So I am giving it a *smack* adios!
Just this out for meaning:
Well said, and right on!!
What are you talking about? I said nothing to you that was insulting.
I didn't say there was a single moderate, I said:
There is more than one moderate in that field, but everyone defines their version of moderate differently. There are only 2 candidates that you can define as socialists that I can see, and I would get why you would not be interested in them since neither am I.
Thanks Raven.
Well Wally, you and those members should listen to Bill Maher completely above. Although he has jokes, once Bill hits his stride, he brings us all, politically back into the family. @1.1.26 Let It Go.
2020, let truth win without the baggage for a change, I say!
I prefer to keep Trump for a 2nd term to any current democrat alternative. He’s done too much good in too many areas to give that all up over personality quirks. I didn’t vote for him last time for a variety of reasons but I will not make that mistake again.
That’s for darn sure. Thanks for pointing out that particular truth.
Wally,
I have an entire moderation board that show that both sides give as good as they get.
Strangest is not the word I would have used.
Truth hurts doesn't it?
Let me quote what I heard from a moderate democrat about a week ago. He was telling his friend why he was looking at possibly voting for Trump. He said "I have been a democrat all my life, but now all I hear about is race or gender or about being given something for free." You have to be a very unique independent to find moderation in the current democratic party.
No, I am not in denial. I see the political scene right now for what it is. A total mess. I am just hoping for a miracle that we can come out of it.
I'm glad to hear it. We can all hope, but unfortunately there is no miracle coming. There is only the tenacity we see, emanating from an ideology, which has corrupted many of our previously respected American institutions. The American people are divided because of that ideology. There can be no compromise. It must be defeated.
I'd also be happy with an AG who realizes that he works for US, not for Donald Trump. But Trump only appoints swamp creatures who don't have a patriotic bone in their bodies.
Right on. For 8 years nobody could disagree with Obama for any reason or they were just simply racists, "clinging to their Bibles and Guns". Those were words straight out of Obama's own divisive mouth. It's one thing when you see it on internet forums, but racism and misogyny are the go to talking points of democrat senators and representatives. These should be the most professional people in the room yet they sound like your indoctrinated sister at home from university at the family dinner table. It just makes me laugh hearing all these people want to talk about Trump's unprofessional behavior when you have people like Maxine Waters calling for violence against her opposing party or anyone working for Trump. I don't see how democrats can claim to love this country. Just about all of them run on a concept that American is fundamentally racist and misogynist, and just flawed in general. That's not how I was raised and seems like a very foreign and toxic concept, but it's how they justify their socialist agenda. That way it looks like they are righting some systemic wrong, not just stealing your money because they are good for nothing freeloading, homeless, violent, drug and STD riddled burdens to society.
Well said and obviously there is unlikely to ever be any resolution with those who have such a radical mind set.
You also believe that southerners should be proud that their forebearers had the willingness to fight for their independence from the United States, aka excusing slavery.
So anything you say is suspect.
Vic,
For every story like that, I have one the other way around. There are candidates that are Dems that are moderates and who have actually said that they are not about freebies, etc. If you think that race and gender are still not an issue, you are fooling yourself. They are. It's just gotten better, but there is plenty of room for improvement, though I think that we are facing many other issues, too.
Maybe, but that ideologies are coming from the extreme parts of both parties. I can see that. Why can't you?
I would have to agree with that Katrix, but AG's are picked by the president, and they tend to act this way.
Ugh. The pain, the pAiN, The Pain! Wait, that is not truth bothering me-it's big fat ugly lies. Come here lies and get behind me! I will chase you down and put my foot on your neck lies!!!
Well Perrie! There you have it clear-eyed from Vic: Donald Trump is a moderate.
I thought you knew. Your 2020 moderate choice is already decided. /s
'clinging to their bibles and guns, and ignorance'
Did AG Bill Barr aid Trump in breaking campaign finance law? Whose job was it to tell Donald about campaign finance law?
That man allowed himself to assist Trump in breaking campaign finance law. Wait for the proverbial _hit to hit the fan when Donald Trump gets finished politically running over Sec. Pompei who he is now at odds with for hiring so-called, "never trumpers," disloyal department officials (Taylor et al). AG Barr your turn under the mash of the wheels—NEXT!
In a word: Disgusting. There is just too much stupe dripping from this comment to know where to grasp its "up" end. Maybe you should just go back to your political beginnings and choose a different path to head down.
Very true. There are guilty members on BOTH sides of the political spectrum. There are radicals, fanatics, racists, and religious and extremists in BOTH political parties. No one party is less guilty that the other. The hate in BOTH parties is what is damaging not only to our own country and people, but, to America overall as a world leader.
Thus, for supporters of either party to cast grenades at the other as being the only guilty party is blind loyalty and selective ignorance.
JMOO
Yes ma'am.
So I was at a dad's event at my son's college over the weekend. My son's roommate is from Alabama, and his father is a staunch Democrat. But the man is sane. He's reasonable. He's not a raving whackadoodle. We talked politics for about two hours Saturday morning without even irritating each other.
I met another dad from Boston. He's a moderate, who was just aghast at the Warren/Sanders/AOC moonbattery that seems ubiquitous where he lives. At one point he said "now I know there are some extreme conservatives, but they're not fucking crazy like these liberals are". To which I replied...."oh sure they are. There are a host of certifiable RW nutjobs. You just don't see them because we're storing them for you in Texas."
He sighed.
We drank more whiskey.
Great story.
LOL! Great way to end a lively conversation. (grin)
I have Friends around the country who are members of both parties and they are level-headed in regards to those in their own party that are way over the line in their beliefs, behavior and rhetoric.
I am not a member of any political party, so I have no party loyalty. I read the history of all the candidates and their qualifications for the position they are running for in order to determine who I will vote for, regardless of which political party they are from. I do not simply vote for a candidate based upon whether or not they have a (R) or (D) before or after their name, as the letter before or after their name is does not automatically qualify them for the position, at least not in my book.
