Trump Wants DNC and Hillary Campaign Held Accountable For Bogus Russian Collusion Witch Hunt

Trump Wants DNC and Hillary Campaign Held Accountable For Bogus Russian Collusion Witch Hunt

BY MATT MARGOLIS 

 

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

During his presidency, Donald Trump repeatedly noted that the Russian collusion investigation had made it difficult for him to govern as effectively as he should have, and now he calling for action to be taken against those behind the hoax.

“Now that I have been totally exonerated on the Mueller Witch Hunt with a charge of No Collusion, I have often wondered, if a fake investigation is illegally started based on information provided and paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign, shouldn’t they be held accountable?” he asked in a statement early Thursday. “Not to mention, wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and interfering with years of a presidential administration? I fought the made-up Hoax strongly and effectively, and I won.”

“Then they fabricated, out of thin air, the fake allegation that I obstructed justice, and I won that too,” Trump continued. “Think of it, how can you obstruct justice when you were fighting a false and illegally submitted narrative?”

The Democratic Party continued to push the Russian collusion narrative long after the Mueller report concluded that there was no collusion.

During the Democratic National Convention, a number of bad jokes implying Russian collusion was real were made. Hillary Clinton herself quipped, “Vote for honest elections, so we, not a foreign adversary, choose our president,” on the third night of the convention. 

On the final night, former Seinfeld actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus joked, “If we all vote there is nothing Facebook, Fox News, or Vladimir Putin can do to stop us.”

One glaring omission from Trump’s statement is any mention of the Obama administration, which perpetuated the Russian collusion narrative, despite having no empirical evidence of collusion, and also spied on his campaign. Intelligence declassified in April 2020 also suggested that Obama’s CIA director John Brennan suppressed evidence that Russia actually wanted to help Hillary Clinton “and put forward lower quality intelligence to claim the Russians backed Trump.”

“This week I have been totally exonerated by the Inspector General in the clearing of Lafayette Park, despite earlier reports that it was done for political purposes,” Trump added.  “And I have also been totally exonerated in Congress by the testimony of former White House lawyer Don McGahn. It came, it went, and it was a big ‘nothingburger.'”

“But fear not,” Trump said. “The Radical Left, country destroying, illegal Witch Hunts continue, and I will win those too!”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/10/trump-wants-dnc-and-hillary-campaign-held-accountable-for-bogus-russian-collusion-witch-hunt-n1453532?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=333548a2571394d78f5984884e55069e&recip=28668535

Another Left-Wing Hoax About Trump Blows Up

Another Left-Wing Hoax About Trump Blows Up

BY RICK MORAN 

Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP

The Left and the media long suspected that the Department of Justice memo upon which former Attorney General William Barr based his decision not to prosecute then-president Donald Trump for obstruction of justice contained a “smoking gun” that would prove Trump guilty and discredit Barr’s conclusions.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson apparently put that theory to rest when she ordered the release of part of the memo that dealt with how Barr reached that decision. Barr relied on advice from several sources, including the Office of Legal Counsel. The OLC recommended against prosecuting Trump, not only because there are constitutional issues with prosecuting a president for obstruction, but also because even if Trump were a private citizen, there wouldn’t be enough evidence to charge him.

Recall that Special Counsel Robert Mueller left the decision on charging Trump with obstruction to the attorney general. After listening to many opinions, Barr said there wasn’t enough evidence to justify an indictment.

Recommended: Robert Mueller Goes from Savior of the Republic to Bumbling Fool in the Course of 5 Hours

The parts of the memo released so far call into question Mueller’s decision not to exonerate Trump himself. Perhaps Mueller was hoping that Barr’s DOJ would find a way to prosecute the president where he could not.

Washington Post:

The Justice Department filing is likely to both fuel and frustrate Trump’s biggest critics, particularly Democrats who have long argued that Barr stage-managed an exoneration of Trump after Mueller submitted a 448-page report into his findings about his investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the election, and whether Trump tried to obstruct that investigation.

