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Quote of the Day: Impeach Rosenstein
“Certainly Congress should not seek to wreck a criminal investigation, and should be open to acceptable compromises. But Congress shouldn’t let the mere fact of a criminal investigation lead it to step aside and shirk its core constitutional responsibility: holding the government accountable to the people.
“Impeachment is a perfectly appropriate means to this end, which is why the Constitution provides for it. True, the last appointed federal executive impeached by Congress was a cabinet member in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. But Congress impeached a judge as recently as 2010, and there are no constitutional exemptions for deputy attorneys general…”
–William McGurn, Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2018
It’s understandable that people cringe every time the word “impeachment” is used; the Democrats have made a practice of condemning Trump and assiduously searching for the means to impeach him. But Trump isn’t the one that I think can be accused of criminal activity; you can’t be impeached for bad manners. If a thorough investigation could be done on Rod Rosenstein, however, without the Department of Justice blocking every attempt to get the evidence, I think his guilt would be obvious. Many people forget that the DOJ was created by Congress and is subject to Congress’s oversight. That includes people like Rod Rosenstein.
The process of impeachment is intentionally arduous:
The House brings impeachment charges against federal officials as part of its oversight and investigatory responsibilities. Individual Members of the House can introduce impeachment resolutions like ordinary bills, or the House could initiate proceedings by passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry. The Committee on the Judiciary ordinarily has jurisdiction over impeachments, but special committees investigated charges before the Judiciary Committee was created in 1813. The committee then chooses whether to pursue articles of impeachment against the accused official and report them to the full House. If the articles are adopted (by simple majority vote), the House appoints Members by resolution to manage the ensuing Senate trial on its behalf. These managers act as prosecutors in the Senate and are usually members of the Judiciary Committee. The number of managers has varied across impeachment trials but has traditionally been an odd number. The partisan composition of managers has also varied depending on the nature of the impeachment, but the managers, by definition, always support the House’s impeachment action.
As difficult as it may be, it’s time to initiate impeachment proceedings. Congress should be able to identify the crime. Aren’t most of them lawyers?
Published in Politics
I think it would be easier to charge Rosenstein with criminal contempt of congress, then hit him in the wallet and throw him in the slammer. I’m sure our legal Ricochetti will weigh in on this . . .
Is “criminal contempt” different from just plain ol’ contempt? Because contempt of congress made no difference whatsoever to Eric Holder.
Far too many, but probably not as many as forty years ago.
One problem with lawyers is that they are taught to argue both sides of the case. In terms of knowledge gained, that is inherently a good thing – conservatives understand the progressive arguments, but the progressives ignore previous wisdom (i.e., morality) and expect everyone to follow their wishes. So can we expect Congress to even agree on what’s a crime?
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Point taken, @vectorman. But if there is one committed person who can present that argument–to identify the crime that is crippling the Constitution–maybe others would join up. I can hope.
Sure you can. If you are a Republican official and Democrats control Congress, you can be impeached for bad manners. If people can be indicted and convicted for crimes that are not crimes, surely officials can be impeached for bad manners.
No. . . no. . . no. . . [ as I drop my head into my hands, weeping . . . ]
Indeed they are – and what better group of people to put in charge of inventing new crimes?
Clapper, Koskenin, and Lerner lied to Congress. Clapper admitted it, and Koskenin admitted to allowing the destruction of backup tapes, etc., that were under Congressional subpoena. If Congress would not impeach these (CoC), then Rosenstein, et. al., have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Percentage of Lawyers in Congress? About 43% with Senate at 60% and House at about 37.2% according to this source.
How can that not be jail time?
You’re right. But I think the level of exasperation and outrage are growing. I won’t give up hope!
Rosenstein needs to go — I have wanted Trump to remove him for a year now. He can do it in two ways:
There is good evidence from lots of sources (Dershowitz is best on this) now that Rosenstein is a disloyal member of the government and that he is trying to get Trump. He should have recused himself from appointing a special counsel because he wrote the memo for Trump to fire Comey and this looks like he orchestrated this whole thing. It looks that way but I don’t know. I don’t care really because he has proven to be a Deep State intriguer who doesn’t respect the Congress or the presidency and, it follows, the Constitution.
I understand that Rosenstein is held in very low regard here, but I would argue against impeachment. Not out of any sense of justice or fondness for Rosenstein, but out of practical considerations. In sports terms, momentum has shifted to Trump in the game. Mueller is under increasing pressure to come up with something, and the tactics employed by the FBI have come under increasing scrutiny. Getting rid of Rosenstein would be controversial, and go a long way to shifting the focus back to Trump. It would deprive him of momentum.
Great point !
First, Trump would be out of this move and this would signal a change that the Republicans are fed up with the Deep State.