I welcome dialog with those who can converse about politics in a respectful and civil manner, as much can be learned from others POV. I do not consider that I know all there is to know about anyone, thus, I keep an open mind about those whose views differ from mine. Their views may not change my mind, but, learning why they have their views helps me understand the person better. And that is a good part of learning in our ever changing world.
Thank you for a very good story, and enjoyable conversation. (smile)
And despite the way I come off these days, I do not automatically vote for any democrat. What I have apparently is an ability to read other people's character either before or after the act! I vote democratic party because my conscience tells me this party is desperately trying to do right by all people-even in the events where they get it way wrong. Partly, the wrongs-real and imagined-are routinely "exploded" so far out of proportion by republicans such that from the West Coast it is hard as heaven to get a good bead on what is true. So I am left to go with my gut. Now then.
That brings me to the Republicans and there party. They SAY they want to respect the rights and privileges of their fellow Americans, but in practice, what they want to respect are those of their fellows who worship like them, politic like them, 'sing off the same music sheet as they do. Basically, many republicans only want what other republicans want out of government. That is not good for non-republicans.
I watched Republicans humiliate Barack Hussein Obama, and his politics was not all that used against him.
True story. I used to swap accordingly a conservative president (Reagan and G.W. Bush) for their democratic challengers. I used to give local republicans a vote too accordingly. I watched Fox News from its national inception (thereabouts 1996 through 2008). I remember well what I termed, "appointment television" in those days of cable news. It was conservative Bill O Reilly ("The O'Reilly Factor"), period. I watched that show in its time slot for ten straight years. I followed it up with "Hannity and Colmes" (couldn't stand Hannity though even then), but I would watch Colmes 'balance' things. I was engaged with Glenn Beck on HLN. I did not follow Glenn Beck 'over' to Fox News. Indeed I left the station all together in 2008.
Why? I could not take it anymore. I watched what Bill O'Reilly, my favorite despite his long year and ardent critique of Reverend Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, try to malign Barack H. Obama with little to no valid facts. It was a Fox News propaganda set of shows that all three perpetrated intended to push this youthful black man-granted without a whole lot of national or international political experience off the national stage. In a word these three showed, "maligned" (to speak evil of an otherwise good man) Barack. These conservative men I respected, or in Sean Hannity's case, I could 'abide' as a Christian-with strong conservative leanings were simply lying, spouting talking points against Barack, putting out disinformation on Barack, and using omitting to say something positive where it would have been right order to do so. Therefore, by at some point in 2008 - I abandoned Fox News and it and its many recognizable faces (some still there - but Sheperd Smith just left because I guess he could not take it anymore), for MSNBC. Now to be clear, I was on MSNBC even while on Fox News enjoying many 'sided' views and watching these two cable stations 'glacially' drift off from one another.
I voted for George W. Bush after Bill Clinton 'desecrated' his presidency as an adulterer who lied to the nation about it. I could not support a party that could let this president get away with that kind of activity in the Oval Office. That is, I 'abandoned' Al Gore who I really wanted to support, but my conscience would not allow me to 'reward' Clinton's legacy.
The lies, disinformation, talking points against, Barack Obama are ceaseless. Even though he is remote from the national stage. Trump dogged Barack his entire second-term. Trump is the biggest liar I have ever heard about in my 'travels' on this planet.
So after all this. I will close with this: How can anyone support a president whom they know makes no true attempt to tell the truth.
How do we decide when President Donald Trump is telling the truth?
When did lying to the 'hilt' in all things, get to not be a problem?
Note: Raven, this is 'gushing' out of me. It is not directly pointed at you. It is a cathartic for me that I did not expect to deliver. It just 'spilled' out. (Smile.) I won't even labor to re-edit it. I can only hope that its what I wanted to share as I went along!
Peace.
No worries CB, we all have days like that, and it does indeed feel great to get it all out there.
Well said and well done. (smile)
nv-wa-do-hi-ya-dv (Peace)
If you can indulge me a little longer, I want to demonstrate to you one of the "displays of the Devil."
Yesterday, a NT attempting to gaslight Joe Biden at a "Council On Foreign Relations" by editing a minute or so of the Youtube video as so-called evidence of former Vice President Biden's corrupting influence in Ukraine (for Hunter Biden's benefit). Well, I have caught the NT (who hastily locked the article) in a 'situation' - in an shall we say disinformation error.
Here is the video in its hour long entirety:
Proper context will clearly show that a member was being deceitful yesterday and trying to disinformation listeners to that extremely short segment lifted out of its proper longer context and given a written narrative in its beginning.
Compare this clip:
To this longer one:
The relevant timestamp @ 50:50 in the video below continuing to the end of the tape!
This is how disinformation unchecked wins voters to the wrong candidate!
Peace to all who love peace, Raven.
Amazing, but, not unexpected of some of the rabid Trump supporters. They seem to think that everyone is as unintelligent as they are and will believe anything they are told, no matter how big a lie it is, or how misconstrued it is.
There are many things in the world that can be fixed, unfortunately, stupid is not one of them. (smh)
It is now clear that an edit job done by anyone can convey the sense of what is happening, or it can steer people enmasse down a steep, dry slope to fall to destruction!
In Tuesday's (today) impeachment hearing, republicans repeatedly brought up unsolicited and unwarranted that "two minute clip." Well-paid professionals and their individual staffs who do not demonstrate the commonsense to go search for context to the words they hang meanings on!
Moreover, these same republicans apparently have little depth, height, width, or breath of knowledge in their understanding of subject matter materials which they manipulate to damage, injury, or ruin the life and times, and reputations of others!
See @1.1.55 I would like an HONEST assessment from you of the facts involved.
Impossible to answer as he never does.
I think you have enough fires in your neck of the woods, but knock yourselves out.
Talk about insanity and treason ...
Because you are using a false equivalency. It's like saying that the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and Jack the Ripper were both unaccepting of whores!