The central document at issue is a March 2019 memo written by two senior Justice Department officials arguing that aside from important constitutional reasons not to accuse the president of a crime, the evidence gathered by Mueller did not rise to the level of a prosecutable case, even if Trump were not president.

Judge Jackson had earlier issued a blistering assessment of Barr’s “disingenuousness” about what was in the memo and the series of events that led to his decision. Jackson ordered the entire memo released.

But now the Biden DOJ has stepped in and is appealing Jackson’s ruling.

“In retrospect, the government acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer, and it deeply regrets the confusion that caused. But the government’s counsel and declarants did not intend to mislead the Court,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote in asking that the rest of the memo be kept secret.

Indeed, the OLC memo was fairly clear in its conclusions that “certain of the conduct examined by the Special Counsel could not, as a matter of law, support an obstruction charge under the circumstances. Accordingly, were there no constitutional barrier, we would recommend, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, that you decline to commence such a prosecution.”

Recommended (From 2019): The Case for Obstruction in the Mueller Report May Not Be as Strong as the MSM Thinks It Is

Ed Morrissey agrees that Barr has credibility problems but that there’s nothing “unethical” about Barr consulting with OLC.

Hot Air:

Even if there are credibility issues arising from the way Barr and the DoJ described the decision process (and there are), there is nothing unethical or even unusual about consultations with the OLC on legal points and policies. Had Barr been consulting with Mueller all along without disclosing it, that might have been a problem for the credibility of Mueller’s report. This, however, appears to be in line with the OLC’s purpose — as an advisory board, not an independent watchdog. Like so many of the supposed gotchas in the Russia-collusion quest, this one winds up as nothing much more than a process issue.

The Left is mostly quiet about the release of this memo. It’s not quite the bombshell they were looking for. The bottom line is that legally, Trump could not be prosecuted even if he wasn’t president. That’s not going down very well on the Left today.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/05/25/another-left-wing-hoax-about-trump-blows-up-n1449498

Impeachmenticide

Impeachmenticide

This impeachment will go on The Donald's permanent record. Nancy Pelosi notified his draft board. And Democrats will rename Donald J. Trump State Park.

Small wonder the Orange Man laughs in their faces. Democrats have diminished themselves. The impeachment turned a hollow victory in November into a humiliation. 

Because once in power, what did they do?

Did they order the nation's economy to re-open?

Did they pass a corona virus relief package?

Did they work with Republicans on a new immigration law or anything else?

No, no, no. Democrats did not do anything like that. The first thing Democrats did once the election was certified was to impeach Donald John Trump, even though his term expired on January 20.

They impeached him again because their first impeachment failed.

And now the second impeachment has failed.

Democrats planned a second impeachment all along. Two days before protesters stormed the Capitol, USA Today ran a column, "Congress should impeach Trump again and bar him from holding any future public office."

In his column, writer Austin Sarat (an associate provost and associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College) cited no specific crime, which the Constitution requires. Sarat's argument was we should impeach because he just doesn't like Donald Trump.

Without offering any proof, Sarat said, "Because the president has repeatedly shown that his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States means little to him, he must never be allowed to hold office again."

And yet, throughout his term, President Trump repeatedly went out of his way to respect the Constitution. He never pulled the plug on the Mueller witch hunt. He never disobeyed the unconstitutional restraining orders issued by mere district judges.

And unlike Obama, President Trump did not use the FBI to spy on political opponents.

Democrats took Sarat's advice and impeached Donald Trump.

Again.

On top of the stupidity of trying the same trick that failed last year, Democrats were remarkably inept in impeaching The Donald. The snoozer trial was set to fold on Saturday when Democrats got a hare-brained idea at the last minute to break their own rules and bring in a witness.

Media-ite reported, "Senate Democrats are under fire from all sides after striking a deal to avoid witnesses in former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial — shortly after voting to allow them in a last-minute measure.

