Miriam: A pair of ‘probables’ and a ‘maybe’ is very little chance.
Richard
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 19, 2018, at 1:32 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Are We About to Face Our Gravest Constitutional Crisis?
Chris Hedges
Before this lame-duck Congress adjourns in December we could face the most
serious constitutional crisis in the history of the republic if Donald Trump
attempts to shut down the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller
III.
A supine and pliant Republican Party, still in control of the House and the
Senate, would probably not challenge Trump. The Supreme Court, which would
be the final arbiter in any legal challenge to the president, would probably
not rule against him. And his cultish followers, perhaps 40 million
Americans, would respond enthusiastically to his trashing of democratic
institutions and incitements of violence against the press, the Democratic
Party leadership, his critics and all who take to the streets in protest.
The United States by Christmas, if Trump plays this card, could become a
full-blown authoritarian state where the rule of law no longer exists and
the president is a despot.
Trump has flouted the Constitution since taking office. He has obstructed
justice by firing the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James
Comey, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, replacing Sessions with the Trump
partisan Matthew Whitaker. The president regularly ridicules the Mueller
investigation and insults its leader. In a tweet last week he called the
investigation a "witch hunt," a "total mess" and "absolutely nuts," and he
went on to assert that Mueller and his investigators were "screaming and
shouting at people" to make them provide "the answers they want." He called
those involved in the probe "a disgrace to our nation."
He has repeatedly delivered diatribes against the press as "the enemy of the
people," belittled, mocked and insulted reporters during press conferences
and defended his revoking of the White House press credentials of a CNN
reporter. He and his family openly use the presidency for self-enrichment,
often by steering lobbyists and foreign officials to Trump's hotels and golf
courses. He has peddled numerous conspiracy theories to discredit U.S.
elections and deployed military troops along the southern border to resist
an "invasion" of migrants. However, an attempt to fire Mueller and shut down
the investigation would obliterate the Constitution as a functional
document. There would be one last gasp of democracy by those of us who
protest. It is not certain we would succeed.
The potential crisis the nation faces is far more serious than the one that
occurred when it was revealed that President Richard Nixon had funded and
covered up the June 17, 1972, burglary at Democratic National Committee
headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. (Nixon's lying about
the secret bombing of Cambodia, which occurred from March 18, 1969, to May
26, 1970, and killed over half a million people, was, like all crimes of
empire, never formally addressed and was not cited in the impeachment
documents that were prepared.) The institutions tasked with defending
democracy and the rule of law were far more robust during the Nixon
constitutional crisis: There were Republicans in the Congress willing to
hold the president accountable to the law; the courts were independent; the
press had widespread credibility. In addition, the president met the
onslaught of charges and revelations by retreating from the public. None of
this is true now. Trump, with Fox News acting as a megaphone for his hate
speech and conspiracy theories, has been holding Nuremberg-like rallies
across the country to prepare the roughly 40 percent of the public who
remain loyal to him to become shock troops. His followers are filled with
hate and resentment for the elites who betrayed them. They are hungry for
revenge. They do not live in a fact-based universe. And they are awash in
weapons.
"Trump knows once the Democrats control the House, they can subpoena the
records of his administration," Ralph Nader said when I reached him by phone
in Connecticut. "He's going to want to get this over with, even if it sparks
a constitutional crisis, while the Republicans still control the Congress.
There's little doubt this will all come to a head before the Christmas
holidays. Unfortunately for Mueller, he has not issued a subpoena to the
president that would have protected him [Mueller]. If he had issued a
subpoena, which he has every right to do, especially after being rebuffed in
hours and hours of private negotiations for information from the president,
he would be protected. Once you issue a subpoena, you have a lot of law on
your side. If Trump defied a subpoena, he would get in legal hot water. But
short of a subpoena, it's just political back and forth. By not issuing a
subpoena Mueller is more vulnerable to Whitaker and Trump."
