President Trump Committed Another Impeachable Offense on Friday

[babylonsister]

Jurisprudence
The law, lawyers, and the court.
Nov. 3 2017 6:03 PM
President Trump Committed Another Impeachable Offense on Friday
He’s racking them up.
By Frank Bowman

snip//

Friday morning, President Donald Trump sent out a series of tweets in which he explicitly urged the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party for a grab bag of supposed offenses—emails deleted from then–Secretary of State Clinton’s private server, the Russia-uranium kerfluffle, activities by Tony Podesta (lobbyist and brother of Secretary Clinton’s campaign manager), and the allegation that officials at the Democratic National Committee worked with Clinton’s campaign to give it a boost over Sen. Bernie Sanders’.

The Trump tweet-string included these gems:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Trump followed up these tweets with statements to the press in which he said he is “disappointed” with the Justice Department and would not rule out firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions if Sessions won’t investigate Democrats. In my view, Trump’s tweets tiptoed right up to the line of an impeachable offense. His subsequent statements to the press stepped firmly over it.

Using the Nixon precedent as a template in order to show that Trump’s behavior is impeachable, several requirements must be met:

First, he must be seeking to employ the criminal investigative powers of the federal government against his political opponents. That is unquestionably the case.

Second, he must be acting, in the words of the Nixon impeachment articles, “for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office.” Although his most devoted adherents may claim otherwise, it is impossible to divine any legitimate nonpolitical purpose in his call for action by the Justice Department. His specific accusations don’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny:

Although it is doubtless a matter of intense interest for members of the Democratic Party, whether the DNC did or didn’t favor Clinton can by no stretch be translated into a violation of law, and still less a fit subject for a criminal investigation by a Justice Department controlled by the opposing party.

The Clinton email matter has already been investigated by the Justice Department, even if Republican partisans may not have liked the outcome.

Tony Podesta’s activities are already a subject of inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller, which is why Podesta just resigned from his own lobbying firm. So Trump’s inclusion of Podesta in his broadside manifested either a scarcely credible ignorance of the state of play in an investigation with which Trump is plainly obsessed, or a willful attempt to deflect attention from Mueller’s focus on Trump campaign affiliates.

And, as multiple credible observers have explained, the Russia-uranium-Clinton connection is an invented nonstory. Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear materials and nonproliferation expert, observed in Newsweek, “I have to say that this is one of those things where reasonable people cannot disagree: There just aren’t two sides.”

In short, every item on the laundry list of things for which Trump wants the Justice Department to investigate his political opponents is either not a crime, has already been or is being investigated—or in the case of the Clinton-uranium “scandal,” is an invented storyline promoted by Trump and his supporters to divert attention from Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Third, it is not necessary to establish impeachable misconduct that a president succeed in bending law enforcement agencies to his corrupting purpose. While some of the law enforcement and intelligence officials Nixon tried to enlist in his illegal schemes cooperated, many refused or ignored his orders, the IRS, the CIA, and important elements of the FBI among them. His failed attempts to misuse federal agencies were nonetheless integral components of the impeachment case against him.

This was as close to a direct order as a president can give without putting it in writing.

more...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/11/president_trump_committed_another_impeachable_offense_on_friday.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. I do not see it that way

He has a right to state his policies to the different parts of his administration

[Alice11111]

2. "Everybody is asking." "People are angry." Lying con man.

It is so evident. The world wide press has called him out on this BS. Yet, he shamelessly can't even learn new tricks. The people who support him are really ignorant or it is all about the money. Of course, there is the poke a stick in the eye of the smarter and more educated, which gives his supporters a thrill, right up there with sex. Well, they had to put up with one of the smartest presidents yet for 8 years, and he was BLACK. They were bursting with spite and bile for an idiot they could relate to.

[MyOwnPeace]

3. TRULY!

Every time you hear IQ45 say: "Everybody is asking" - "People are angry"...............

DING! DING! DING! DING!

The BULLSHIT meter is sounding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How the hell would he know "everybody is asking?" He's so isolated and in his own sheltered world he has NO CLUE as to what "people are asking." His own poll numbers prove that!

"People are angry?" DAMNED straight - and the poll numbers prove that too!!!

Here's the answers:

"People are angry" - Yes, because you're still here.

"Everybody is asking" - When will we be rid of you?

[Alice11111]

4. Wow, someone should market a BS meter, like the hand sized cubes,

so they could be squeezed, and go ding, ding, every time he does this. He is teaching this generation of kids and teenagers to lie and be devious.

[MyOwnPeace]

5. Yeah.......

quite the roll model, isn't he?

It hurts to think about that.

The name-calling, the locker-room talk, the way he treats people around him.

Wouldn't any of that make a mother proud?

[Alice11111]

9. In his case, locker room talk predator. It is a nightmare.

[struggle4progress]

6. "Flynn is angry! Manafort is furious! I am apolectic! I haven't yet asked Putin how he feels"

[Alice11111]

7. ...a bit of stress going on. Maybe constant chaos &

being the center of attention of the world isn't such a good idea for those around him.