Any one can see where all the hate & violence is coming from. Antifa & BLM are leftist organizations UNRIVALED by anything on the right. We have good people being smeared simply to prevent them from holding office - example # 1 Bret Kavanaugh! We have an American President investigated via multiple fraudulent investigations for almost 3 years and those who voted for him smeared. We have progressive judges making outrageous decisions. Students are routinely denied free speech on campus's across the country. We have progressive governors directly countering immigration law. Look at your state. You told me you love your cops, yet look at what they were subjected to.
Why can't you see it?
Of course, Heartland A' blew it off. Our conservative colleagues do not respond to direct questioning its clear.
Weak. Forty plus percent of voters may represent your version of "the people, "but that's simply partisan nonsense. Moreover, all people should reject such distinction. However, I do recognize that sadly people are willing to let themselves operate as 'pack-members' at either extreme. I for my part resist the call of a herd mentality.
Conservatism does not speak for me, now, and maybe never (again) if it continues in dire efforts to promote lies and "private" truths as reality, nevertheless!
They don’t want to see it.
Insanity and treason defines the opposition to President Trump by their actions.
By the time the general election gets here Donald Trump will be the more moderate of the two major party candidates
It does not matter what the Independents decide. To the progressive liberal left, it must be all their way or the highway so to speak. Either they side wholeheartedly mind and soul or they are the enemy just as those on the conservative right are.
You know after reading this thread I am really offended.
I am one of those independents looking at a possible dem. I am not a socialist.
Whoa-- wait a second!
I've been watching the news on Mainstream Media-- both MSNBC and Fox.
And what I've learned on Fox is:
1-That everyone who is not a Trump supporter is "out to get this president".
2-And that means that everyone who is not a Trump supporter is a Socialist , plain and simple!
Perrie you never struck me as an evil person or an Atheistic Agent Of The Devil-- could it be possible that even a reputable Mainstream Media outlet like Fox news occasionally makes mistakes?
There's been more and more of that lately.
I've been curious as to wht people are doing that. Not sure yet but I have definitely noticed that the people who resort to name-calling and using deliberately inflammatory labels are the same ones who are woefully uninformed about thetopic being discussed.
The name calling and derogatory language directed at our President and his voters/supporters has been really strong here.
Fat pig Barr is a lying sack of shit and is not the 'president's personal lawyer. Barr needs to be disbarred and impeached himself.
William Barr is a great American. He’s doing a great job as our attorney general. If ever there were attorneys general who acted only as the president’s liars it was Holder and Lynch.
So true. Barr is a partisan hack whose head is stuck so far up Trump's ass he can't see sunlight. He's supposed to work for US, not Trump ... Trump's swamp creatures are all over the place.
So much for his campaign promise to drain the swamp; he made it far, far worse than it ever was.
It's a cesspool with this 'president' and administration.
No, the cesspool is still being drained from the swamp of the prior administration and the deep state.
The only one sabotaging Trump is Trump.
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Good Evening. Thank you all for being here. And thank you to Gene [Meyer] for your kind introduction.
It is an honor to be here this evening delivering the 19 th Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture. I had the privilege of knowing Barbara and had deep affection for her. I miss her brilliance and ebullient spirit. It is a privilege for me to participate in this series, which honors her.
The theme for this year’s Annual Convention is “Originalism,” which is a fitting choice — though, dare I say, a somewhat “ un original” one for the Federalist Society. I say that because the Federalist Society has played an historic role in taking originalism “mainstream.” While other organizations have contributed to the cause, the Federalist Society has been in the vanguard.
A watershed for the cause was the decision of the American people to send Ronald Reagan to the White House, accompanied by his close advisor Ed Meese and a cadre of others who were firmly committed to an originalist approach to the law. I was honored to work with Ed in the Reagan White House and be there several weeks ago when President Trump presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As the President aptly noted, over the course of his career, Ed Meese has been among the Nation’s “most eloquent champions for following the Constitution as written.”
I am also proud to serve as the Attorney General under President Trump, who has taken up that torch in his judicial appointments. That is true of his two outstanding appointments to the Supreme Court, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh; of the many superb court of appeals and district court judges he has appointed, many of whom are here this week; and of the many outstanding judicial nominees to come, many of whom are also here this week.
***********
I wanted to choose a topic for this afternoon’s lecture that had an originalist angle. It will likely come as little surprise to this group that I have chosen to speak about the Constitution’s approach to executive power.
I deeply admire the American Presidency as a political and constitutional institution. I believe it is, one of the great, and remarkable innovations in our Constitution, and has been one of the most successful features of the Constitution in protecting the liberties of the American people. More than any other branch, it has fulfilled the expectations of the Framers.
Unfortunately, over the past several decades, we have seen steady encroachment on Presidential authority by the other branches of government. This process I think has substantially weakened the functioning of the Executive Branch, to the detriment of the Nation. This evening, I would like to expand a bit on these themes.
I.
First, let me say a little about what the Framers had in mind in establishing an independent Executive in Article II of the Constitution.
The grammar school civics class version of our Revolution is that it was a rebellion against monarchial tyranny, and that, in framing our Constitution, one of the main preoccupations of the Founders was to keep the Executive weak. This is misguided. By the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1689, monarchical power was effectively neutered and had begun its steady decline. Parliamentary power was well on its way to supremacy and was effectively in the driver’s seat. By the time of the American Revolution, the patriots well understood that their prime antagonist was an overweening Parliament. Indeed, British thinkers came to conceive of Parliament, rather than the people, as the seat of Sovereignty.
During the Revolutionary era, American thinkers who considered inaugurating a republican form of government tended to think of the Executive component as essentially an errand boy of a Supreme legislative branch. Often the Executive (sometimes constituted as a multi-member council) was conceived as a creature of the Legislature, dependent on and subservient to that body, whose sole function was carrying out the Legislative will. Under the Articles of Confederation, for example, there was no Executive separate from Congress.