So far, there have been no hints from the Mueller investigation's criminal
charges or the guilty pleas by Trump associates that the Trump campaign
colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Paul Manafort,
Trump's former campaign chairman, was found guilty on eight of the 18 counts
that Mueller brought against him, but none of his crimes had anything to do
with the presidential election or Russian influence. Manafort's financial
crimes included five counts of tax fraud, one of hiding foreign bank
accounts and two of bank fraud. These crimes predated the Trump campaign.
Rick Gates, the former deputy campaign chairman, pleaded guilty to
conspiracy against the United States and making false statements. George
Papadopoulos spent 14 days in jail for lying to the FBI. Michael Cohen,
Trump's onetime lawyer, pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign
contributions by paying hush money to the porn actress Stephanie Clifford,
known as Stormy Daniels, and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Cohen, due to be
sentenced Dec. 12 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges of tax
evasion, making false statements to a bank and the two campaign contribution
violations, appears to be cooperating with the investigation, like most of
those who have been indicted.
In February Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities on
charges of interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections, indictments that would
not, I suspect, have taken place without hard evidence, but these
indictments still do not appear to link the Trump campaign directly to
Russia in an act of collusion. Perhaps the expected indictments of Roger
Stone, reportedly for his alleged contacts with WikiLeaks, and Jerome Corsi,
who said he expects to be indicted for "giving false information to the
special counsel or to one of the other grand [juries]," will connect Trump
and Russia, but until now the Mueller investigation appears to be focused on
financial crimes, which appear rampant within the Trump business
organization and among Trump associates. It is questionable, however,
whether financial crimes will be enough to justify impeachment proceedings.
Trump says he has finished answering written questions submitted to him from
Mueller's team and has promised to turn them over this week.
"Trump is in a dimension by himself," said Nader. "He has inured the public
to all kinds of scandals, bad language, accusations, admissions, harassment
of women, boasting about it, lying about his business and keeping his tax
returns a secret. You have to have an even higher level of damning materials
in the [Mueller] report in order to breach that level of inurement that the
public has become accustomed to."
Trump wields the power of the presidential pardon and has suggested he can
use it to pardon relatives and himself. There is no legal precedent for such
pardons, but the Supreme Court would probably uphold whatever novel legal
interpretation the Trump White House would use. Trump might also try to
divert attention away from the political meltdown by starting another war.
"Trump may try to save himself by starting hostilities abroad," Nader said.
"He is especially inclined to do this because of his extraordinary
psychological instabilities and impulsiveness. He also has a monumental ego
that lets him live in a fantasy world. The signal that he is planning this
kind of move, a move he would carry out if he loses all other options to
stay in office and be re-elected, will be if he replaces chief of staff John
Kelly with a war hawk and his secretary of defense, James Mattis, with
another war hawk. He has two war hawks who would like to see this happen.
One is John Bolton, his national security adviser, and the other is the
secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Bolton and Pompeo have similar views about
using military might abroad and ignoring constitutional, statutory and
treaty restraints. They would like to see Kelly and Mattis removed. Pompeo,
a graduate of West Point, has ambitions to become secretary of defense. If
you see Kelly and Mattis replaced with warmongers, this move might reveal
his ultimate trump card. He can use a war to shut down political opposition
and dissent in the name of supporting the troops."
Trump has a few weeks before the Democrats take control of the House. This
may give him enough time to carry out his constitutional coup and
consolidate power. Our decayed democratic institutions, including a
corporate press that has rendered the working class and the poor invisible
and serves as an apologist for corporate power, are detested by many Trump
Republicans. Trump can rally his cultish supporters, hermetically sealed in
their non-reality-based belief system, to attack and demolish the last of
our democratic protections.
"We have a tremendous dearth of readiness by major constituencies such as
civic groups, the legal profession, the business community and academia to
deal with someone who misuses his authority, power and resources," Nader
warned. "Nobody knows how to do it more precisely, relentlessly,
strategically and tactically than the cunning Donald J. Trump."
Editor's note: See an Oct. 17 column by Chris Hedges on Ralph Nader's latest
book, "How the Rats Re-Formed Congress."
