Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
This Is… Disturbing
How do we know American democracy works? Because it survived this:
.@ScottPelley on what McCabe told @60Minutes: "There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment." pic.twitter.com/iVAyrEV4MF
— Norah O'Donnell🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) February 14, 2019
Jesse Kelly breaks it down:
https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1096053542664765441
Published in General
The rule of law has been dangerously if not fatally wounded though.
I don’t get what the problem is. Â
Isn’t that how the 25th Amendment is supposed to work?
Some Republicans are for this stuff. Some of them have careers where you would think they would know better.Â
Trump is a mess because he lacks civic knowledge and particularly civic executive experience experience. He’s the least intellectually curious President we have ever had. We are surviving that as well.Â
I think a lot of those types just love statism and centralized power and they make money off of it, or their worldview is at stake. They just can’t accept that it has gotten dysfunctional.Â
Now do Lois Lerner et. al.Â
The IRS is a destructive parasite. Flat tax only.Â
There is no intelligent way to reconcile linking the 25th to Trump, thus it didn’t work and likely many of the imbeciles who thought it was possible are mentally defective and have now been weeded out of the FBI and WH. Thus, this is a non-story to anyone but the deranged anti-Trumpers.
Yeah this isn’t a problem. If half of the cabinet and the VP think Trump should be removed from office, let them do it, then explain why they did to the American people. If they have a good reason, then they should. If they don’t, the people will correctly be appalled at their self-righteous power grab, Trump would run again, win again, and fire them all.Â
Well, yes and no. The purpose of section four of the 25th Amendment is to allow the forcible removal of a President unable to perform his duties, and to specify how the decision to remove him should be made. However, the Amendment isn’t a tool to be used frivolously or inappropriately to remove a President who is clearly able to carry out the functions of his office, but who chooses to do so in a manner some find objectionable. That appears to be what was going on here.
Think of the process of obtaining a search warrant as an analogue. There is a defined legal process for conducting a search, a due process requirement required by the 4th Amendment. If law enforcement makes a frivolous attempt to obtain a warrant, we would hope and expect that attempt to be refused by the court. You could argue that “that is how it is supposed to work,” and you’d be half right: it is supposed to block unjustifiable requests for warrants; but people are not supposed to make unjustifiable requests in hopes of getting lucky. That is not how it’s supposed to work.
Not really. The 25th amendment would require a majority of the cabinet to decide the president is incapable of conducting his duties. It certainly isn’t about a group of career bureaucrats deciding they don’t like the way their boss, a self righteous [COC redacted], was treated and deciding that they should attempt to remove the duly elected president of the United States.  It really doesn’t matter what your opinion of Trump is this is pretty scary and destructive stuff to the republic.  Trump for all his faults isn’t incapable of being president.  Petty Incompetence and vindictiveness isn’t an impeachable offense.  Gross Incompetence might be, if the Congress deemed it so.  Basically though Trump’s crime is he beat the democrat, and he is unlikable by many. If we have gotten to a point where that is grounds for impeachment and removal then the republic is beyond saving. Â
Here is the relevant portion of the 25th Amendment: “Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
I fail to see how any reasonably prudent person would deem the President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” on the basis of the President dismissing a subordinate who serves at the President’s pleasure. That McCabe and other senior FBI officials would even consider Comey’s firing as grounds for pursuing 25th Amendment action would be laughable, if it weren’t so frightening in itself.
No. That is not how the 25th Amendment is supposed to work.
The President can fire people, it is in his power. The Assistant Attorney General wrote a letter saying that Comey should be fired as Director of the FBI.
The FBI is not supposed to try to get the Cabinet to remove the President for firing their boss. Exercising legitimate power of the Office of the President is not proof that the President is incapable of being the President.Â
IF it was decided in some way that this was a problem, it is a political problem that is solvable by impeachment. Not a problem for an executive law enforcement department to try and get the Cabinet to solve by deciding on their own to remove the President.Â
The NeverTrumpers, both on the right and the left, took it upon themselves to exact what they thought was justice, by passing the rules of procedures. This is disgusting. Somebody needs to go to jail for this. Following rules of criminal procedure of course.
Â
My problem here is that the meetings were not by elected representatives. The report is that public servants, employees of the Justice department, were meeting to talk about this.
