Trump transition team lawyer makes the case for impeachment

984 Views | 12 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by cinque
GoneGirl
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JJ Verret is a law professor at George Mason, one of the 10 most conservative law schools in the country. Here he makes the case for starting impeachment proceedings:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/gop-staffer-advocates-trumps-impeachment/587785/

Let's start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report twice, and realized that enough was enoughI needed to do something. I've worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where my colleagues have held many prime spots in Republican administrations.

If you think calling for the impeachment of a sitting Republican president would constitute career suicide for someone like me, you may end up being right. But I did exactly that this weekend, tweeting that it's time to begin impeachment proceedings.

Let's go back to the beginning. In August 2016, I interviewed to join the pre-transition team of Donald Trump. Since 2012, every presidential election stands up a pre-transition team for both candidates, so that the real transition will have had a six-month head start when the election is decided. I participated in a similar effort for Mitt Romney, and despite our defeat, it was a thrilling and rewarding experience. I walked into a conference room at Jones Day that Don McGahn had graciously arranged to lend to the folks interviewing for the transition team.

The question I feared inevitably opened the interview: "How do you feel about Donald Trump?" I could not honestly say I admired him. While working on Senator Marco Rubio's primary campaign, I had watched Trump throw schoolyard nicknames at him. I gave the only honest answer I could: "I admire the advisers he's chosen, like Larry Kudlow and David Malpass, and I admire his choice of VP." That did the trick. I got the impression they'd heard that one before. I was one of the first 16 members of Trump's transition team, as deputy director of economic policy.

In time, my work for the transition became awkward. I disagreed with Trump's rhetoric on immigration and trade. I also had strong concerns about his policies in my area of financial regulation. The hostility to Russian sanctions from the policy team, particularly from those members picked by Paul Manafort, was even more unsettling.

I wasn't very good at hiding my distaste. We parted ways in October amicably; I wasn't the right fit. I wished many of my friends who worked on the transition well, and I respected their decision to stay on after Trump won. A few of them even arranged offers for policy jobs in the White House, which I nearly accepted but ultimately turned down, as I knew I'd be no better fit there than I had been on the transition.

I never considered joining the Never Trump Republican efforts. Their criticisms of President Trump's lack of character and unfitness for office were spot-on, of course, but they didn't seem very pragmatic. There was no avoiding the fact that he'd won, and like many others, I felt the focus should be on guiding his policy decisions in a constructive direction. The man whom I most admire in that regard is McGahn, Trump's first White House counsel, who guided the president toward some amazing nominees for regulatory agencies and the judiciary.

I wanted to share my experience transitioning from Trump team member to pragmatist about Trump to advocate for his impeachment, because I think many other Republicans are starting a similar transition. Politics is a team sport, and if you actively work within a political party, there is some expectation that you will follow orders and rally behind the leader, even when you disagree. There is a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty and pragmatism into something more sinister, a blind devotion that serves to enable criminal conduct.

The Mueller report was that tipping point for me, and it should be for Republican and independent voters, and for Republicans in Congress. In the face of a Department of Justice policy that prohibited him from indicting a sitting president, Mueller drafted what any reasonable reader would see as a referral to Congress to commence impeachment hearings.

Depending on how you count, roughly a dozen separate instances of obstruction of justice are contained in the Mueller report. The president dangled pardons in front of witnesses to encourage them to lie to the special counsel, and directly ordered people to lie to throw the special counsel off the scent.

This elaborate pattern of obstruction may have successfully impeded the Mueller investigation from uncovering a conspiracy to commit more serious crimes. At a minimum, there's enough here to get the impeachment process started. In impeachment proceedings, the House serves as a sort of grand jury and the Senate conducts the trial. There is enough in the Mueller report to commence the Constitution's version of a grand-jury investigation in the form of impeachment proceedings.

The Founders knew that impeachment would be, in part, a political exercise. They decided that the legislative branch would operate as the best check on the president by channeling the people's will. Congress has an opportunity to shape that public sentiment with the hearings ahead. As sentiments shift, more and more Republicans in Congress will feel emboldened to stand up to the president. The nation has been through this drama before, with more than a year of hearings in the Richard Nixon scandal, which ultimately forced his resignation.

