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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 being violated. People taking it upon themselves to exact justice. If this had gone through it would have been a political coup. If it had been violent, it would have been an assassination.
Trump may be unconventional and impulsive, but what evidence do you have that he is “off his rocker”? I’ve said people of all political dispositions take issues to illogical ends. This is NeverTrumpism going to its illogical end. This is NeverTrumpism justifying itself in circular logic.
So soon people forget how much power J. Edgar Hoover wielded, now they want a return to that era.
And the Libertarians are justifying it!!!! Get that!
No. Of course not. He’s a very stable genius.
And we know that because Donald Trump himself told us. You know, just like any very stable genius would.
That is great false dichotomy. He has to be either “off his rocker” and incapable of being President or a “very stable genius”
How about a weird guy who has his mental facilities and is thus capable of doing his job. There is a lot of grey area, where most of the population of the Country lives, between “off his rocker” and “stable genius”
The biggest reason they didn’t do it is probably because it would have required a supermajority in both houses to go along with it, when Trump protested it which he surely would have. So the supermajority requirement is what prevents the 25 th from being abused.
This is Dan Bongino’s view.
The idea that you’re not disturbed by any of this means it is beyond explaining to you.
Really? What was the justification?
Did they question his what — sanity? Why? (They didn’t question 0bama’s.) Because they didn’t like his dating choices ten years ago? They just didn’t like the man? Not good enough in anyone’s eyes.
Because he was corrupted by Russia? That was their own frame-up, their own lie. They knew that wasn’t true. Because they had successfully instilled a scurrilous and slanderous USG-driven and CIA-overseen and FBI-laundered propaganda smear campaign to the Public through complicity of The Press against the new president and it might be time soon to act?
There you go.
That’s a cop out.
That is why the effort would ultimately have failed. But I don’t think the Cabinet would have supported such a blatantly political overreach in any case.
Not really. You should wish it were a cop out, but in fact, no it is not.
No, Fred. It’s just you. Really. Maybe you and Bill Kristol.
Read my comment, @manny. I didn’t say the president was off his rocker: I said that if McCabe thought the president was off his rocker, then it would be appropriate for him to consider approaching the cabinet about it.
I then, explicitly called McCabe’s judgment into question:
Un-elected bureaucrats did not like the firing of their boss , a guy who served at the will of the President. So they took efforts to try to undo the results of a democratic election.
Shrugging off these efforts to gain and/or change power in the Country, by government employees, seems like an odd position for any Conservative or Libertarian to defend.
No, it still wouldn’t be appropriate. The Director of the FBI is not a cabinet officer. His boss is the Attorney General. If he wants to take it up the chain of command, fine. But he has no right to approach any other member of the cabinet about anything, let alone invoking the 25th Amendment.
That’s where all the problems began, with the Director usurping powers beyond his scope of power. The FBI is not there to exercise “prosecutorial discretion,” that is up to the prosecutors at the DOJ. It’s not up to him to decide if he can get an indictment. That’s not his job, either.
This from Michael Brendan Dougherty (definitely not a Trump fan) at NRO:
I would argue that citizens on the Right, have been, in general, extremely patient with this situation (being very charitable with that term – more like a soft coup) with the administrative state (the Deep State).
Lois Lerner and the other IRS abusers escaped justice. I sincerely hope that there are some ‘perp walks’ coming as I don’t think that patience will last much longer. I really think there will be violence if there isn’t some sense of justice, reform and closure.
As for ‘fitness for office’ – let’s see Ruth Bader Ginsburg read and generate questions, frame arguments from these briefs she’s supposedly reading(and breath into a mirror). Same for a good deal of the octogenarians in office and on the bench.
You’re probably right about that and I’m happy to concede to that particular point.
For the record, I’m not convinced that everyone here would agree that contacting the AG was appropriate.
@fredcole, the police are supposed to investigate crimes looking for perpetrators, not investigate citizens looking for crimes. The latter is what police states do. I don’t care if the target is Trump, or Obama, or you, Fred. It is wrong. Cops who can’t see that it is wrong have no business being cops.
Well done.
I think you’re saying citizens on the Right might do violence, but I think it’s the other way around. The violence will be the direct result of the loss of confidence in the rule of law, and will be perpetrated by those on the Left who have been marginally riotous but restrained by common sense and the last vestiges of social stigmatization. Once there is a perception that most law is ineffectual and that the government in general and law enforcement in particular don’t care, the leash will fall off and violence by Leftists will increase against the WMO and society in general. (White Male Oppressors)
Stipulating again that I do not find McCabe or Comey’s I’m-Just-an-Honest-Disinterested-Lawman routine convincing — and don’t think the 25th amendment was or is justified — I think MBD is really downplaying Trump’s behavior during that episode.
“Once there is a perception that most law is ineffectual and that the government in general and law enforcement in particular don’t care, the leash will fall off and violence by Leftists will increase against the WMO and society in general. (White Male Oppressors)”
To extend the thought in my comment above, I tend to think that, just like abortion has coarsened the public soul to death and dismemberment and to human life in general, so will the continuing, frequent, and increasing ignoring of major crimes by government officials coarsen the public soul to crime and violence and to all law in general.
The problem is it’s an Executive Branch agency discussing the possibility of “lobbying” the Veep and Cabinet to remove the President. If anything, it reeks of treason . . .
While the FBI usurping powers is definitely a problem, I have no problem with the director of the FBI lobbying other cabinet officials about anything, even the 25th Amendment. In rare circumstances, this would be necessary- as an example, if it was obvious the AG was blackmailing the President, or vice-versa. The other 999 times out of 1000, this would be an important feedback mechanism for the President and AG, as the lobbied cabinet members would tell them, “hey, the FBI director is running around behind your back”, and then the FBI director would be fired. Like free speech, it’s a power that’s mostly useful for identifying idiots.
Yep
Not according to how treason is defined in the US constitution.
There are no Libertarians that are NeverTrump.