Things changed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. To my mind, the real “miracle” in Philadelphia that summer was the creation of a strong Executive, independent of, and coequal with, the other two branches of government.
The consensus for a strong, independent Executive arose from the Framers’ experience in the Revolution and under the Articles of Confederation. They had seen that the War had almost been lost and was a bumbling enterprise because of the lack of strong Executive leadership. Under the Articles of Confederation, they had been mortified at the inability of the United States to protect itself against foreign impositions or to be taken seriously on the international stage. They had also seen that, after the Revolution, too many States had adopted constitutions with weak Executives overly subordinate to the Legislatures. Where this had been the case, state governments had proven incompetent and indeed tyrannical.
From these practical experiences, the Framers had come to appreciate that, to be successful, Republican government required the capacity to act with energy, consistency and decisiveness. They had come to agree that those attributes could best be provided by making the Executive power independent of the divided counsels of the Legislative branch and vesting the Executive power in the hands of a solitary individual, regularly elected for a limited term by the Nation as a whole. As Jefferson put it, ‘[F]or the prompt, clear, and consistent action so necessary in an Executive, unity of person is necessary….”
While there may have been some differences among the Framers as to the precise scope of Executive power in particular areas, there was general agreement about its nature. Just as the great separation-of-powers theorists– Polybius, Montesquieu, Locke – had, the Framers thought of Executive power as a distinct specie of power. To be sure, Executive power includes the responsibility for carrying into effect the laws passed by the Legislature – that is, applying the general rules to a particular situation. But the Framers understood that Executive power meant more than this.
It also entailed the power to handle essential sovereign functions – such as the conduct of foreign relations and the prosecution of war – which by their very nature cannot be directed by a pre-existing legal regime but rather demand speed, secrecy, unity of purpose, and prudent judgment to meet contingent circumstances. They agreed that – due to the very nature of the activities involved, and the kind of decision-making they require – the Constitution generally vested authority over these spheres in the Executive. For example, Jefferson, our first Secretary of State, described the conduct of foreign relations as “Executive altogether,” subject only to the explicit exceptions defined in the Constitution, such as the Senate’s power to ratify Treaties.
A related, and third aspect of Executive power is the power to address exigent circumstances that demand quick action to protect the well-being of the Nation but on which the law is either silent or inadequate – such as dealing with a plague or natural disaster. This residual power to meet contingency is essentially the federative power discussed by Locke in his Second Treatise.
And, finally, there are the Executive’s powers of internal management. These are the powers necessary for the President to superintend and control the Executive function, including the powers necessary to protect the independence of the Executive branch and the confidentiality of its internal deliberations. Some of these powers are express in the Constitution, such as the Appointment power, and others are implicit, such as the Removal power.
One of the more amusing aspects of modern progressive polemic is their breathless attacks on the “unitary executive theory.” They portray this as some new-fangled “theory” to justify Executive power of sweeping scope. In reality, the idea of the unitary executive does not go so much to the breadth of Presidential power. Rather, the idea is that, whatever the Executive powers may be, they must be exercised under the President’s supervision. This is not “new,” and it is not a “theory.” It is a description of what the Framers unquestionably did in Article II of the Constitution.
After you decide to establish an Executive function independent of the Legislature, naturally the next question is, who will perform that function? The Framers had two potential models. They could insinuate “checks and balances” into the Executive branch itself by conferring Executive power on multiple individuals (a council) thus dividing the power. Alternatively, they could vest Executive power in a solitary individual. The Framers quite explicitly chose the latter model because they believed that vesting Executive authority in one person would imbue the Presidency with precisely the attributes necessary for energetic government. Even Jefferson – usually seen as less of a hawk than Hamilton on Executive power – was insistent that Executive power be placed in “single hands,” and he cited the America’s unitary Executive as a signal feature that distinguished America’s success from France’s failed republican experiment.
The implications of the Framers’ decision are obvious. If Congress attempts to vest the power to execute the law in someone beyond the control of the President, it contravenes the Framers’ clear intent to vest that power in a single person, the President. So much for this supposedly nefarious theory of the unitary executive.
II.
We all understand that the Framers expected that the three branches would be jostling and jousting with each other, as each threatened to encroach on the prerogatives of the others. They thought this was not only natural, but salutary, and they provisioned each branch with the wherewithal to fight and to defend itself in these interbranch struggles for power.
So let me turn now to how the Executive is presently faring in these interbranch battles. I am concerned that the deck has become stacked against the Executive. Since the mid-60s, there has been a steady grinding down of the Executive branch’s authority, that accelerated after Watergate. More and more, the President’s ability to act in areas in which he has discretion has become smothered by the encroachments of the other branches.
When these disputes arise, I think there are two aspects of contemporary thought that tend to operate to the disadvantage of the Executive.
The first is the notion that politics in a free republic is all about the Legislative and Judicial branches protecting liberty by imposing restrictions on the Executive. The premise is that the greatest danger of government becoming oppressive arises from the prospect of Executive excess. So, there is a knee-jerk tendency to see the Legislative and Judicial branches as the good guys protecting society from a rapacious would-be autocrat.
This prejudice is wrong-headed and atavistic. It comes out of the early English Whig view of politics and English constitutional experience, where political evolution was precisely that. You started out with a King who holds all the cards; he holds all the power, including Legislative and Judicial. Political evolution involved a process by which the Legislative power gradually, over hundreds of years, reigned in the King, and extracted and established its own powers, as well as those of the Judiciary. A watershed in this evolution was, of course, the Glorious Revolution in 1689.
But by 1787, we had the exact opposite model in the United States. The Founders greatly admired how the British constitution had given rise to the principles of a balanced government. But they felt that the British constitution had achieved only an imperfect form of this model. They saw themselves as framing a more perfect version of separation of powers and a balanced constitution.
