A Saturday post at the Talking Points Memo Editor’s Blog by TPM editor Josh Marshall warns that we are at that tipping point that’s been coming ever since that fateful night in November.
I want to clarify and expand on something I noted yesterday. The President stands accused, now with a mounting of evidence, of conspiring with a hostile foreign power to win the Presidency. He has now made clear that he will not permit any investigation of those accusations.
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Donald Trump is signaling that he will not permit any investigation to proceed. He’s lawyered up, he’s looking to go after Mueller and his legal team to try to discredit them even before the investigation into Trump and his campaign has barely begun, and he’s already making threats about using presidential pardons to pre-empt any criminal prosecutions.
Marshall adds that the situation is made even more dire by the reporting on this:
As is so often the case, the reporting is both a symptom of the broader crisis and also a genuine service. We learn critical new facts, by dint of reporting skills and access. But they are presented in the nonsensical play-by-play speak of the access class. Note the reference to “Bob Mueller signaling that he plans an expansive, exhaustive investigation aimed at Trump, his relatives, and current and former political lieutenants.” This is presented as an escalation when in fact it is simply a statement of the nature of the investigation itself.
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As long as the media puts this in a one side versus the other side, sports-style reporting frame, they contribute to Trump and the GOP’s narrative that this is a partisan witch hunt when it is really an existential threat to the entire American system of government and the Constitution.
The question is not whether Trump will fire Mueller — it’s when, and who else will be fired.
The next question after that is, how will the Republican Congress respond? Neither Paul Ryan nor Mitch McConnell have shown any signs that they will allow respect for tradition, the institutions of government, or the rule of law to stand between them and partisan advantage. Far from it.
Marshall is not the only one sounding the alarm. Dalia Lithwick at Slate has concerns, to put it mildly:
...The Framers erected an edifice of law intended to constrain power, and the president believes that framework is made of spun sugar and cobwebs. The United States is a nation built upon, as John Adams told us, “a government of laws and not of men.” The Trump administration adheres to no law, and whatever men or women keep faith with the law rather than him are discredited as biased against the president. This only goes one way: Norms are for losers, and laws are for poor people. And now Trump has his dream team of mob lawyers and mad dogs hard at work proving that the only lawyer without a disabling conflict of interest is the one pledging fealty to him.
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Digby is warning that what WE do may be critical. Resistance has to be more than a label when push comes to shove. Trump will prevail only if those with the power to stop him do not fear the consequences. We have to make every effort to ensure they realize at a gut level those consequences are real and apply to them. Hosting a Mueller Firing Rapid Response event is one way. Freeway blogger has some suggestions as well. Phone calls, emails, letters — pressure must be felt; we already know they’re trying to make the ballot box irrelevant, as Hunter warns. Every day, Republicans of the worst kind feel more and more empowered by Trump. There must be push back at all levels, down to local GOP offices and officials.
What each of us may do is going to depend on our individual circumstances — but that we will be called on to do something becomes clearer every day. The challenge and the goal were laid out by a Republican President over 150 years ago, in the midst of another great American crisis.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. ”
As Lithwick writes
...But the law is slow and reactive, and it is methodical and conservative by design. It depends on a vast machinery of lawyers and judges acting soberly and carefully, which is why it’s so very maddening, and also heartening, in perilous times. The rule of law is precisely as robust as our willingness to fight for it. And to fight for it is not quite the same thing as to ask, “Isn’t there a law?” While a nation founded on laws and not men is a noble aspiration, I am not certain that what the Framers anticipated was a constitutional regime predicated on the Harry Potter hope that all the lawyers would fix all the stuff while everyone else crossed their fingers and prayed.
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To repeat Marshall’s conclusion:
The President stands accused, now with a mounting of evidence, of conspiring with a hostile foreign power to win the Presidency. He has now made clear that he will not permit any investigation of those accusations.
UPDATE: Looking over the comments, I see several threads I’d like to respond to.
• John Dean’s article on all the barriers to keep Trump from firing Mueller are reassuring and worth a read. But… if the last 6 months have shown us anything, it’s how fragile those barriers are.
While Trump’s legislative agenda is going nowhere at the moment, his administrative agenda is going balls to the wall full speed ahead. Agencies are being gutted and left understaffed, foxes are running the hen houses, regulations are being trashed, critical programs are being defunded, and the Trump shitshow is causing that to not get as much attention as it should. (IE: this item on earthquake warning systems.) The administrative branch is under huge stress.
The judicial branch is also under attack. The theft of a Supreme Court seat is bad enough — but it’s just one piece of a long term GOP effort to stack the bench. Trump is setting a record pace filling judgeships — and they are young enough to be around for a long time. They’re also not exactly centrists, either.
We already know about the legislative branch.
• For those putting their hopes on a military intervention, Robert L. Bateman has some information you should consider. It’s not simple.
If nothing else, civilian control of the military is a cornerstone of our government. If it comes to the point where military officers have to decide whether or not to obey civilian orders because they might be illegal, well that’s unknown territory. Hoping the military might intervene to save us is something that should be only a last-ditch measure, and a clear sign that our democracy has failed.
Also, be careful what you wish for. In every military base I’ve been on (visiting family members in the service), it seems like the TVs in the lounges and dining halls are always tuned to FOX. The Air Force Academy has become a center of Christian Fundamentalist activity under the guise of religious freedom. It’s not a reassuring picture.
• The constitutional crisis has come to a head under Trump — but it’s larger than Trump. The Republican Party has become profoundly un-American. It’s encouraging racism, religious bigotry, class warfare, vote suppression, and more. It has shaped itself to appeal to Americans who want authoritarian leaders — and those authoritarian followers are in turn driving the party to become even more extreme.
Eliminate Trump, they’re still out there — and the GOP will still be going after them. Remember all of the candidates Trump beat out for the nomination? Is there any one of them who wouldn’t be trying to carry out the agenda Trump is pushing?
And is there any sign the Democratic Party has found an effective counter to any of this? That’s the biggest problem when all is said and done.
Further Addendum: The keyword to remember is “normal”. Aside from Mueller and the Russian connection, let’s not forget that Trump is already in violation of a number of norms. Here’s a partial list:
- He’s never revealed his finances — who knows how many conflicts of interest are there?
- He’s appointed a number of people who have turned out to have lied about their background and/or omitted critical information, sometimes under oath.
- He’s in daily violation of the emoluments clause.
- He’s using his office to enrich himself and his family.
- He’s proven his inability to handle classified information and other duties of the office.
- He lies constantly, about any and everything.
- He’s a self-confessed sexual predator, and a proven con-man in his business dealings.
None of this was enough to keep him from getting nominated by his party, and he’s had no consequences from any of this since being inaugurated. General Flynn is the only one to date to pay any penalty. That Trump remains in office shows how badly ‘normal’ has been eroded. The simple question to ask to put this in perspective is: “What if President Hillary Clinton had done this?”
Bottom Line: We may be facing a constitutional crisis as Marshall has concluded — but removing Trump doesn’t mean it will be over.