Tag: Impeachment
Stevenson’s army, October 18 and 20
October 20: Next fights
SecDef Esper says US troops in northern Syria will move to Iraq.
Politico had an earlier report about military thinking about ISIS now.
RollCall says Congress is still likely to vote on Turkey sanctions.
I can’t locate a new CRS report on how the Senate handles impeachment, so I’ll give you the rules and precedents from the longtime Senate parliamentarian, Floyd Riddick.
FP has a bunch of articles on how to cope with Trump’s foreign policies.
October 18: Words matter
Look at the text of the US-Turkish agreement. The word “cease-fire” isn’t there, only a 120 hour “pause” to allow the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from the undefined “safe zone.” And the US agreed that it agreed the safe zone had to include “the re-collection of YPG heavy weapons and the disablement of their fortifications and all other fighting positions.”WSJ points out some of the other ambiguities in the agreement. NYT calls it a “cave-in” to Turkey. WaPo says DOD is rushing to develop its plans. Peter Beinart calls Democrats critical of the Syria pullout hypocrites because of their views on Afghanistan.
BTW, McConnell says the Senate will start taking up appropriations bills.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, October 9
– The Post has a good tick-tock on the Erdogan-Trump phone call. It sounds as if Trump wen through his talking points to rebuild US-Turkish relations — trade, F-35s, WH visit next month — then Erdogan warned Trump of planned Turkish military moves in Syria, and Trump changed his policy. Right afterwards, WH put out a press release on the call. You know the rest.
Prof. Edelman has a good piece criticizing the US action.
NYT reveals a hitherto secret Russian organization whose mission is said to be to destabilize Europe.
Then there’s the impeachment mess. The WH Counsel sent a letter basically stonewalling all impeachment-related subpoenas. In federal court, DOJ argued that the Supreme Court precedent requiring Nixon to surrender his tapes doesn’t apply to President Trump.
As this recent CRS report shows, congressional subpoenas can be enforced by criminal action if DOJ agrees to take the case [as they already haven’t in the case of Trump] or by civil action through the courts, which can take years.
While there have been some high profile executive refusals of subpoenas in recent years — firing district attorneys under GW Bush and “fast and furious” raids under Obama — remember Obama administration complied with Benghazi hearings. And then this:
Schiliro, the former director of legislative affairs under President Obama and a former staff director of the House Oversight Committee, also pointed to the past:
Twenty years ago Rep Dan Burton, as Chair of the House Oversight Committee, issued 1,052 unilateral subpoenas over six years to the Clinton Administration and the Democratic Party. No matter how unreasonable many of those subpoenas were, either the information was provided or a compromise reached. Every previous Administration has recognized the legitimate and constitutional role Congress has in oversight. This Administration is asserting a radical legal position based on nothing.
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Wishful thinking
There is so much wrong with President Trump’s behavior relative to his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky that it begs for enumeration:
- He solicited foreign help for his election campaign.
- He used his public position to enhance his private interests.
- He suggested a connection between Ukraine’s cooperation in replying to his request for a favor and his willingness to allow Congressionally-mandated aid to go to Ukraine.
- He or his immediate subordinates attempted to cover all this up by hiding the record of the phone conversation in a highly classified computer system explicitly not intended for this type of material.
- He subsequently has threatened the life and freedom of the whistleblower who drew attention to the malfeasance.
There is little question but that this behavior merits impeachment, along with lots of other things he has done. These include the obstruction of justice that Special Counsel Mueller documented in detail and his public appeal for Russian help in the 2016 election, not to mention his preference for believing President Putin over US intelligence agencies. We haven’t even begun to see a serious investigation of Trump’s finances, which will almost surely provide more impeachment fodder.
Impeachment in the House is a foregone conclusion now. The only real questions are when will it happen and how will the Senate react thereafter?
Speaker Pelosi has a choice between early impeachment, say late this year or early next, and late impeachment, late enough so that the Senate would not be able to conduct the trial before the November 3 election. It is not clear to me what she will choose, and perhaps she hasn’t decided yet. Processes of this sort have their own rhythm, which is likely slower than some would like. But if it appears that Republicans would back impeachment and conviction, Pelosi might try to move fast to take advantage of the momentum.
How will the Republicans react? So far the members of both House and Senate are circling the wagons, trying to protect Trump. Polling confirms that choice. But that could change. The rash of Republican retirements from the House is clearly due in part to discomfort with Trump and his likely impact on members’ prospects in the 2020 election. There have been a few similar announced retirements from the Senate, but there the defensive phalanx seems much better organized and grounded. Mitt Romney is everyone’s best hope for breaking ranks, but he has so far been cautious to a fault.
Trump remains defiant and unapologetic. His phone call was “perfect” and his opponents’ claims are fake news. He is good at counter-punching, but my sense is that most Americans are getting tired of the reality show. That, of course, is wishful thinking on my part.