Part of their more perfect construction was a new kind of Executive. They created an office that was already the ideal Whig Executive. It already had built into it the limitations that Whig doctrine aspired to. It did not have the power to tax and spend; it was constrained by habeas corpus and by due process in enforcing the law against members of the body politic; it was elected for a limited term of office; and it was elected by the nation as whole. That is a remarkable democratic institution – the only figure elected by the Nation as a whole. With the creation of the American Presidency, the Whig’s obsessive focus on the dangers of monarchical rule lost relevance.
This fundamental shift in view was reflected in the Convention debates over the new frame of government. Their concerns were very different from those that weighed on 17 th century English Whigs. It was not Executive power that was of so much concern to them; it was danger of the legislative branch, which they viewed as the most dangerous branch to liberty. As Madison warned, the “legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” And indeed, they viewed the Presidency as a check on the Legislative branch.
The second contemporary way of thinking that operates against the Executive is a notion that the Constitution does not sharply allocate powers among the three branches, but rather that the branches, especially the political branches, “share” powers. The idea at work here is that, because two branches both have a role to play in a particular area, we should see them as sharing power in that area and, it is not such a big deal if one branch expands its role within that sphere at the expense of the other.
This mushy thinking obscures what it means to say that powers are shared under the Constitution. Constitution generally assigns broad powers to each of the branches in defined areas. Thus, the Legislative power granted in the Constitution is granted to the Congress. At the same time, the Constitution gives the Executive a specific power in the Legislative realm – the veto power. Thus, the Executive “shares” Legislative power only to the extent of the specific grant of veto power. The Executive does not get to interfere with the broader Legislative power assigned to the Congress.
In recent years, both the Legislative and Judicial branches have been responsible for encroaching on the Presidency’s constitutional authority. Let me first say something about the Legislature .
A.
As I have said, the Framers fully expected intense pulling and hauling between the Congress and the President. Unfortunately, just in the past few years, we have seen these conflicts take on an entirely new character.
Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called “The Resistance,” and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, “resistance” is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.
A prime example of this is the Senate’s unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process. The Senate is free to exercise that power to reject unqualified nominees, but that power was never intended to allow the Senate to systematically oppose and draw out the approval process for every appointee so as to prevent the President from building a functional government.
Yet that is precisely what the Senate minority has done from his very first days in office. As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to invoke cloture on 236 Trump nominees — each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time meant only to delay an inevitable confirmation. How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama’s first term? 17 times. The Second President Bush’s first term? Four times. It is reasonable to wonder whether a future President will actually be able to form a functioning administration if his or her party does not hold the Senate.
Congress has in recent years also largely abdicated its core function of legislating on the most pressing issues facing the national government. They either decline to legislate on major questions or, if they do, punt the most difficult and critical issues by making broad delegations to a modern administrative state that they increasingly seek to insulate from Presidential control. This phenomenon first arose in the wake of the Great Depression, as Congress created a number of so-called “independent agencies” and housed them, at least nominally, in the Executive Branch. More recently, the Dodd-Frank Act’s creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Branch, a single-headed independent agency that functions like a junior varsity President for economic regulation, is just one of many examples.
Of course, Congress’s effective withdrawal from the business of legislating leaves it with a lot of time for other pursuits. And the pursuit of choice, particularly for the opposition party, has been to drown the Executive Branch with “oversight” demands for testimony and documents. I do not deny that Congress has some implied authority to conduct oversight as an incident to its Legislative Power. But the sheer volume of what we see today – the pursuit of scores of parallel “investigations” through an avalanche of subpoenas – is plainly designed to incapacitate the Executive Branch, and indeed is touted as such.
The costs of this constant harassment are real. For example, we all understand that confidential communications and a private, internal deliberative process are essential for all of our branches of government to properly function. Congress and the Judiciary know this well, as both have taken great pains to shield their own internal communications from public inspection. There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the Executive’s internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public, nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people.
In recent years, we have seen substantial encroachment by Congress in the area of executive privilege. The Executive Branch and the Supreme Court have long recognized that the need for confidentiality in Executive Branch decision-making necessarily means that some communications must remain off limits to Congress and the public. There was a time when Congress respected this important principle as well. But today, Congress is increasingly quick to dismiss good-faith attempts to protect Executive Branch equities, labeling such efforts “obstruction of Congress” and holding Cabinet Secretaries in contempt.
One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this President constantly accuse this Administration of “shredding” constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law. When I ask my friends on the other side, what exactly are you referring to? I get vacuous stares, followed by sputtering about the Travel Ban or some such thing. While the President has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook, he was upfront about that beforehand, and the people voted for him. What I am talking about today are fundamental constitutional precepts. The fact is that this Administration’s policy initiatives and proposed rules, including the Travel Ban, have transgressed neither constitutional, nor traditional, norms, and have been amply supported by the law and patiently litigated through the Court system to vindication.
Indeed, measures undertaken by this Administration seem a bit tame when compared to some of the unprecedented steps taken by the Obama Administration’s aggressive exercises of Executive power – such as, under its DACA program, refusing to enforce broad swathes of immigration law.
The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of “Resistance” against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law. This highlights a basic disadvantage that conservatives have always had in contesting the political issues of the day. It was adverted to by the old, curmudgeonly Federalist, Fisher Ames, in an essay during the early years of the Republic.
In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end. They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides.
Conservatives, on the other hand, do not seek an earthly paradise. We are interested in preserving over the long run the proper balance of freedom and order necessary for healthy development of natural civil society and individual human flourishing. This means that we naturally test the propriety and wisdom of action under a “rule of law” standard. The essence of this standard is to ask what the overall impact on society over the long run if the action we are taking, or principle we are applying, in a given circumstance was universalized – that is, would it be good for society over the long haul if this was done in all like circumstances?
For these reasons, conservatives tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means. And this is as it should be, but there is no getting around the fact that this puts conservatives at a disadvantage when facing progressive holy far, especially when doing so under the weight of a hyper-partisan media.
B.
Let me turn now to what I believe has been the prime source of the erosion of separation-of-power principles generally, and Executive Branch authority specifically. I am speaking of the Judicial Branch.