"The trial seemed as though it would conclude on Saturday afternoon, but House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) announced that he was seeking testimony from a witness. That witness, Rep. Jaime Hererra Beutler (R-WA), was prepared to discuss the details of a phone call between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in which the former president, Beutler alleges, indicated his support for the Capitol rioters after the attack was underway."

Media-ite failed to explain why Democrats changed their minds. Trump's lawyers told them that their mid-game rule change would enable Team Trump to call in 100 witnesses and drag the case out till June.

Oops. 

After the Senate acquitted Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon, the Democrat Party became the laughingstock of the nation and the world. The political media does not get it. 75 million people who voted to re-elect Donald Trump are happy. 60 million who did not (and the 20 million stuffed ballots) are unhappy. That is the story.

Democrats woke up Sunday morning shell-shocked. Chris Coons, who got in the Senate by letting Biden sniff his daughter's hair, called for a 9/11 commission to investigate the storming of the Capitol.

Wow.

No sane person puts what happened at the Capitol anywhere near the level of the tragedy of a sneak attack that killed nearly 3,000 people. Then again, no sane person allows Joe Biden within 50 feet of his pre-teen daughter. 

Still, Democrats and their minions in the media cling to this ridiculous notion that there was an insurrection at the Capitol.

The American people did not like the storming of the Capitol, sure. They also don't like the impeachment. Half the people did not like that he was impeached, and the other half do not like that he was acquitted.

This was a lose-lose proposition for Democrats. Republicans skate. Donald Trump laughs.

But the tone-deaf New York Times wrote, "The vote stands as a pivotal moment for the party Mr. Trump molded into a cult of personality, one likely to leave a deep blemish in the historical record. Now that Republicans have passed up an opportunity to banish him through impeachment, it is not clear when — or how — they might go about transforming their party into something other than a vessel for a semiretired demagogue who was repudiated by a majority of voters."

Ah, concern trolling by the Times. It never gets old.

The Associated Press reaction put the Times to shame. It outright lied.

The AP said, "After he incited a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last month..."

He was acquitted. Apparently besides capitalizing black but not white, AP also believes acquittal means guilt.

Politico reported, "Democrats did a victory lap in defeat, pointing to the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict. And Republicans face a future haunted by a damaged ex-president who won’t go away."

If Democrats truly are doing a victory lap, then they are daft. They lost because they could not send boxloads of votes to the Senate at 3 a.m.

Over on the Island of Misfit Never Trumpers, the fury was unsound. The Bulwark reported, "Today’s vote to acquit Donald Trump was a disgraceful act of partisan cowardice."

Never Trumpers are sad because they will never regain influence in the Republican Party. They blame Donald Trump. I credit him for exposing their insincerity about conservatism, They opposed his every action including moving the embassy to Jerusalem, an act which brought peace to the Middle East.

The media spin right now is the Democrat Establishment spin that this hurt Donald Trump.

Beneath that veneer of sneer is the reality that Democrats are off to a terrible start. They bet on another impeachment and they lost again.

They were in a precarious position to begin with. Even with boxes of Biden votes dumped in the wee hours, Democrats barely pulled off the presidential election. They will go into the midterm election next year tied in the Senate and only a 10-seat lead in the House. History says Republicans have a great chance of regaining both houses of Congress in 2022, especially as Covid Year II kills the economy as the victims of the unnecessary lockdowns spend their life savings to stay alive.

But we shall see how that works out.

Instead of working with Republicans to advance his agenda, Chairman Xiden is following Obama's take-no-prisoners approach of passing legislation without even a single Republican vote.

I hope they keep it up because in his first midterm, Obama cost Democrats 7 Senate seats and 63 seats in the House.

While Republicans lost control of the House in Donald Trump's midterm, they also gained 2 Senate seats. That is unusual.

I told a woman who does not follow politics he was acquitted. She laughed and laughed.