To me the phrase “principal officers of the executive departments” means only the top one or two guys from dozens of agencies would have felt they needed to meet before this is a legitimate exercise.
And, as others have said, “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” is a judgement on medical incapacity to serve.
The policy driven method to remove a President is impeachment.
Hillary and Huma Abedin should be in jail too.Â
#BananaRepublicÂ
What is strange is how at this stage of the story there are still some who sincerely believe the firing of James Comey reflects badly on Trump.
Regardless of how you feel about Trump personally, or the Russia collusion investigations including the Mueller investigation, etc., …. James Comey was in fact a highly politicized unmitigated disaster as FBI Director.
His sham investigations of the HRC server and HRC classified document handling, Uranium One influence peddling, Weiner laptop, FISA warrant application, Trump meetings and note taking, last day in Office “by the book” meeting with other Obama officials , …. I’m sure I’ve missed some …. the point being Comey is exactly the type of personality who should never have been the head of our highest law enforcement agency.
Comey clearly chose a side where the job requires you don’t have a side.
Hear, hear!
That’s not the question @fredcole. The question is “Is that how the FBI is supposed to work?”
Under Comey, McCabe (and probably under Mueller, too) the FBI took upon themselves powers not reserved to them. Prosecutorial discretion, initiating powers reserved to the VP and the Cabinet, etc. The Director of the FBI is not in charge, the Attorney General is. But when the most important thing in your world view is anything that gets to Trump is more important than the chain of command and fidelity to the Constitution, then I guess that’s question you’re more likely to come up with.
From CBS’s piece on Pelley’s preview of the McCabe interview
I’m assuming Pelley knew what he was doing here and chose his “eight days in May” line knowing the symbolism involved (though Hollywood being Hollywood even 55 years ago, the story there was of the right-wing Deep State within the U.S, military attempting a coup against the sitting liberal president. If they did a remake with the left-wing Deep State within the FBI and DOJ trying to remove a conservative-leaning president, they’d have to tweak the script to make the coup plotters the good guys).
I wonder how true this story is.
It comes down to a matter of projection — they knew Trump was going to do terrible, terrible things as president so they had no choice but to plot to get rid of him. Which isn’t a surprise, based on the text messages from Strozk and Page sounding like something you’d read on a Democrats Underground message board during campaign season. They paranoia-ed themselves into justifying their own extra-Constitutional actions with the rationalization it was the only way to save the Constitution, and tried to sell it to the public via the Russian collusion narrative, which they themselves had the connections to know wasn’t true.
That people who claim to believe in representative government would believe a bunch of executive branch employees attempting to use the 25th Amendment as a means of removing a legally-elected President for frivolous reasons is the way the 25th Amendment is “supposed to work” is equally laughable and no less frightening.
I wonder about the date of the meeting.Â
You would think a Libertarian would be particularly sensitive to this but apparently his NeverTrumpism is blinding.
Major news outlets: “It’s right wing radio conspiracy talk that there was a deep state coup”
Andrew McCabe: “Oh, we tried to get rid of the President”
Major news outlets: “Trump was such a concern that….”
Everyone’s scum
Sorry. I’m unclear what am I supposed to be sensitive to. You’re invited to explain.Â
I think that speaks to the question in the first place.
I’m pulling the 25th Amendment on you! “Outta here!” What, that doesn’t seem fair? Hmmm.
I’m a with Fred on this.
If the acting director of the FBI — or anyone else in the administration — thought the president was off his rocker, it would make total sense for him and his staff to try to do that kind of headcount before reaching out to the cabinet about invoking the 25th.
Now, whether or not you think McCabe’s & Co’s judgement that the president’s mental competency was warranted or just is another matter entirely.
The abuse of the 25th Amendment under false pretensesÂ
If the FBI lies to the Cabinet to sway their opinion, for example.
But did they do that? Did they abuse the 25th Amendment? Did they lie to the Cabinet to sway their opinion?
The purpose of the maneuver by McCabe and his cabal was twofold:
First, to either force out or, failing that, politically hamper the President they thought should not have been elected.
Second, to ensure their pre-election machinations to prevent the election of Trump would never come to light. They felt confident Trump would lose, and the incoming Clinton Administration and cooperative media ensure democracy would die in darkness. Once Trump won, they were at incredible personal risk of exposure. Something had to be done. This was something.