In recent years the Judiciary has been steadily encroaching on Executive responsibilities in a way that has substantially undercut the functioning of the Presidency. The Courts have done this in essentially two ways: First, the Judiciary has appointed itself the ultimate arbiter of separation of powers disputes between Congress and Executive, thus preempting the political process, which the Framers conceived as the primary check on interbranch rivalry. Second, the Judiciary has usurped Presidential authority for itself, either (a) by, under the rubric of “review,” substituting its judgment for the Executive’s in areas committed to the President’s discretion, or (b) by assuming direct control over realms of decision-making that heretofore have been considered at the core of Presidential power.
The Framers did not envision that the Courts would play the role of arbiter of turf disputes between the political branches. As Madison explained in Federalist 51, “the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.” By giving each the Congress and the Presidency the tools to fend off the encroachments of the others, the Framers believed this would force compromise and political accommodation.
The “constitutional means” to “resist encroachment” that Madison described take various forms. As Justice Scalia observed, the Constitution gives Congress and the President many “clubs with which to beat” each other. Conspicuously absent from the list is running to the courts to resolve their disputes.
That omission makes sense. When the Judiciary purports to pronounce a conclusive resolution to constitutional disputes between the other two branches, it does not act as a co-equal. And, if the political branches believe the courts will resolve their constitutional disputes, they have no incentive to debate their differences through the democratic process — with input from and accountability to the people. And they will not even try to make the hard choices needed to forge compromise. The long experience of our country is that the political branches can work out their constitutional differences without resort to the courts.
In any event, the prospect that courts can meaningfully resolve interbranch disputes about the meaning of the Constitution is mostly a false promise. How is a court supposed to decide, for example, whether Congress’s power to collect information in pursuit of its legislative function overrides the President’s power to receive confidential advice in pursuit of his executive function? Nothing in the Constitution provides a manageable standard for resolving such a question. It is thus no surprise that the courts have produced amorphous, unpredictable balancing tests like the Court’s holding in Morrison v. Olson that Congress did not “disrupt the proper balance between the coordinate branches by preventing the Executive Branch from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions.”
Apart from their overzealous role in interbranch disputes, the courts have increasingly engaged directly in usurping Presidential decision-making authority for themselves. One way courts have effectively done this is by expanding both the scope and the intensity of judicial review.
In recent years, we have lost sight of the fact that many critical decisions in life are not amenable to the model of judicial decision-making. They cannot be reduced to tidy evidentiary standards and specific quantums of proof in an adversarial process. They require what we used to call prudential judgment . They are decisions that frequently have to be made promptly, on incomplete and uncertain information and necessarily involve weighing a wide range of competing risks and making predictions about the future. Such decisions frequently call into play the “precautionary principle.” This is the principle that when a decision maker is accountable for discharging a certain obligation – such as protecting the public’s safety – it is better, when assessing imperfect information, to be wrong and safe, than wrong and sorry.
It was once well recognized that such matters were largely unreviewable and that the courts should not be substituting their judgments for the prudential judgments reached by the accountable Executive officials. This outlook now seems to have gone by the boards. Courts are now willing, under the banner of judicial review, to substitute their judgment for the President’s on matters that only a few decades ago would have been unimaginable – such as matters involving national security or foreign affairs.
The Travel Ban case is a good example. There the President made a decision under an explicit legislative grant of authority, as well has his Constitutional national security role, to temporarily suspend entry to aliens coming from a half dozen countries pending adoption of more effective vetting processes. The common denominator of the initial countries selected was that they were unquestionable hubs of terrorism activity, which lacked functional central government’s and responsible law enforcement and intelligence services that could assist us in identifying security risks among their nationals seeking entry. Despite the fact there were clearly justifiable security grounds for the measure, the district court in Hawaii and the Ninth Circuit blocked this public-safety measure for a year and half on the theory that the President’s motive for the order was religious bias against Muslims. This was just the first of many immigration measures based on good and sufficient security grounds that the courts have second guessed since the beginning of the Trump Administration.
The Travel Ban case highlights an especially troubling aspect of the recent tendency to expand judicial review. The Supreme Court has traditionally refused, across a wide variety of contexts, to inquire into the subjective motivation behind governmental action. To take the classic example, if a police officer has probable cause to initiate a traffic stop, his subjective motivations are irrelevant. And just last term, the Supreme Court appropriately shut the door to claims that otherwise-lawful redistricting can violate the Constitution if the legislators who drew the lines were actually motivated by political partisanship.
What is true of police officers and gerrymanderers is equally true of the President and senior Executive officials. With very few exceptions, neither the Constitution, nor the Administrative Procedure Act or any other relevant statute, calls for judicial review of executive motive . They apply only to executive action. Attempts by courts to act like amateur psychiatrists attempting to discern an Executive official’s “real motive” — often after ordering invasive discovery into the Executive Branch’s privileged decision-making process — have no more foundation in the law than a subpoena to a court to try to determine a judge’s real motive for issuing its decision. And courts’ indulgence of such claims, even if they are ultimately rejected, represents a serious intrusion on the President’s constitutional prerogatives.
The impact of these judicial intrusions on Executive responsibility have been hugely magnified by another judicial innovation – the nationwide injunction. First used in 1963, and sparely since then until recently, these court orders enjoin enforcement of a policy not just against the parties to a case, but against everyone. Since President Trump took office, district courts have issued over 40 nationwide injunctions against the government. By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued a total of two nationwide injunctions against the government. Both were vacated by the Ninth Circuit.
It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every major policy of the Trump Administration has been subjected to immediate freezing by the lower courts. No other President has been subjected to such sustained efforts to debilitate his policy agenda.
