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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
The NYT said this?? Were they defending it or actually criticizing it? Oh, yeah, they were just reporting it. Sorry.
Kinda like in the Broward schools.
Here is Mollie Hemingway’s break down of the NYT story. Mollie’s piece also has a link to the original story.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/17/10-key-takeaways-from-new-york-times-error-ridden-defense-of-fbi-spying-on-trump-campaign/
Can we get a link to the New York Times piece so we can see what your referencing ourselves?
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia-fbi-mueller-investigation.html
Here is a separate article from the American Spectator that coberates some of the NYT stuff. Brennan started this investigation in April of 2016. It involved a multi-agency task force including the FBI, CIA and NSA.
https://spectator.org/john-brennans-exceptionally-sensitive-issue/
With all this fire power and two years of investigation, if there was anything they should have found it.
Just make sure they do it in the middle of the night, while his wife is in her pajamas.
So allow me to ask another question of the impeachment fan crowd. How do you expect a co-equal branch to fix a problem in another branch? It seems rather hard to do with impeachment, because that doesn’t invalidate the actions taken before the impeachment. You remove a bad judge (for example) that doesn’t void his previous rulings. You impeach an executive that doesn’t undo all the laws he signed or executive orders he gave.
Isn’t the answer to the problems you claim to exist that require this show trial, to have the chief executive actually fix them? So why doesn’t he? He can fire everyone, release all the documents, etc. The situation can’t be very serious if Trump himself isn’t doing anything about it. After these are his people running the show now.
If one wanted to be really paranoid, we might assume Trump has ordered Rosenstein not to cooperate with the Congressional investigation simply to create this situation as a means of discrediting the legitimate investigations into his dubious associates. Because after all this is all Republicans on both sides. Kind of like Putin working to ferret out corruption in the Russian government. It is all a pantomime.
This is not an impossible scenario. I don’t believe it. One thing that I look at is Adam Schiff and what goes on within the state he represents by the party to which he belongs.
Sessions needs to go — on this issue alone he has not been forthcoming and not been doing his job. He doesn’t have the spine nor the guts for his position at this time (and probably ever).
Thankfully Giuliani is going hard after these hacks.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Conflict of interest… That’s not being an adult, that’s Mueller failing to recuse himself. Of course if he did, it would call attention to his own misconduct.
Gotta love that adult integrity. Steven Hatfill and Bruce Ivins might have something to say about other work that Mueller is proud of, except that Ivins committed suicide.
Valiuth, I think someone is putting something in your drinking water. Let me try to address your points.
First, I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist until I started looking at the data. I suspect your haven’t been following the investigation carefully or are only reading the mainstream media. I’m not saying this to insult you but to establish there are many holes to your points.
Second, the DoJ is not co-equal with Congress; Congress created the DoJ. We’re not talking about the Supreme Court, we are talking about a department. Congress has oversight of the DoJ, but I can understand why you might think the DoJ is separate, since they are acting that way, with total disregard of Congressional requests.
The only thing Trump could do is fire Rosenstein. The outcry would be huge. No other issues would be publicized by the media except Trump’s action. He could de-classify the documents the DoJ is withholding, but that outcry would be gigantic, too.
The point is: the Congress should do its job and use its authority to impeach.
No one here has said otherwise. Please don’t be sententious.
The DOJ is part of the executive branch which is co-equal. Congress gets to ask and look, but it doesn’t run it and it can’t reform it without executive input and even then the executive (ie. the president has to be the one to implement their reforms). If there is a problem with the DOJ, Army, Post Office, Transportation Department, etc. the president has to be the one to actually fix them, possibly with guidance from congress and new authority enacted through legislation.
And the outcry wouldn’t be huge then? Oh but it wouldn’t be directed at Trump. And that is what all of this is about covering Trump’s behind, which is what makes it all so suspect and cynical. The executive branch is out of control, please ignore the fact that we are in control of it, and all of these guys were selected by our party and put in charge, by us, and now they are making us look bad by doing their jobs. How Clintonian of you and the Republicans.
I get I think most of my news from the podcasts on this site, and which I balance out with a slew of liberal ones too. I don’t watch any of the cable networks, because I have no cable, and I don’t listen to talk radio. In fact probably a quarter of my updates on this investigation come from reading Ricochet posts. I’ve see you guys dribble out your “data” and I have seen the liberals dribble out their “data” on this case too. Both of your conceptions of reality are built upon wild leaps to conclusions. The most fundamental being that there is a conspiracy either against Trump or by Trump to cover up or perpetrate. As I remain unconvinced that either party is so clever or organized I remain amused and unconvinced by your symmetrical paranoia.
I have a problem with this term “unindicted co-conspirator”. It sounds to me like a PR tool prosecutors use to besmerch someone’s reputation (whether actually guilty or not) when they don’t have enough evidence to indict.
Call it “prosecutorial sour grapes” . . .
Love the hat in your handle!