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L’état, c’est moi
The intel community whistleblower complaint made public today focuses mainly on President Trump’s aggressive effort to enlist Ukrainian President Zelensky’s help in the 2020 election. But the campaign law violation is the least of the issues, as Robert Litt, former General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, made clear on NPR this morning. The main point is that the President used the call to pressure a foreign leader to help his political campaign, using a hold on aid to Ukraine as leverage.
This is classic use of public position for private gain, the very definition of corruption. It is an abuse of power that may also rank as extortion and bribery, with the aid used as a bribe. Trump has no compunction about this, because he recognizes no distinction between his private interests and those of the nation. L’état, c’est moi is his guiding principle.
Impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” is the proper response under the constitution, which provided this remedy explicitly for this problem: abuse of public office. The House of Representatives will now come up with a bill of particulars, likely to include not only this phone call but also obstruction of justice in the Russia probe, acceptance of “emoluments” from foreign governments, and use of government funds to enrich Trump’s several failing real estate ventures. The Democratic-controlled House should be able to vote impeachment well before the November 2020 election.
The Republican-controlled Senate shows some minor signs of departing from 100% loyalty to Donald Trump, but still there is no reason to believe the two-thirds vote required to remove him from office is possible, no matter the validity of the charges. Timing of impeachment is therefore an important issue: should the Democrats do it quickly, taking advantage of their current momentum, but giving the Senate ample time in which to acquit the President? Or should impeachment come shortly before the election, perhaps even making completion of a trial in the Senate impossible before the election?
Either way, the 2020 election is shaping up as a referendum on Trump. There will be lots of weighty issues: above all the domestic economy, taxes, health care, tensions with Iran, China, and Russia. But in the end the main issue will be whether the country is in good hands or not. Right now, more than half the country disapproves of the President’s performance, lots of potential Democratic candidates are polling well against Trump, and even a generic Democrat beats him on the national level. But 2016 demonstrated how little any of that matters: the presidency is decided in the electoral college, not in the popular vote, and polling more than a year out has little relevance.
Reelecting Trump would do exponentially more damage than electing him in the first place. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the tide already is turning against Trump’s ilk in other countries: Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson, Abdul Fatah al Sisi, Erdogan, Mohammed bin Salman, and Netanyahu are all in trouble, even if they manage to cling to power. Trump’s victory would stem the tide. Trump’s defeat would demonstrate unequivocally that the age of would-be autocrats ruling by personal fiat is finished.
If Americans want to be governed as the constitution provides, by law rather than personality, they’ve got to ensure that the state is far more than a person and his interests. The opportunity will come on November 3, 2020.
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Stevenson’s army, September 26
The papers are filled with impeachment stories. Enough already. There are a couple of detailed timelines on Ukraine, one from Lawfare and the other from Just Security.
The most interesting item for me is this from NBC News, describing the strange role of the part-time State Dept special envoy for Ukraine matters, named by Tillerson, whose lobby firm also works for Ukraine govt. He put Giuliani in touch with Zelensky’s aide. Weird arrangement.
Defense News has a good backgrounder on US military aid to Ukraine.
WSJ has scary article on how widespread drone capabilities are.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Impeachment, sort of
Speaker Pelosi announced a formal “impeachment inquiry,” to be conducted by six House committees. Pay close attention to her words:“Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” she said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference, after hours of meetings with Democratic leaders, committee chairs, and the rest of the House Democratic Caucus. “I am directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry.” BTW, she also quoted in Latin the phrase Caesar used when he crossed the Rubicon to attack Rome.
This responds to the political pressure in her caucus but doesn’t require anyone to vote on it yet. In 1973 and 1998, the House formally voted to begin an impeachment inquiry. Not this time, at least not yet. CNN reported that she discarded the idea of a special committee because it would anger the 6 chairmen who have the jurisdiction now for issues likely to be part of any impeachment.
[FWIW, I still doubt that the transcript due to be released today will be clear and compelling enough to convince undecideds, and I still believe that if the goal is to remove Trump from office, the advocates still lack the GOP support needed to accomplish that.]
WaPo reports that Giuliani took over from the regular executive branch people and processes to run Ukraine policy, leading to confusion and anger among the professionals.
NYT has an interesting story on how Trump’s international phone calls are conducted.
House Republicans are considering changing their term limit rules because of so many retirees.
Congress often outsources strategy on foreign policy to others. It created the Quadrennial Defense Review in 1986 and regularly requires an outside panel to review the QDR. It requires the President to submit a National Security Strategy and other such documents. In 2006 it created a special panel to study Iraq policy. Yesterday came the report of a similar panel created last year to study Syria policy. Here’s a story and the actual exec summary.
It’s always worth reminding people, as 538 does, that there really are very few independent voters, and not many of them are centrist or moderate.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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