Democrats fell in love with impeachment. It became their undoing. Power corrupts. The brain is the first thing to go.

Donald John Trump sails into history as the first president to be impeached twice.

History will record that he beat the rap twice. No matter how hard and how often Democrats spin it, the final outcome is all that matters.

And Donald Trump and his supporters get the last laugh.

https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2021/02/impeachmenticide.html

Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, in Washington on Nov. 1, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

POLITICS

Aim of Trump Impeachment Is to ‘Chill and Criminalize Speech’ that Opposes Leftist Agenda: Tom Fitton

BY TOM OZIMEK

 

Tom Fitton, conservative activist and president of Judicial Watch, told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” in an interview that he believes the aim of bringing an incitement of insurrection charge against former President Donald Trump is to “chill and criminalize speech” that opposes the agenda of those on the political left.

Calling Trump’s second impeachment trial “anti-constitutional,” Fitton remarked that it amounts to an attempt to silence the voices of those raising issues of concern that run counter to certain political objectives.

“It’s really an attack on civil rights and President Trump, the civil rights of his supporters who share his concerns about the issues he’s raised,” Fitton said.

“And what the left is trying to do is outlaw opposition to its agenda. Number one on the list is concerns about election integrity,” he said. “If you raise concerns about it, you need to be de-platformed, or worse.”

House Democrats making the case for impeachment have argued that Trump set the stage for violence through repeated claims that the election results were fraudulent.

On the second day of the trial, Democrat impeachment managers laid out the case that the Jan. 6 Capitol breach was not caused by a single speech but was rather the outcome of a months-long model of messaging that sowed doubt about the election and fueled anger among Trump voters by reinforcing the view that they had been cheated out of a win and disenfranchised due to fraud.

They also alleged that Trump summoned a mob to Washington, gave the crowd its marching orders, and did nothing to stop the violence as it played out on television.

Protesters clash with police at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)

Trump’s defense lawyers have argued that Trump urged the crowd to demonstrate peacefully, and his Jan. 6 remarks about “fighting” were mere figures of speech no different from the kind that politicians typically make, and anyway allowable under First Amendment protections.

“To claim that the president in any way wished, desired, or encouraged lawless or violent behavior is a preposterous and monstrous lie,” Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s lawyers, said Friday.

They also accused Democrats of waging a campaign of “hatred” against Trump, of using the impeachment trial to settle political scores, and of hypocrisy. On Friday, Trump’s lawyers played a montage of clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as jurors, also telling supporters to “fight,” seeking to establish a parallel with Trump’s rhetoric.

“This is ordinary political rhetoric that is virtually indistinguishable from the language that has been used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years,” Van der Veen said. “Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles.”

David Schoen, one of the attorneys representing Trump, said Friday that “this unprecedented effort is not about Democrats opposing political violence. It is about Democrats trying to disqualify their political opposition. It is Constitutional cancel culture.”

Asked to comment on Schoen’s remarks, Fitton said he believes they accurately reflect the intention behind the impeachment push.

“This is an effort to de-platform the president from our nation’s political life,” he said. “And to try to remove a player from the chess board who would be an effective advocate, a leader against their agenda.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/aim-of-trump-impeachment-is-to-chill-and-criminalize-speech-that-opposes-leftist-agenda-tom-fitton_3695574.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-02-14

SHOULD REPUBLICANS IMPEACH BIDEN AND HARRIS?

SHOULD REPUBLICANS IMPEACH BIDEN AND HARRIS?

Now that impeachment is just one more card in the political deck, to be played by whichever party controls the House of Representatives, the question naturally arises: what should Republicans do when they retake control of the House, very likely in 2022?