Maybe Trump should relieve him of his duties, but not fire him. Tell Sessions to give Rosenstein an office with no phone, no computer, and only a pad of paper and a pencil (unsharpened). Rosy can continue to put in his 40 hours a week and draw a paycheck, or resign.
Valiuth can you give me a citation for these points? The point in bold above is irrelevant. This is my understanding:
Article II of the Constitution grants Congress the power to impeach “the president, the vice president and all civil officers of the United States.” The phrase “civil officers” includes the members of the cabinet (one of whom, Secretary of War William Belknap, was impeached in 1876).
Impeachment has to have either a felony (you don’t impeach for traffic tickets) or a twisting of the public trust.
Congress and the Executive Branch are co-equal, but they both have checks and balances. If Congress believes the AG or Asst. AG have committed a felony (and I don’t know yet if that can be proven), they can move to impeach.
The Executive branch is not out of control. Lots of us don’t like the way Trump acts, but amazing work is being done. I don’t want more venom directed at him because people hate him for how he acts (not the work he does), because I think they are already interfering enough with his work. How would that be covering his behind? From what? Not liking him? How does the Executive Branch benefit with more mud slinging at it?
I have a broad spectrum of news I review, too. Still we both come to different conclusions, only I would suggest the hysteria is from the Left and has been from the Left, from the beginning. I don’t think you and I can find common ground.
Well, we must disagree here. I assess all three branches of our federal government to have significant elements out of control. But these conditions obtained well before President Trump’s arrival. And he is acting in ways that make me believe that each will come more under control while he is in the White House.
Andrew McCarthy takes on the Times’ reporting today at National Review.
That was a counterintelligence operation that was criminalized (quite possibly in both senses) as opposed to the Clinton criminal investigation the Bureau tanked.
Maybe the Justice Department was relying on the practice of not indicting a sitting President — but since Obama had been participating with Hillary in the crimes that Hillary might be charged with, it would look bad to charge her and not him.
But the bottom line:
“The FBI collaborated with the CIA…” at very high levels. Mueller ran the FBI for a very long time. Comey followed him and maneuvered to get Mueller appointed for this investigation. This stinks.
I remember how exercised Christopher Hitchens was about some of these police-state powers as they were being enacted. I didn’t worry as much and thought he was over-reacting. I was wrong and he was right. God bless you, Christopher.
And your plan to mitigate the venom is to start an erroneous impeachment process against Trumps hand picked AG and Asst. AG? Because starting such a nakedly partisan process (though oddly focused against their own party).
Though I find your phrasing odd “hate him for how he acts not for the work he does”. What if his acts are criminal? Why can’t he be investigated then (or hates for it)? What if the acts of his close work associates are criminal and that makes people criticize Trump. Why can’t those associates still be investigated? Because he is doing so much good work? What kind logic is this?
Your standards seem utterly ridiculous. Why should any one have investigated or hated Hillary Clinton for how she acts when she does so much good work (at least from liberals perspective)?
Excellent research, @ontheleftcoast. I keep shaking my head. How is all this possible? How???
You are so misinformed, @valiuth, that I’m losing patience. My first suggestion is that you read the Andrew McCarthy article referenced in comment #80. They couldn’t begin these investigations as criminal actions because there was no indication of a crime. By anyone who worked for Trump when they worked for him. If there are other crimes (and they would be outside the investigation), they should be handed off. Those are the rules. The Special Counsel was not directed to investigate a crime.
You are now twisting my words. If you do it again, I’m definitely done. It is not an erroneous impeachment process. I said if there were a crime, which a couple of credible people that I trust have said there is, they should pursue it. Unlike the FBI and the CIA who prefer to make these things up, there should be evidence.
I have no clue what you’re trying to say re Hillary. Don’t bother explaining. If you read comment #80 above and are not convinced that the FBI and CIA are breaking all kinds of rules and possibly committing crimes, I have nothing else to say. Anyone else who wants to engage with you can do so.
Thanks. I just figured that Andrew McCarthy would weigh in on the NYT article.
Just get this straight, crimes prompt investigations in order to determine who perpetrated the crimes. I’ve seen little in the way of objections here to investigating crimes. Just haven’t seen the crimes enumerated. But there have been plenty of suggestions to investigate people to see if perhaps they have committed crimes somewhere along the way.
Ask and ye shall receive:
I didn’t hear this! But the IG report isn’t out yet, is it??
If I understand it correctly:
Leaking details of a criminal investigation, or in some cases the fact that there is one =minor offense – and when done by lawyer, unethical behavior. Can be politically fraught, as when said alleged criminal is, say, running for President.
Leaking details of a national security investigation is a federal crime.
If you want a red meat take on all of this, NRA TV host and former Secret Service Presidential Protection agent Dan Bongino was guest host on Monday’s Mark Levin radio show. The blurb:
Not yet, but the FBI and DOJ have been given a draft to see if anything sensitive needs to be redacted and to make comments they might have on the over all accuracy of the report. Once the bureaucracies get the report there will be leaks.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/17/doj-inspector-general-completes-long-awaited-review-hillary-clinton-probe.html