On Liberty Watch

Perhaps, just perhaps, the Republicans might get around to acknowledging the obvious: President Trump is guilty of the main accusation lodged against him. He attempted to get the government of Ukraine to investigate, or at least announce that it intended to investigate, the activities of the Biden clan for the purpose of damaging the presidential prospects of his potential rival, Joe Biden.  Congressional Democrats argue that this is not only conclusively proven, but that it constitutes an impeachable offense. Consequently they fully intend to impeach him, hopefully, in their view, before Christmas. 

Let’s unpack this. No one this side of sanity truly believes that Trump didn’t or wouldn’t use the power of his office for his own political benefit. Of course he would and he has. Just like pretty much every President has. The relevant question is not whether or not policy helps or hinders the President’s political position. The relevant question is whether or not he has deliberately sacrificed the interests of the United States to further his own interests in a demonstrable manner.

It has yet to be shown that Trump deliberately acted in a way that sacrificed U.S. interests so as to further his own political interests. Note the word deliberately. Certain actions a President may take, especially with respect to foreign policy, may harm U.S. interests; but a policy decision that helps the Administration politically even though it is a strategic error, or results from miscalculation, does not in itself constitute an impeachable offense. 

The subsidiary argument, that Congress appropriated the money and the President abused his office by threatening to withhold the funds simply lacks the gravitas necessary to justify the President’s removal from office, although it is ample reason for the exercise of Congressional oversight. We can, for example, turn to how the Obama Administration lied to the Federal Courts as it sough to avoid enforcing immigration law with respect to the “Dreamers”. (See for instance this article published by the CATO Institution: https://www.cato.org/blog/judge-sanctions-obama-lawyers-ethical-violations-wishes-he-could-disbar-them)

It seems clear that the motivations of the players in the impeachment inquiry are simply self-serving rather than principled. Most Democrats are from districts where their constituents (a) loathe Trump and (b) for that reason would like to see him removed from office. Republicans are from districts whose constituents are (a) overwhelmingly opposed to removal by impeachment and conviction and (b) are terrified of being “primaried” were they to support impeachment. Moreover, since the Senate majority is Republican the chances of a 2/3rds super-majority voting to remove Mr. Trump from office are exceedingly slim. 

Finally and most importantly, it would be naive in the extreme to believe that any of these people are acting out of anything other than ideological and political self-interest, particularly given the Democrats’ lunge to the left. They still do not accept that they lost in 2016, and are on a mission to delegitimize the result. The Republicans on the other hand are not lunging in any direction. They more closely resemble a bunch of 12 year olds playing soccer with everybody chasing the ball wherever it goes. 

So where does that leave us? With a national election 11 months away, it makes little sense to remove Trump by impeachment. The voters will have their say in a relatively short period of time. And Trump’s behavior is more than fair game. That’s the way it should be in a democracy.  

JFB

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George Will, the nation’s preeminent conservative columnist, has just published what is perhaps his finest book yet–and it’s not even about baseball. As the title suggests, it’s about Politics with a capital P.

The Conservative Sensibility provides a robust defense of American Conservatism, really classical liberalism, that is based on the work of the nation’s Founders. There will be more on this topic in the future. In the meantime here (below) is a You Tube video of a conversation between Matt Welch of Reason Magazine and George Will, occasioned by the publication of The Conservative Sensibility.

JFB

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Evidence is beginning to emerge that suggests former CIA Chief John Brennan lied to Congress about his actions with respect to the FISA application that authorized the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign.

See the interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano below.

JFB

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Robert Mueller did not find enough evidence to charge either Donald Trump or his campaign with conspiracy in the matter of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump promptly claimed he was “totally exonerated” despite the fact that prosecutors are not, and never have been, in the exoneration business. 

Since the Democrats have staked their future on finding Trump guilty of something, they quickly moved on to pursuing an obstruction of justice charge. In the meantime, Attorney General Barr announced that (1) Trump did not, in his view, obstruct justice, and that (2) the DOJ was going to investigate how the FBI and associated agencies came to investigate the Trump campaign. 

Republicans closed ranks and announced that there could be no obstruction without an underlying crime. Judge Andrew Napolitano, a strong libertarian, begs to differ.  Reason Magazine recently interviewed him on the subject. A 15 minute video of the interview appears below. 

JFB

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It has become accepted wisdom that the uneven distribution of outcomes across different groups is evidence of unjustifiable discrimination based on animus. In his latest book, Discrimination and Disparities, economist Thomas Sowell, now a scholar at the Hoover Institution, blasts that idea to smithereens.

Not too long ago Dr. Sowell sat down for an interview by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution to discuss the subject. That interview can be viewed below.

JFB

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“We are now in a Constitutional crisis” — Jerry Nadler (D, NY).

So said House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler after the committee proceeded to vote along strict party lines to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. Nadler’s stated rationale was that Barr failed to turn over the entirety of Robert Mueller’s report to Congress without any redactions. This failure, according to Nadler, is emblematic of the lawlessness of the Trump Administration. 

We should also note that while the Judiciary Committee has voted to hold Barr in contempt, the matter still has to be taken up by the entire Congress, which we can expect to happen in relatively short order. 

Interestingly enough, Congressman Nadler didn’t seem to think there was a constitutional crisis the last time the Congress held a sitting AG in contempt of Congress. Perhaps that is because the AG at the time was none other than President Obama’s wingman, Eric Holder. That vote, taken in 2012, was 255 – 67, with 17 Democrats voting in support of a criminal contempt resolution, which authorized Republican leaders to seek criminal charges against Holder. A second contempt citation, this one civil, authorized the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to sue the Justice Department to get documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal that was at issue. That resolution passed by 295 to 95, with 21 Democrats voting in favor of the measure. 

In the end, Justice Amy Berman Jackson declined to hold Mr. Holder in contempt, but ordered the Justice Department to turn over unprivileged documents to the House Committee. Something similar will probably wind up happening in this case. 

What is amazing about all this is that Congressman Nadler, despite all appearances to the contrary, is not a stupid man. He knows that this is not even close to a Constitutional crisis. Nor is the Trump Administration unique in its quest to expand the power of the Executive branch or in its disdain for Congress. There was, for instance, the Obama Administration’s routine rewriting of laws it didn’t like, only to be consistently rebuffed by the Courts. Not to mention the obvious lawlessness of Hillary Clinton and her e-mail caper, or the money laundering operation that was the Clinton Foundation. Or the Obama Administration setting Lois Lerner loose to use the IRS as a political tool to attack conservative advocacy organizations. Then there was the appalling behavior of Bill Clinton in the White House and the perjury that attended it. 

Of course we don’t want to leave out the criminal behavior of Richard Nixon and his Attorney General, John Mitchell. Nor do we want to ignore how Lyndon Johnson used the FBI to spy on his opponents, which, as seems increasingly obvious, is a habit that Obama was all too happy to resurrect.  And not to put too fine a point on it, the next time someone refers to Barr as Trump’s “handpicked” Attorney General, it might be worth tossing in a gentle reminder that all Attorneys General are “handpicked”. And that when Jack Kennedy picked his 35-year old younger brother to be Attorney General, he picked someone who was hardly disinterested in politics. Not to mention barely out of law school. 

If we take a look at the bigger picture without getting distracted by all the smoke on the battlefield, it seems fairly obvious that the last President who pointedly did not expand, nor seek to expand Executive power was Calvin Coolidge. Silent Cal, who famously said he would only speak if it improved the silence, was one of America’s better Presidents. Unlike most modern presidents he was not an egomaniac. Moreover he was perfectly content to do what he took an oath to do, namely to “…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

Not a bad idea, that. 

JFB

Barr Held in Contempt by House Judiciary, POLITICO

Holder Held in Contempt, POLITICO

Judge Declines to Hold Holder in Contempt, POLITICO

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