Lindsay Graham warns that if the Democrats could impeach Donald Trump with the false assertion that he incited violence, a far stronger claim along the same lines can be made against Kamala Harris:

Tom Cotton, among many others, has also pointed out Harris’s explicit support for rioting, looting and arson (not demonstrating or protesting, as no one was arrested for that), although not specifically in the context of impeachment:

Jeff Dunetz argues against retaliatory impeachment, and also says that Harris shouldn’t be impeached for something she did before she was vice-president. That is certainly a plausible position, although interestingly, the Constitution doesn’t say that the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that are the basis for removal from office must have been committed while the subject of the impeachment held his or her current office.

If we agree with the Democrats that it is proper to impeach a former president, House Republicans could consider impeaching Barack Obama. He plainly violated his oath of office and his duties under Article II of the Constitution (specifically, the “Take Care Clause”) when he essentially suspended enforcement of the country’s immigration laws. In my opinion he should have been impeached at the time, and, if the Democrats’ theory is accepted, it will not be too late to impeach him in 2023.

More to the point, though, is the fact that Joe Biden has committed the same impeachable offense as Barack Obama. In his first week’s blizzard of executive orders, he, perhaps to an even greater extent than Obama, purported to repeal the immigration laws. I think this was an impeachable offense, not just on the absurd theories argued for by Democrats, but on a sober reading of the impeachment clauses in the Constitution. And of course, by 2023 Biden in all likelihood will have committed many more illegal and unconstitutional acts that could be the basis for impeachment.

Some respected commentators argue that Republicans should take the high road. Rather than emulating the Democrats, they should, when they retake the House, attend to the country’s business and not waste time on politicized and futile impeachments. Those conservatives may well be right; theirs certainly is a reasonable and high-minded position. It also is consistent with the pattern we have seen for many years, where Republicans try to do the right and gentlemanly thing, while Democrats fight viciously for political advantage. This asymmetry has been an unfortunate aspect of our political scene for too long.

So, should Republicans wield impeachment as a weapon when they next control the House? I am undecided. The answer will be determined by the landscape as it exists two years hence, which at present, we cannot foresee. What we can say for certain is that the Democrats, with their two absurd impeachments of President Trump, have decisively changed how we all must view impeachment, if not forever, certainly for the foreseeable future. In 2023, or whenever Republicans re-take the House, it will very much be on the table.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/02/should-republicans-impeach-biden-and-harris.php

Michael van der Veen, attorney for former President Donald Trump, heads to the Senate Chamber before the fifth day of the Senate Impeachment trials for former President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Feb. 13, 2021. (Greg Nash/Getty Images)

POLITICS

Trump Impeachment Lawyer: ‘Bloodthirsty’ Media Is ‘Trying to Divide This Country’

BY JACK PHILLIPS

 

One of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers accused media companies of trying to push a narrative instead of sticking to the facts, saying news outlets are “trying to divide this country.”

“What this country wants and this country needs is this country to come together,” Michael T. van der Veen said, adding that the reason why there is so much divisiveness is “because of the media.”

“The media wants to tell their narrative rather than just telling it like it is,” he said, adding that corporate media outlets have “to start telling the right story in this country” and that the “media is trying to divide this country” to make a profit.

“You are bloodthirsty for ratings. You’re asking questions that are already set up with a fact-pattern,” van der Veen said.

“When I watch the news, I watch one station, and it is raining. And I watch another station at the same time, and it is sunny. Your coverage is so slanted, it’s got to stop. You guys have to stop and start reporting more like PBS does rather than a TV news show that does not have any journalistic integrity at all. What I’m telling you is they doctored evidence,” he said, referring to managers at the Senate impeachment trial of Trump.

Michael van der Veen, attorney for former President Donald Trump, is seen in the Senate Reception Room before the fifth day of the Senate Impeachment trials for former President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 13, 2021. (Greg Nash/Getty Images)

He was responding to a comment and question from a CBS News reporter, Lana Zak, after the Senate acquitted Trump. She was asking him about what he described was doctored evidence that was presented by Democratic House managers during the trial, including the addition of a Twitter checkmark on a tweet and selectively edited videos of the Capitol riots.