The legal flaws underlying nationwide injunctions are myriad. Just to summarize briefly, nationwide injunctions have no foundation in courts’ Article III jurisdiction or traditional equitable powers; they radically inflate the role of district judges, allowing any one of more than 600 individuals to singlehandedly freeze a policy nationwide, a power that no single appellate judge or Justice can accomplish; they foreclose percolation and reasoned debate among lower courts, often requiring the Supreme Court to decide complex legal issues in an emergency posture with limited briefing; they enable transparent forum shopping, which saps public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary; and they displace the settled mechanisms for aggregate litigation of genuinely nationwide claims, such as Rule 23 class actions.
Of particular relevance to my topic tonight, nationwide injunctions also disrupt the political process. There is no better example than the courts’ handling of the rescission of DACA. As you recall, DACA was a discretionary policy of enforcement forbearance adopted by President Obama’s administration. The Fifth Circuit concluded that the closely related DAPA policy (along with an expansion of DACA) was unlawful, and the Supreme Court affirmed that decision by an equally divided vote. Given that DACA was discretionary — and that four Justices apparently thought a legally indistinguishable policy was unlawful —President Trump’s administration understandably decided to rescind DACA.
Importantly, however, the President coupled that rescission with negotiations over legislation that would create a lawful and better alternative as part of a broader immigration compromise. In the middle of those negotiations — indeed, on the same day the President invited cameras into the Cabinet Room to broadcast his negotiations with bipartisan leaders from both Houses of Congress — a district judge in the Northern District of California enjoined the rescission of DACA nationwide. Unsurprisingly, the negotiations over immigration legislation collapsed after one side achieved its preferred outcome through judicial means. A humanitarian crisis at the southern border ensued. And just this week, the Supreme Court finally heard argument on the legality of the DACA rescission. The Court will not likely decide the case until next summer, meaning that President Trump will have spent almost his entire first term enforcing President Obama’s signature immigration policy, even though that policy is discretionary and half the Supreme Court concluded that a legally indistinguishable policy was unlawful . That is not how our democratic system is supposed to work.
To my mind, the most blatant and consequential usurpation of Executive power in our history was played out during the Administration of President George W. Bush, when the Supreme Court, in a series of cases, set itself up as the ultimate arbiter and superintendent of military decisions inherent in prosecuting a military conflict – decisions that lie at the very core of the President’s discretion as Commander in Chief.
This usurpation climaxed with the Court’s 2008 decision in Boumediene. There, the Supreme Court overturned hundreds of years of American, and earlier British, law and practice, which had always considered decisions as to whether to detain foreign combatants to be purely military judgments which civilian judges had no power to review. For the first time, the Court ruled that foreign persons who had no connection with the United States other than being confronted by our military on the battlefield had “due process” rights and thus have the right to habeas corpus to obtain judicial review of whether the military has a sufficient evidentiary basis to hold them.
In essence, the Court has taken the rules that govern our domestic criminal justice process and carried them over and superimposed them on the Nation’s activities when it is engaged in armed conflict with foreign enemies. This rides roughshod over a fundamental distinction that is integral to the Constitution and integral to the role played by the President in our system.
As the Preamble suggests, governments are established for two different security reasons – to secure domestic tranquility and to provide for defense against external dangers. These are two very different realms of government action.
In a nutshell, under the Constitution, when the government is using its law enforcement powers domestically to discipline an errant member of the community for a violation of law, then protecting the liberty of the American people requires that we sharply curtail the government’s power so it does not itself threaten the liberties of the people. Thus, the Constitution in this arena deliberately sacrifices efficiency; invests the accused with rights that that essentially create a level playing field between the collective interests of community and those of the individual; and dilutes the government’s power by dividing it and turning it on itself as a check, at each stage the Judiciary is expressly empowered to serve as a check and neutral arbiter.
None of these considerations are applicable when the government is defending the country against armed attacks from foreign enemies. In this realm, the Constitution is concerned with one thing – preserving the freedom of our political community by destroying the external threat. Here, the Constitution is not concerned with handicapping the government to preserve other values. The Constitution does not confer “rights” on foreign enemies. Rather the Constitution is designed to maximize the government’s efficiency to achieve victory – even at the cost of “collateral damage” that would be unacceptable in the domestic realm. The idea that the judiciary acts as a neutral check on the political branches to protect foreign enemies from our government is insane.
The impact of Boumediene has been extremely consequential. For the first time in American history our armed forces is incapable of taking prisoners. We are now in a crazy position that, if we identify a terrorist enemy on the battlefield, such as ISIS, we can kill them with drone or any other weapon. But if we capture them and want to hold them at Guantanamo or in the United States, the military is tied down in developing evidence for an adversarial process and must spend resources in interminable litigation.
The fact that our courts are now willing to invade and muck about in these core areas of Presidential responsibility illustrates how far the doctrine of Separation of Powers has been eroded.
III.
In this partisan age, we should take special care not to allow the passions of the moment to cause us to permanently disfigure the genius of our Constitutional structure. As we look back over the sweep of American history, it has been the American Presidency that has best fulfilled the vision of the Founders. It has brought to our Republic a dynamism and effectiveness that other democracies have lacked.
At every critical juncture where the country has faced a great challenge –
– whether it be in our earliest years as the weak, nascent country combating regional rebellions, and maneuvering for survival in a world of far stronger nations;
– whether it be during our period of continental expansion, with the Louisiana Purchase, and the acquisition of Mexican territory;
– whether it be the Civil War, the epic test of the Nation;
– World War II and the struggle against Fascism;
– the Cold War and the challenge of Communism;
– the struggle against racial discrimination;
– and most recently, the fight against Islamist Fascism and international terrorism.
One would have to say that it has been the Presidency that has stepped to the fore and provided the leadership, consistency, energy and perseverance that allowed us to surmount the challenge and brought us success.
In so many areas, it is critical to our Nation’s future that we restore and preserve in their full vigor our Founding principles. Not the least of these is the Framers’ vision of a strong, independent Executive, chosen by the country as a whole.
An altogether great speech.
His reelection is very important for the appointment of more conservative SC and Federal judges.
Every dirty trick and tactic the Dems/Libs/Socialists are doing in their quest to oust Trump by a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy is going to come back to haunt them
The people will punish them come next November.
