Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe has been saying that impeachment should be off the table, but now he’s changing his tune after the release of the Mueller Report last week.
Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe: "I've warned that impeachment talk is dangerous, but the time has come." https://t.co/haTmVd9qRV
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 22, 2019
I haven’t seen a direct quote from the report that implicates the President in anything. Here’s a direct quote is taken from page 10 of the first document: “…the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Sounds pretty clear to me.
Despite Attorney General William Barr’s assurances and President Donald Trump’s boasts, the Mueller report doesn’t come close to exonerating the president of wrongdoing. Instead, it invites Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings. It’s time for Congress to heed that invitation.
The report declines to reach a judgment on whether the president has committed a crime because Mueller views himself as bound by Department of Justice policy against indicting a sitting president. This does not mean that the president has not committed a crime.
Indeed, Mueller’s refusal to reach a judgment is based partly on principles of fairness to the president: While people accused of a crime usually have the opportunity to give their story at trial, in this case, when no charges can be brought, the accused has no opportunity to clear his name. Mueller pointedly notes that the sitting president’s immunity, however, would not preclude prosecution “once the president’s term is over or he is otherwise removed from office” — that is, impeached. [USA Today]
Prof. Tribe has misread the Mueller Report. The report does not call for impeachment, rather, the Report, written by lawyers for the Attorney General, calls for Congress to review the matter of obstruction.
Opinion is the key word here; the media is full of opinions. Assuming the house votes to impeach, the trial in the Senate will be full of constitutional experts and legal experts, and then the Senate has to get a 2/3 yes vote to impeach, basically a waste of time.
Under Article 2 of the Constitution, the president has the power to fire anyone; some may disagree as to the length and depth of that power, the president can also fire any cabinet member or director for any reason or no reason.
The emolument clauses again is a gray area. In the 1980s the Supreme Court’s Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion that the emolument clause does not apply to the president or vice president so for this issue it would appear that the court will first have to decide.
The rest of the stuff that the Democrats are screaming about will have to be looked at one at a time to determine if this is within the powers of the president or was this outside of presidential powers. The House can issues articles of impeachment for just about anything, but will they hold up in the Senate during a trial?
Moving to impeachment is only a move to raise more money from the Democratic base. It is another move to show the Democrats cannot accept the election and cannot stand that a non-politician is President. The good-ole-boy club has been breached, and a newcomer is trying to do away with the back-room bribing and collusion that politicians do to gain wealth and power.
No one sees the big picture here. It went right over everyone’s heads. No charges, no prosecution, no conviction equals absolute innocence. You cannot investigate a U.S. citizen, decide not to prosecute and then summarize it by saying “this does not exonerate them.”
That’s not how America works, and anyone who thinks it does is living in the wrong country. Doesn’t anyone find it strange that Trump’s legal team has not spoken out about this? Are we supposed to accept this as the new norm of our judiciary branch of government? A terrifying premise because if they can do it to a U.S. president, they can easily do it to you. Careful what you’re all wishing for, citizens of the world.
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