The reporter, in her question, framed her question in a way that van der Veen suggested was an attempt to downplay the apparently doctored evidence.

“It’s not OK to doctor a little bit of evidence,” he said.

“Prosecutors in this case doctored evidence. They did not investigate this case, and when they had to come to the court of the Senate to put their case on, because they had not done any investigation, they doctored evidence. It was absolutely shocking. I think when we discovered it and were able to expose it and put it out, I think it turned a lot of senators,” van der Veen said.

Zak had interjected, “To be clear for our viewers, what you’re talking about now is a check mark, a verification on Twitter that did not exist on that particular tweet, 2020 that should have actually read 2021, and the selective editing, you say, of the tapes.”

According to a poll from Gallup last fall, only 9 percent of Americans trust mass media “a great deal” and 31 percent trust the media “a fair amount.” Meanwhile, 33 percent have no trust “at all” in the media, while 27 percent have “not very much trust” in the media, a poll says.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-impeachment-lawyer-bloodthirsty-media-is-trying-to-divide-this-country_3696266.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-14-2

GOP Senators Criticized For Not Paying Rapt Attention, Enthralled by Impeachment Trial

GOP Senators Criticized For Not Paying Rapt Attention, Enthralled by Impeachment Trial

BY RICK MORAN 

(Senate TV via AP)

Some Republican Senators are being criticized for not sitting in rapt attention as Democrats make their case for impeachment. One Republican was seen chewing gum on the floor. Another was nodding off (just like half the viewers).

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports that “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was spotted tracing the watermark of the Capitol on a legal pad while Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) appeared to read a magazine article and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) gazed at a 2021 calendar.” All this while the most momentous moment in American history was being played out before their eyes?

In Communist China when Mao was speaking, anyone caught not paying enough attention was taken out and shot. No doubt some Democrats think that shooting would be too good for any Republican who isn’t enthralled by the impeachment proceedings.

Several Republican senators drew criticism Wednesday for appearing to pay only half-hearted attention to House impeachment managers’ arguments as the trial stretched into its fourth hour.

Several whispered among themselves, while others chewed gum, doodled or struggled to stay awake.

The Republicans started paying closer attention when House impeachment managers began airing footage from inside the Capitol after it was breached in Jan. 6, including some that showed Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-Calif.) staff barricading themselves in an office minutes before a group of rioters walked down a hallway.

This may surprise GOP critics but life goes on even during impeachment. I pity senators sentenced to being forced to watch and listen to this clown show.

Can you blame them for desperately trying to keep themselves amused?

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) was described by one reporter in the chamber as appearing to struggle to stay awake while Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) didn’t seem to pay much attention to Rep. Joe Neguse’s (D-Colo.) presentation.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) popped snacks into his mouth under his mask and at one point walked into the cloakroom, emerging moments later with a glass of milk. Milk and water are the only beverages allowed on the floor under Senate rules.

A pity. I bet most of those Republicans could have used a good belt to stay awake.

The main target of the attention-enforcers was Sen. Josh Hawley who refused to sit at his little desk in the chamber, instead sitting in the gallery apparently sprawled across a couple sets, lounging as if he was watching a ballgame.

That body language was criticized by the former senator he defeated, Claire McCaskill.

“He’s proud to pull himself apart from everyone else and be the only guy. This is all political for him. It’s all political theater. That’s why he’s up there with his feet over the chair,” she said on MSNBC.

“He’s probably working on his book manuscript,” she added. “It’s very disrespectful.”

It turns out that Hawley, the former attorney general of Missouri, was reading trial briefs and the notes he made on them. But his posture was poor and he wasn’t sitting up ramrod straight. How that improves listening skills is a mystery.