Second, Mueller and Rosenstein are up to no good and the longer this goes on the worse it will get. Your notion that Mueller is under pressure seems to imply that therefore he will go from his own accord or some other internal reason (like common decency) but Mueller hasn’t shown any interest WHATSOEVER in hinting as to when he will wrap this up. Impeachment proceedings against Rosenstein (his partner in this obscenity) will undermine him and then and only then do I think he might wrap it up early. But, I doubt it. Mueller’s instructions from the Deep State seem to be that he should stay in place as long as possible to 1) undo the election of 2016, 2) damage the elections in 2018, 3) prevent Trump from going after Hillary and Comey and Lynch and McCabe and Brennan and several others.
In a way, Mueller is the Deep State’s only salvation and delaying has always benefitted the left because the media is in on this, too, and they can rehabilitate anyone, even Margaret Sanger (for example).
Do you trust him?
No.
Rosenstein is doing his job and will someday be deemed to be worthy of a modern day “Profile in Courage.”
I think that many of my fellow Ricochetti are living in an alternative universe beset by the deep state fantasies.
It also might not be a bad idea to keep attention on the problem of prosecutorial abuse in general, and the FBI scandals in particular. A lot of that attention would go away if Rosenstein were removed, which would be a shame, because the problem is a lot bigger than just him.
I realize the hate media are working overtime to ignore these problems, but even conservatives who are paying attention might tend to walk away from the problems if Rosenstein were removed too easily.
On the other hand, if we aren’t trying to get him removed, that, too, means we aren’t taking the problem seriously enough.
This won’t be parsed procedurally. It will be seen as a Trump power move, regardless of whether in fact it is one.
I disagree. Mueller doesn’t need Rosenstein. His investigation stands on its own now that he’s been appointed.
In answer to your other question, I regard Rosenstein as a CYA bureaucrat and accord him the same degree of trust as others of his nature. He did not have to exist, and it’s unfortunate that the present Administration did not sufficiently vet his appointment. But that doesn’t mean I regard him as significant enough to impeach and undergo the distraction that would cause.
There are two different ways to handle contempt. One is Eric Holder. Refer the charges over to the justice department and let them handle it.
The other would be to send the capital police over and arrest him and then have congress do the trial. I believe the VP sits in judgement but it gets to be a writ of attainder pretty quickly.
As near I can tell this has been done exactly once in the 1950s against someone on bribery charges.
To some degree I want them to pursue impeachment, because it wouldn’t need to involve Trump. If legitimate charges were identified and they went through the steps, the spotlight would be on the investigation and Rosenstein’s actions, not Trump. Once the process gets going, other evidence may come to light that incriminates other people (which doesn’t figure directly into the impeachment, I know). But it might push Rosenstein into pushing Mueller to wrap up soon, or Rosenstein might even quit. The fact is, we don’t know what he’ll do, but it would sure make his life hell, which is fine with me.
Rich Lowry has a piece up at Politico that seems to disagree with your position.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/02/rod-rosenstein-jumps-the-shark-218317
Rosenstein has never been doing his job. His job was to appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into a crime. No crime has ever been announced to the public. Being a jerk, lawfully firing employees or even “collusion”, if it could be proved, are not crimes.
So none of you here think this discussion makes you sound like paranoid cooks?
You should at least listen to Hoycon on this one. Trump suffers from too much drama, and you all want to crank it up to 11?
Also just out of curiosity, the Senate has to convict to actually have removal right? And by 2/3rds. So… have you guys really thought this through? Cause right now Trump is having problems getting cabinet nominees confirmed with more than 55 votes. You think you can get 67 senators to vote to remove Rosenstein because Larry Koler thinks he is an agent of the Deep State?
If Democrats are deluding themselves into thinking they will impeach Trump out of office (and boy are they) you guys are desperately trying to top them with this nonsense.
Amen. We all need to calm down and relax and let Mueller do his job.
Of note, a DC Federal Judge came to the conclusion that Mueller was authorized to investigate and indict Marafort.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-15/manafort-case-goes-forward-after-dc-judge-denies-dismissal-bid
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/dc-judges-ruling-does-big-damage-to-manaforts-attempt-to-get-case-dismissed/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-paul-manafort-charges-in-dc-clearing-way-for-trial/2018/05/15/7d227f34-5883-11e8-b656-a5f8c2a9295d_story.html?utm_term=.e6b6c82078e5
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It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with Rich Lowry, I do sometimes, but I have never thought of him as a “paranoid cook”. He outlines how Mueller is out of control and Rosenstein has mismanaged this whole thing. On the face of the issue Rosenstein should be fired for doing such a bad job. The problem is the politics of the firing not that Rosenstein is great.
The people who want Trump removed from office already consider Rosenstein hero and will do so no matter how criminal his efforts turn out to be.
I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten his Peace Prize yet.
Meh. District Court judges gonna judge. Recent Obama appointee, former federal prosecutor. If Manafort thought he had a prayer with her, he was ill advised.
I’m not well enough informed to go that far – or argue with you, either. That said, Sundance at Conservative Treehouse doesn’t seem nearly as exercised about Rosenstein as some Ricochetti are. Here’s from his update today:
[Sundance thinks that Priestap and Strzok are cooperating with the investigation.]
continued.
quote continued from #29