John wanted us all to read what Barr said in his speech when he complained about the speech on his seed so I posted it to both. I read it and loved every word of it.
Trump swerved Trump. Again and again and again and ag—. . . . .
And thus far he is doing a great job. All his rabid followers are doing is making fools of themselves, and adding to Trump's own efforts in that direction.
Trump is going to win re election by a bigger EC margin than in 2016 and we are going to dance in the streets of our small towns.
Trump couldn't have sabotaged himself more if he tried. He didn't need any help...
And because of people who attack and resist the choice of the voters such as above, we are going to re-elect President Trump for four more years! Keep America Great 👍! 🇺🇸
Crooked donnie and his crooked administration sabotage themselves
They are actually doing a great job carrying out the will of the people. Tax reform, regulatory reform, better trade deals, improved judiciary, making progress on border security, record market highs, record lows in unemployment rates, keeping inflation and interest rates low, reviving American manufacturing, energy independence, rising wages for workers, all things that are anathema to the political left. Keep America Great.
They made a laughing stock out of this country, they show the world that bullying is fine and dandy, they show that they are above the law, they blame everyone else for their failures, they don't take personal responsibility. Crooked donnie proves all of the above every day
You can visit Trump in prison and tell him how proud you are of him.
Because countries that have all I described in 5.1 are always laughingstocks of the envious...
You can call him our President for the next five years and two months....
There it is. The clear statement that all the other blostering and lumberings statements before it are drilling down to. President Donald Trump should be able to load the country down with thugs (male and female), hatchmen (male and female), strongmen (male and female), and Trump loyalists of degenerate and questionable ("seedy") character all while having the "internal confidentiality" to not tell any other branch (only two others authorized to know) about their activities in real or near real time.
Heartland American thinks this is brillant! BrilliANT! BRILLIANT!
Until. That is, a Democrat or Independent becomes president! In that instance of winning the reins of power, republican 'resistance' will be reborn yet again (anew)!
This is so obvious and utterly pathetic!
Maybe he can sneak in a cake with a file in it.
Then maybe he can try to find someone who knows how to use it.
Trump will never be found guilty of anything and will never spend a day in any prison. Trump in prison is a progressive left wet dream and nothing more.
What's controversial about the idea that the political Left is trying to sabotage Trump? They've been calling for impeachment the entire time he's been in office. That's not sabotage? Whether he deserves it or not isn't the point. It's still true. Hell, they were actively prepping for it before he was even sworn in.
They began actively prepping for impeachment and preparing their total resistance on November 9, 2016. Even here we have seen it literally since then.
The question is: How long has it been Donald Trump's strategic plan to move forward on his outrages in order to get impeached by a reluctant House of Representatives?
You can not avoid impeaching 'the willing.'
You think Trump is secretly goading the House into impeaching him in order to build a public backlash for himself and against the House?
Heartland A', don't be indulgent. What I think is Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not wish to impeach this president, but since he would not slithering his neck under her every move, what's a gal to do? Apparently, all that is figuratively left to do is: apply more pressure.
That witch and the majority she rules over when AOC let’s it has nothing on our great President.
Jealousy of Speaker Pelosi with get you nowhere. AOC,. . . took something from you did she?
I love AOC!
I hope she turns out to be the leader of the Democratic Party.
Best possible thing that could happen for the GOP.
There simply aren't enough loons in this country to support her.
Well, I was only mentioning her in passing. I wouldn't dwell on it too long. That is, if I was you.
I agree completely. It’s the witch of the House that actually fears her.
We will reject your advice and make the squad front and center in all the democrat party does.
And you would think we will 'let' you, how? You have no power over the Democratic Party to make anybody anything. No more than the democrats have over the republican party. That is, none that we do not allow you!
How’s that impeachment thing going now?
It is too early to tell. Your implication is that of someone who feels the process has been "mucked" or "gummed" up sufficiently. I don't know about you, but I am on the outside looking in. I suppose there is much more left to be determined.
I’m no inside but I’m happy with the public response to democrat star chamber show trials. I’m really proud of all the minority members of the committee, particularly Stefniak, Jordan, and Nunes. My guess is that the House drops the matter rather than send it to the Senate for a trial.
The left have done nothing to sabotage this 'president'. He and his administration have done nothing for this country. He and his administration are only here to loot the treasury and line their pockets for as long as they're allowed.
🤦♂️
Talk about wishful thinking! Not happening.
Only in her wildest fantasies!
And its not only the rats-- its happening as well with a lot of truly honorable people who actually live and die by a code of honor:
Worry Rises In Military Over Trump's Decision-Making
A long-serving military officer put it bluntly, telling CNN "there is a morale problem," and senior Pentagon officials have privately said they are disturbed by the President's behavior.
(The link to that seed is HERE )
These are words delivered by an opportunist. Donald Trump has not obliged the office of the presidency to be anything the country can recognized. And if AG Barr thinks for an instance that surrender, the opposite of resistance, is to allow the Trump Administration to steamroll the whole of the citizenry into his way of looking at the world, he is sadly mistaken. As for donalders, my term for those who so far stand with Donald Trump wholly no matter the situation or issue, y'all can think any thing you want. It's a free 'thought' country!
Lastly, it is "rich" coming from a White House that is hiding more and more documents and statements by its official members to label others "resistance." Kingly, even.
After the thanksgiving break the Senate will receive the IG report and then the IG will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and then will come indictments of Obama regime officials for illegal spying on their domestic political opposition
I'm confident you will be assertive in writing another article—assuming you are correct in your suppositions, that is!
On December 9 the IG report will be released and Horowitz the IG will testify before the senate Judiciary Committee on December 11.
And I reckon you know what is going to come out of his mouth in the Senate Judiciary Committee too? Why don't you share it with us. Why wait? You have my undivided attention. /s
We will have to wait and see it on tv.
Even then the progressive liberals will still call fake news!