Do you notice how the Democrats are drifting closer and closer to authoritarianism? Not listening closely enough is a punishable offense. What’s next? Being forced to bend the knee when a Democrat enters the room?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/02/11/gop-senators-criticized-for-not-paying-rapt-attention-enthralled-by-impeachment-trial-n1424843?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=333548a2571394d78f5984884e55069e&recip=28668535

THE BELKNAP PRECEDENT

THE BELKNAP PRECEDENT

BY PAUL MIRENGOFF IN HISTORY, IMPEACHMENT

One of the good things about the impeachment of Donald Trump — maybe the only good thing — is that it has brought William Belknap into the spotlight. And that’s a good thing only for history buffs.

Belknap is the only member of the executive branch until now to be impeached after leaving office. His impeachment trial is said to be precedent for holding one for Trump.

Belknap was a heroic figure in many ways. A Princeton man and a lawyer, he joined the Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. He entered as a major, owing to prior service as captain in the Iowa militia. By the end of the war, he was a general.

Belknap fought at Shiloh, Vicksburg, and in Sherman’s march through Georgia. At Shiloh, he was wounded. At Atlanta, he jumped over an embankment and personally captured the colonel of the Alabama 45th Infantry who had moved close to the Union battle line.

After the war, Belknap was collector of internal revenue for Iowa. As far as is known, there was never the hint of scandal from that service despite the many opportunities it presented for personal enrichment.

Belknap became Secretary of War in the Grant administration. He worked with Grant to effectuate Reconstruction in the South, a heroic but probably doomed effort.

He also distinguished himself after the devastating Chicago fire of 1871. Belknap sent in troops who saw to it that Chicago received aid, that the aid was distributed promptly, and that order was maintained

Belknap got into trouble over a relatively minor but genuine scandal involving Army trading posts, over which he had control as Secretary of War. It seems that Belknap unjustly enriched himself to keep his second wife, and later his third wife (the sister of the second, who had died), living in style.

President Grant knew nothing about the scandal. When he learned of it, he reportedly was skeptical that Belknap had done anything wrong. But the evidence was clear, and Grant likely would have fired his War Secretary, as he eventually dismissed his corrupt private secretary, Civil War hero Orville Babcock.

Before it came to that, however, Belknap rushed to the White House and begged Grant to accept his resignation. The president wrote out a brief note accepting the resignation “with great regret.”

The House impeached Belknap anyway. In transmitting the impeachment articles to the Senate, the Speaker explained that Belknap had resigned “with intent to evade the proceedings of impeachment against him.”

The Senate voted that it had jurisdiction to try Belknap even though he was no longer in office. However, fewer than two-thirds of the Senators voted that way, and fewer than two-thirds (mostly the same ones) voted to convict.

The Belknap impeachment provides weak support for an impeachment trial of a president who is no longer in office because his term expired. Belknap was out of office because he resigned to avoid impeachment (as the House Speaker told the Senate) not because his term was over.

Chuck Schumer, in a speech that cited the Belknap precedent, said:

It makes no sense whatsoever that a president or an official could commit a heinous crime against our country and then defeat Congress’ impeachment powers. . .by simply resigning.

That’s what Belknap did. It’s also what Richard Nixon did, successfully. However, it’s not what Trump has done. He didn’t resign. His term as president ended.

I also question whether even apt Senate precedent has much bearing on the matter. Each Senate has its own dynamic, its own party balance, its own agenda, and its own prejudices. The vote on Belknap was likely driven more by how Senators felt about Belknap and Grant than by constitutional niceties (although, to be fair, there was a fairly erudite debate about the Founders’ intent).

The same dynamic drives the Trump impeachment, of course. Ask yourself how many of the 50 Democrats who found that an ex-president can be tried by the Senate would have voted that way if a Democratic former president were set to be tried. My answer is, approximately zero. And many Republican Senators would be taking a different view of the constitutional question, as well.

Given the way the Senate actually decides matters like this, I don’t think one Senate should feel bound by what another Senate did — and certainly not if the first Senate acted almost 150 years ago.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/02/the-belknap-precedent.php