THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA - Hallo friendsGOOD OF CONEX NEWS, In the article you read this time with the title THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA, We have prepared this article for you to read and retrieve information therein. Hopefully the contents of postings Article health, Article news, Article sport, Article tips, Article treatment, We write this you can understand. Alright, good read.

Title : THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA
link : THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA

THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA

The President’s Congressional Lap Dogs

By: Peter Fritsch

The New York Times

02 November 2018

Since the founding of the Republic, Congress has acted as a check on overreach by presidents and their administrations. But history will judge the current Congress as remarkable for its aggressive protection of President Trump.

The Republicans who lead key House and Senate committees have used their subpoena powers to harass administration critics, undermine the Justice Department’s inquiry into the Trump campaign’s possible collaboration with Russia in 2016 and help the president’s lawyers create an alternative narrative.

In so doing, they have perverted Congress’ traditional role as a guarantor of law enforcement that is independent from White House interference.

Congress owes much of its investigatory might to a 1927 Supreme Court decision in the Teapot Dome bribery scandal. President Warren Harding’s interior secretary was caught leasing government oil reserves in return for bribes. Attorney General Harry Daugherty, however, refused to investigate the crimes. Congress wanted to know whether Daugherty’s brother and the Ohio bank he ran had documents that shed light on the illicit payments.

 But Daugherty’s brother refused to testify.The Supreme Court, in McGrain v. Daugherty, held that Congress did have the power to compel witness testimony, ensuring that Congress could act when the White House wouldn’t.

The current Congress, and the House Judiciary Committee in particular, has flipped that power on its head, using its authority to conduct hostile interrogations of Justice Department prosecutors and F.B.I. agents who were simply doing their jobs and following evidence where it led them in the Russia inquiry. The Republicans have also demanded to know why the Justice Department has refused to comply with President Trump’s demands to shut down the investigation — an inquiry that has secured multiple indictments and guilty pleas.

Two weeks ago, the House committee sought to compel Glenn Simpson, my partner at the research firm Fusion GPS, to testify on actions we and our contractor Christopher Steele took while investigating Russian activities during the 2016 election.

Mr. Simpson has already volunteered over 20 hours of testimony before three other congressional committees. Most of that testimony is public. This time, however, he invoked his constitutional right not to testify — a right I too invoked last year during a similar show trial at the House Intelligence Committee. That didn’t stop Republicans from breaking with custom and forcing us to appear in person to invoke our rights, “perp walking” us before the Fox News cameras to create the false impression of guilt — an ignominy spared President Trump’s men, like Michael Flynn.

We have nothing to hide. But we will not be drawn into a rigged game based on a playbook borrowed from the McCarthy era.

During that dark chapter of American history, Senator Joseph McCarthy abused the awesome powers won during Teapot Dome to smear hundreds of American servicemen, civil servants and ordinary citizens through secret proceedings, selective leaks and crass bullying. He also branded those who invoked their constitutional rights not to testify as “Fifth Amendment Communists.” These disgraceful tactics ended in McCarthy’s own disgrace after he was censured by the Senate in 1954.

McCarthy would cheer the methods of today’s Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They have conducted much of their business through so-called confidential interviews and depositions that are not public, binding witnesses to silence while lawmakers leak selectively from the testimony.

Republicans have used this practice to wreck reputations and careers. They have gratuitously exposed the private lives of dedicated civil servants. They have deprived Americans of some of the nation’s most dogged, experienced crime fighters, falsely accusing whistle-blowers of criminal wrongdoing and mocking their invocation of constitutional rights.

A senior F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, was forced to resign after being pilloried by House Republicans. A senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agent, Peter Strzok, was fired for his texts with Ms. Page, but not before enduring crude questioning about his personal life by a Republican congressman, Louie Gohmert. Committee attacks on Bruce Ohr led to his removal as associate deputy attorney general. His wife, Nellie, a former contractor for us, was subjected to the misogyny of the president.

Finally, there is the constant pleas from Mr. Trump and his allies on the Hill for criminal investigations of those who have tried to raise the alarm about Russia. The low: Senators Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham referring Mr. Steele to the Justice Department to investigate if he “lied” to the F.B.I., a false allegation made to discredit a long-valued bureau source..

One of the most astonishing recent examples of the House Judiciary Committee’s character assassination involves Republican leaks to conservative news outlets of the closed-door testimony of James Baker, who was the F.B.I.’s general counsel from 2014 to December 2017. If reports based on those leaks are to be believed, Mr. Baker testified that a former senior Justice Department attorney came to him weeks before the 2016 election with information regarding possible Russian efforts to collude with the Trump campaign.

In other words, a sworn officer of the court reported a possible crime in progress to another sworn officer of the court, knowing full well that to do so falsely is a crime. But Republicans assert that his information should be rejected merely because that former Justice Department official had gone to work for Democrats.

By this committee’s twisted logic, no one working for a Democrat or voting for a Democrat should ever be allowed to bring evidence of a crime to law enforcement about a Republican candidate, or investigate that crime, no matter how strong the evidence, how severe the crime or how qualified the whistle-blower. That is how one-party states, not democracies, operate.

The work of my firm must be similarly poisoned, committee Republicans seem to think, because we too worked for Democrats. (Conveniently, they ignore the fact that we began our work on Mr. Trump for a Republican client.)

We know where the committee is going with this: Members have already falsely accused Mr. Simpson of “lying” to Congress about when he first contacted Bruce Ohr at the Department of Justice. This accusation is absurd. The only reason Congress knows about Mr. Ohr’s role in this matter at all is through Mr. Simpson’s voluntary disclosure of it to Congress nearly a year ago.

No Americans should be compelled to participate in efforts to falsely implicate themselves, the national security professionals protecting our country, or ordinary citizens practicing their First Amendment rights. We hope the next Congress puts country before party and focuses on the real villain of 2016: the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin.

NOTE:  This lack of response from Republicans to check Trump's trek towards dictatorship has probably been one of the most surprising and disturbing of events during the Trump Administration.  It is one of the fundamental underpinnings of our tripartite government: Executive, Legislative and Judicial where no single branch is able to exert undue influence over the other two.  Yet not only has Congress chosen to remain silent in the face of Trump's lawlessness and bigotry, they have actually been complicit in greasing Trump's criminal presidency.  

This is what we are fighting to change.   This is why next Tuesday is so important. 

Take Care All!   

Thus Article THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA

That's an article THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA This time, hopefully can give benefits to all of you. well, see you in posting other articles.

You are now reading the article THE SLOW SLOG TOWARDS THE DISMEMBERMENT OF AMERICA with the link address https://coneknews.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-slow-slog-towards-dismemberment-of.html

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: