The Articles Of Impeachment Are Half-Baked

A quick note on the two articles of impeachment that are about to pass the House in the coming days. I think they are poorly written. This is what a committee of Democrats came up with over a weekend? Well, honestly, can any academic come up with something great over a weekend? I still have dreams about having to write 20-page papers over a single weekend, which I did back in my University days. Results were mixed. I remember if I started a paper more than a week before the due date, results were far better.

My issue is not with the opening resolution. That’s actually okay, since it paraphrases the resolutions from both the Nixon and Clinton drafts. That’s a little cheeky. Fine.

But I find the language of each article to be intentionally weak. They are intentionally devoid of details. In fact, they allude to crimes and actions, but don’t detail them. The document seems to assume he reader knows the details. I find this unacceptable.

I also lament the dryness and repetition of the language. Both articles begin with the identical summary of the power of the House of Representatives to impeach the president. Why not begin the first article with “President Donald J. Trump abused his power and violated his oath of office”? Why not strengthen the second article to read “President Donald J. Trump abused the power of his office to obstruct both the House of Representatives and to obstruct justice in the Independent Counsel investigation, between 2017 and 2019”? Expand it, Democrats. The Mueller investigation and the withholding of aid from Ukraine are part of one big criminal conspiracy to improve Trump’s odds of winning an election.

These thin articles lack deals and impact. The words don’t punch. The seriousness of the articles are not conveyed in the language. The English language is incredible in that there are many ways to convey a message or tell a story. These articles don’t leverage the inherent strengths of the English language.

There are those who agree and disagree with this assessment. Fred Kaplan of The Washington Post argues that the articles are incomplete and weak. His colleague, Dhalia Lithwick, concedes that they are weak and lacking details, but they had to be in order to reduce the amount of words the Republicans could chew on, rant about and distort.

I will always look to the proposed articles by Brianne Gorod and Elizabeth Wydra as what could have been. They are fantastic. Notice how each article begins:

Article I

In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has abused the office of the presidency by employing the powers of the office to advance his own political interests, rather than the interests of the nation….

Article II

In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has abused the powers of his office to try to prevent his wrongdoing and abuses of the public trust from being discovered….

Article III

In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has been personally enriching himself in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause….

That is how it should have been done. Start each article with the point and then list details below. These articles would have been home runs. They detail the crimes, and name those who did the crimes (Trump, Giuliani, Mulvaney). They even tie the president’s decision to abandon the Kurds in Syria to his plans for a Trump Tower in Istanbul.

Instead we have the worst-written articles of impeachment in US history. Look, we know Trump will be acquitted next month and will probably be re-elected. But why couldn’t the Democrats come up with articles that would be remembered and admired for decades to come?

The opposition party is like the articles themselves: Lacking clarity, conviction and courage.

We’re so doomed in 2020.

It's Time To Write The Articles Of Impeachment

Brianne Gorod and Elizabeth Wydra put together three fantastic, hypothetical articles of impeachment against Donald Trump in The New Republic. They are detailed, yet focused. And it’s precisely what the Democrats should put together in December. They don’t need any more public witness testimony. It is time to impeach.

I suspect that the the articles written by Gorod and Wydra will align closely with the real indictment the House Judiciary Committee will approve sometime in December. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee will probably prosecute the case before the Senate. Yesterday, we saw a preview of his closing arguments. It ought to be a slam-dunk case, but he will fail to persuade more than two Republican senators to vote guilty.

Based on the law and the evidence, the Senate should vote to remove the criminal president from office in January, but barring a miracle, that won't happen. Instead, it will fall to the voters to remedy the horrible mistake they made three years ago. If Trump is re-elected, we can probably write finis to our little democratic experiment in the United States.

While The Democrats Are On Break The Shit Hits The Fan

The title of this post says it all. The shit hit the fan last week. The Democrats should never have taken their recess. The Republic is burning down.

Donald Trump decided to play lawyer. He had the White House council send off a raving, angry letter to three of the four Democratic chairs leading the impeachment inquiry, confirming that we are in the midst of a long-standing constitutional crisis. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the primary author of the letter was Trump himself. But more significantly, Trump also destabilized northeastern Syria, while the two goons who hired Rudy Giuliani are claiming to be part of a joint defense arrangement with the president and the Russian mob. Seriously, read that piece by Marcy Wheeler. In a week of historic events, John Dowd’s letter to the House Intelligence Committee is as significant as any Nixon quote from the Watergate saga.

I wrote the paragraphs below last week before it was confirmed on Saturday October 12 that the president, and not a real lawyer, wrote that letter:

I really like George Conway's reply to Trump’s letter. The White House letter is manifestly an impeachable offense. Article One gives the House of Representatives the "sole power of impeachment", and neither the executive nor the judicial branch can dictate the process the House chooses to use to discharge that duty. The White House is showing absolute contempt for the House's constitutional authority, and presuming to tell the Speaker what process she must follow! It's hard to believe that the White House counsel actually went to law school and passed the bar exam. Oh, and by the way, Trump has apparently given the president of Turkey the green light to invade northern Syria and massacre the Kurdish fighters who lost about 11,000 men fighting ISIS as our allies. So much for Trumpian loyalty, and so much for a coherent foreign policy. The orange one must go.

But I'm still very concerned that higher courts will agree with Trump. Then the Republic and the Constitution are officially dead. We first examined this when the administration started to refuse to share documents with the House in April, as well as start to block people from testifying. This breakage of the constitution is now unprecedented. And what is the remedy? The military is with Trump. The police departments from coast to coast are with Trump. Are we suddenly inches away from a Pinochet-style junta? Who has the power to restore regular order?

Fiona Hill’s testimony to the House ought to spell the end of Trump. In a normal world, we would be free of him and the GOP.

Quick Thoughts On The Whistleblower Report

The whistleblower did his homework. He knew how to format his complaint. It took him days to write it. The right-wing claim that a lawyer wrote it is nonsense. A good CIA agent would have looked at other complaints in the public record for guidance on how to write one himself. He knew what it took to make it presentable to Congress. No lawyer necessary. He's an investigator. He researched and wrote it himself.

Oh, and I swear to fucking gawd, if the news media makes-up a cute name for this crime, like Ukraine-gate, my head will explode. Nothing is a -gate. Only Watergate is a -gate!

Support Robert Wexler - Impeach Dick Cheney

Robert Wexler has appealed to well-informed Democrats through Crooks and Liars:

In our efforts to push for hearings on Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment for Dick Cheney, we have run into a number of different obstacles. Some of them , naturally, relate to the debate within my party as to the need for Impeachment and/or its effect on the agenda.

While I have been making my case for impeachment hearings to my colleagues (and will do so on the House floor this evening) and disagree with those opposing them, there is at least a rationale for the debate on either side.

The virtual media blackout, however, has no rationale. I am perplexed and dismayed at the fact that - with so much at stake - the mainstream media still largely continues to ignore this movement. Few papers in the country have reported on it. Few columnists have acknowledged it.

I understand that some in the media feel this movement will fail - but when three, and now four, Judiciary Committee members call for impeachment… that should at least warrant space at some point over four weeks.

Without public reaction, however, there is little incentive for the media to change its ways. I urge all of you to continue to put pressure on national and local media alike to give attention to this movement. The Netroots has been critical in the outreach effort. I hope that continues over the coming days.

If you haven’t already signed on to www.WexlerWantsHearings.com, please do so.

Congressman Robert Wexler