Republicans who stand up to Trump today may face some friendly fire. Today's Republican electorate seems spellbound by the sound bites of Twitter and cable news, for which Trump is a born wizard. Yet, in time, we can help rebuild the Republican Party, enabling it to rise from the ashes of the post-Trump apocalypse into a party with renewed commitment to principles of liberty, opportunity, and the rule of law.


riflebear
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Rubio has been oddly quiet since the report has come out. He made some good points up until the last paragraph which shows how bitter he still is towards Trump for what he did to his candidate.

It's easy to forget how much Trump upset the establishment Republicans which is why they all fell for the Democrat insurance policy of the dossier and special counsel. I still don't agree with Trump on a lot but at least he has a lot of good GOP members backing him now.

Doc Holliday
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Impeachment only helps POTUS.
Forest Bueller
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Always going to be a lot of bitterness towards Trump by the entrenched establishment types.
RD2WINAGNBEAR86
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This is it, you Cons! I really mean it this time! The end is near. Night cometh. Hurry Mueller. LOL!!!
"Never underestimate Joe's ability to **** things up!"

-- Barack Obama
Osodecentx
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Jinx
I think y'all should go for it. Lots of hearings. AOC, Spartacus and Maxine holding press conferences. I want to hear from Congresswoman Omar.
GoneGirl
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Verret's column could be intended to encourage Democrats to pursue impeachment, which would be a mistake since McConnell has made it clear Senate Republicans under his leadership intend to do whatever it takes to keep Trump in power unless that becomes impossible. The only reason it hasn't is that Trump staffers refused to carry out his orders to obstruct justice. Most of those people have either quit or been fired.

But law professors, regardless of politics, tend to support the rule of law, and Trump clearly doesn't.

I'm not hoping for impeachment. I am hoping this is a sign that Trump is losing the smarter faction of the true believers. Those guys don't post here.
Doc Holliday
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Jinx 2 said:

Verret's column could be intended to encourage Democrats to pursue impeachment, which would be a mistake since McConnell has made it clear Senate Republicans under his leadership intend to do whatever it takes to keep Trump in power unless that becomes impossible. The only reason it hasn't is that Trump staffers refused to carry out his orders to obstruct justice. Most of those people have either quit or been fired.

But law professors, regardless of politics, tend to support the rule of law, and Trump clearly doesn't.

I'm not hoping for impeachment. I am hoping this is a sign that Trump is losing the smarter faction of the true believers. Those guys don't post here.
Mueller's legal theory on Obstruction appears to be that Trump may have criminally violated 18 USC 1512 (c).

The legalese will not hold up.

This is the same thing Weissman tried to push on Enron and SCOTUS ripped him a new one: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/544/696/

The Mueller report might as well be named the Weissman report.

The embrace of 1512 as a basis for obstruction is grossly irresponsible unless there is an underlying crime of conspiracy/collusion to "obstruct. (There wasn't, and isn't any Collusion crime, as now admitted by Mueller).

READ:
Forest Bueller
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RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:

This is it, you Cons! I really mean it this time! The end is near. Night cometh. Hurry Mueller. LOL!!!
Impeach Trump.
Forest Bueller
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Forest Bueller said:

RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:

This is it, you Cons! I really mean it this time! The end is near. Night cometh. Hurry Mueller. LOL!!!
Impeach Trump. Do it now!!!!


The clown show of interrogation will be epic.

Didn't mean to respond to me, but to edit.
riflebear
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Good luck w/ continuing to push Russia/Impeachment

Literally 0 (ZERO) people in CNN's liberal poll said it was an issue for them in 2020.

GoneGirl
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Forest Bueller said:

RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:

This is it, you Cons! I really mean it this time! The end is near. Night cometh. Hurry Mueller. LOL!!!
Impeach Trump.
He deserves impeachment more than Clinton did. Clinton was actually competent.
Forest Bueller
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Probably should not have made light of the situation, sorry about that, but in the real world this dead horse has been beaten way too many times.

The foaming at the mouth crowd is simply looking for more to be enraged about. CNN, MSNBC and almost the entirety of the MSM give the foaming crowd red meat by the hour, most of it pretty contrived stuff.

My suggestion is to back away from the political news for a while and enjoy the enormous blessings most folks in this country have. Even folks in the United States that consider themselves poor, have more than most of the worlds populations.

Probably why so many are clamoring to be here.
cinque
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Doc Holliday said:

Impeachment only helps POTUS.
How?
Make Racism Wrong Again
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