Harvard Law Professor and Constitutional Law expert Laurence Tribe was on fire during his interview segment on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday.
I didn’t see another diary on the subject and I wanted to draw people’s attention to the video which MSNBC was nice enough to post directly to YouTube—PLEASE WATCH IT:
Follow Larry Tribe on Twitter @tribelaw and follow the Shadow Cabinet @ShadowingTrump.
Tribe speaks poetically and passionately about the Comey firing and all the other topics listed at the beginning of this diary.
He explains that the prospect of Russia collusion and the complexity of the cover-up are separate issues, each with its own possible catalogue of impeachable offenses.
He calls for an independent counsel and urges Congress to act to avoid constitutional crisis.
As the Citizen Attorney General of the progressive Shadow Cabinet, Tribe explains the importance of the Emoluments Clauses and accuses DJT of being “in violation of a basic principle that the Framers put in place to avoid having our President corrupted by foreign powers.”
He even throws a little shade with the line “If we had an Attorney General we could trust...” (!!!).
We may not be able to trust Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, but we *can* trust our Citizen Attorney General to be on the case: kicking butt, taking names, filing a lawsuit, and generally doing the job Sessions would do if he were a man of integrity instead of DJT’s elfin lap dog.
This current pulse of events is eerily reminiscent of the mix of apprehension and excitement during the Watergate era when each day we eagerly waited for the WaPo to fall at the front door wondering what new outrage or exposure would be found there.
It was the Saturday Night Massacre that moved impeachment talk from the shadows into the open. Perhaps the Comey firing and the threat/bluff about new White House Tapes and the new tax information and the lawsuit from the Shadow Cabinet will help embolden people who have up until now stayed on the sidelines, forcing them to speak up and speak out and do what must be done.
On one level, shocking and stunning things are happening, reminding those of us of a certain age of the worst aspects of Nixon-era abuses of presidential power, cover-ups and secrecy, enemies lists, and hatred of the press. There is widespread concern for the mental stability of the man with the nuclear codes. At least back then we had a Democratic Congress, and moderate Republicans who put country before party and were unafraid to stand up to a President out of control. Neither of those conditions is met now, and that makes recent events seem more harrowing.
But on another level, DJT and his minions are flailing around rather incompetently lately: committing unforced errors, misreading the room, getting taken by surprise, realizing it is harder than they thought it would be to control the message. They really thought Dems would cheer the firing of Comey? DJT wants to create the impression that he is taping conversations in the White House? He doesn’t care that by acting a fool he is making powerful enemies?
One thing’s for sure--they are not as strong as they looked a few months ago and they are not as strong as they desperately want to appear to be. Maybe the West Wing squabbles and intra-party power plays are about to cause their house of cards to implode.
So we should take heart.
Just as the Rs are less powerful than they look, we are more powerful than we look.
Indivisible groups are in every congressional district, Rcon congresscritters are afraid to hold town halls, great Dem off-year candidates are falling ripe out of the trees into our outstretched hands, and conservative pundits are openly fretting about whether they can hold the House in 2018.
And you know what happens if we take back the House.
We get to take our dreams about these words one step closer to reality: Wherefore Donald J. Trump, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
So, paradoxically, the chaotic atmosphere of the last few days has reassured me that the Red Team has no idea what it is doing.
Deplorables thought it would be an advantage to have a president* who doesn’t know anything about how government works, how the military works, how Congress works, how international diplomacy works, or how the court system works. Or the power of political comedy. Or the basics of American History. But they were wrong.
DJT’s frustration level will mushroom as he continues to come up against the folks who DO know how these things work. And they are all on the Blue Team.
Maybe he’ll get frustrated enough to knock over the chess board and quit when he notices he is a novice playing an expert, is humiliated by the prospect of losing, and realizes he isn’t actually sure how the pieces move without consulting Jarvanka.
So the combination of the Tribe interview, the Stephen Colbert smackdown, the Bethune-Cookman commencement protest, and other harbingers of victory great and small, have talked me down off the ledge.
The country may be on the brink of constitutional crisis, but the momentum is with the resistance.
It may take a while, but the have-nots are gonna win this.