May 3, 2019--Contempt For Congress

Because he refused to turn up for a hearing Thursday before the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Barr will for certain be subpoenaed to appear and if he still refuses to do so will likely be cited for contempt of Congress. 

What this ultimately means, how it will play out is uncertain.

Following Trump's lead, the president's latest flunky (how he attracts a stream of them is unfathomable), Barr, will not be fined nor tried in court, nor will he be sent to jail.

The way these matters are traditionally worked out is by the various parties making a deal. I'll agree to appear if you, the committee, agree to certain ground rules such as which lines of questions are permitted and which others will be overlooked. And apparently in the current case, who will do the questioning.

Deals are ultimately necessary because there is nothing in the Constitution that requires anyone to appear before Congress. Including members of the country's administration (read the president his staff, and his appointees). And there are no real consequences for not participating. The worst that happens is that those who refuse to cooperate go down in history as having been held in contempt by Congress.

Two things--

In spite of all the claims that Congress has an "oversight" role, that Congress is a coequal part of the government--with the federal courts and the administration being the other two branches-- there is also nothing in the Constitution about oversight nor is there anything about coequalness. The way the government functions in this regard is codified in various rules and precedents. Not in the Constitution.

If this sounds incorrect you can check me by reading the first three Articles of the Constitution. 

Someone like Trump or Barr, both of whom have contempt for Congress, being cited by Congress for contempt would likely be viewed as having earned a badge of honor. Therefore, such citings have little persuasive power.

With Congress having approval ratings in the low teens and more than half the population not supporting impeachment (the one intra-governmental constitutional power the Congress does in fact have), Trump and his enablers are not concerned about the public demanding they be brought to justice.

Things have come to this.

When reviewing Barr's equivocating and lying to Congress, political analysts have been worrying about how this is contributing to the further erosion of our democracy, noting that as a result we are experiencing a "constitutional crisis."

One thing overlooked by most is that though we may very well be facing a crisis it is not strictly speaking constitutional.

Recall, our Founders did not favor democracy. In fact, they worried that a democratic government, government of and by the people, would quickly deteriorate to anarchy as the unwashed would dominate and bring us down. And so they adopted a representative republic with whatever votes that were allowed granted only to property owners. And of course, white people.

Current day conservatives, including Barr do not believe in the rights of "ordinary" people. Voter suppression legislation, for example, is not just about helping Republicans control the government and political process but is also to limit the voting power of "the people," the same kinds of people Jefferson and Madison did not want to grant voting rights to.

These are some of the powerful forces and traditions we are confronting. On an intuitive level Trump has figured out much of this. To prevail we have to be even smarter.

February 19, 2019--Master of Distraction

Being the master of distraction can cut two ways. With Trump, adept at this dubious art, it does and then some.

Take the National Emergency.

Trump was on the ropes. The Democrats in Congress (read Nancy Pelosi) were dug in. They were not going to give him even "one dollar" for his Wall. If he didn't agree to compromise (read "fold") the government would come to a halt and as with the December shutdown, Trump would lose politically and again see his poll numbers tank. They were heading then to the low 30s, pretty much for him a potential 2020 electoral disaster. 

The media covered this wall-to-wall. Even Trump's enablers on Fox News and talk radio (read Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh) were restive and cranky, with Ann Coulter, hitting him literally below the belt, when she called him a "weenie."

So Trump rolled out his thus far most ambitious distraction--he made up and then declared a national emergency, knowing, but not really caring, that it will take forever to get through the courts and ultimately wind up with the Supremes who will likely declare it unconstitutional. Even Clarence Thomas might see things that way. Actually, ignore that--there is no way that he will. But expect Roberts to assure that minimally it will be a 5-4 decision.

In truth, for Trump, the more time it takes to work its way through the judicial system, the more we will be taking about nothing but,  which is his hope. It's about distraction and that's the definition of distraction--talking about something else.

As we saw on Friday the media immediately switched from obsessing about the battle Trump was having with Congress and began talking about only the emergency. To help them and to fill time they rolled out professors of constitutional law, former federal prosecutors, and Pulitzer Prize winning columnists. 

I said to Rona, if this keeps up for another two weeks I'm going to learn so much about the law that I'll be prepared to take the Bar Exam.

But there were a couple of sub-headlines buried on page 16 that ground on relentlessly. Stories that were not about the constitutional crisis but rather about Robert Mueller's investigation. 

At about the same time Trump was holding his rambling, sing-song news conference in the Rose Garden where all the questions were about the "emergency," Mueller prosecutors were in court calling for the presiding judge to sentence Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, to 24 years in prison. Effectively a life sentence for the 69 year-old Manafort. 

So expect that we will soon be back to paying 24/7 attention to Trump's legal troubles. Troubles exacerbated ironically by his use of the national emergency distraction because even some Republicans feel Trump by declaring it abused his power. Which is an impeachable offense. It was one of the charges against Nixon.

Thus, the default on all of this is the Mueller investigation. It is not going away. It is ultimately distraction proof.

For example, it is reported that Manafort is already singing like a canary and Roger Stone may be the next to flip.