The Donald Trump Score Card

Alan Dershowitz argues presidential quid pro quos aimed at reelection are not impeachable
By Nikki Carvajal, Paul LeBlanc and Marshall Cohen, CNN
Updated 5:06 PM ET, Wed January 29, 2020

Alan Dershowitz argues presidential quid pro quos aimed at reelection are not impeachable - CNNPolitics

excerpt:

"Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor emeritus and high-profile defense attorney, argued that Trump cannot be impeached for pressuring Ukraine for investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden because doing so would be aimed at helping his reelection chances. Dershowitz said Trump's motivations would ultimately be fueled by the public interest because he believes his reelection is what's best for the country.

"Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest," Dershowitz said. "And mostly you're right. Your election is in the public interest."
"And if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."

The comments, which came in response to a question about the legality of quid pro quos, could normalize the type of behavior that landed Trump in the middle of the impeachment scandal, and that Democrats say constitutes an improper solicitation of foreign influence in a US election.

Dershowitz added that all elected officials consider things in political terms, asking, "If you're just acting in the national interest, why do you need pollsters?""

 

Nixon could have made the same claim.

Any crime or impeachable offense that helps elect a public official is justified (and not a crime or impeachable offense) because that official believes he's doing it in the public interest.

 

I thought that I read that Bolton had sent a draft of the book to the wh.

 

Is he talking about the public interest of trump's base?

this is a very slippery slope. I suppose that, in this case, trump could shoot, and kill an illegal alien, and say it was done in the public interest.

 

Bolton's lawyer blames the White House for leaking damaging book excerpts
Peter Weber
January 27, 2020

Bolton's lawyer blames the White House for leaking damaging book excerpts

excerpts:

"Bolton's "manuscript was transmitted to the White House for prepublication review by the [National Security Council]," said Bolton adviser Sarah Tinsley. "The ambassador has not passed the draft manuscript to anyone else. Period." Bolton's lawyer, Charles Cooper, said in a statement "it is clear, regrettably, from The New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript."


"Having access to Bolton's manuscript may have given "Trump's aides and lawyers direct insight into what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify at Mr. Trump's impeachment trial," and "it also intensified concerns among some of his advisers that they needed to block Mr. Bolton from testifying," the Times reports. Meanwhile, Bolton associates tell the Times he wants to testify because "he believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales."

 

Yup … has all the marks of an inside job. They leak it out and then say it's classified info. What does Trump have to hide?

 

crime...

 

Perhaps: Donna Brazille on the Fox payroll.

 

And a book deal with Dollar General perhaps

 

Lol, yeah, no shit

 

Trump might can block Bolton's book from being published long enough to go through the courts; however, Bolton can speak with the House Intelligence Committee and the Media and confirm Trump's crimes, without disclosure of Classified Information. We have 240 days until early voting starts.

 

Trump's people abandoned trying to deny what he did with Ukraine. They're grasping at straws in an increasingly desperate manner that tries to rationalize that what he did isn't a crime or impeachable.

It's now a game of them pressuring Republicans in the Senate to vote against allowing witnesses to testify; casting witnesses as unethical or criminal; warnings to Bolton that he would be breaking the law by disclosing his book contents; harking back to accusations against Obama (whose administration had zero indictments, convictions, and sentences); Trump talking about appealing to the Supreme Court to stop the impeachment process that he thinks is an abuse of power; dog-chasing-tail rhetoric by Dershowitz that it's not a crime or impeachable if the perpetrator thinks that it's in the public interest.

They could always try the notable line by David Dinkins:

"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."
-David Dinkins

 

In the wackiest corners of the internet, drinking bleach for Q to fight off the Coronavirus is a thing.

QAnon-ers’ Magic Cure for Coronavirus: Just Drink Bleach!

 

Trump’s new argument that impeachment “should not even be allowed to proceed,” briefly explained
The impeachment process should be stopped because it is unconstitutional, Trump and his personal lawyer claim.
By Sean Collins
Jan 13, 2020, 2:00pm EST

Trump’s new argument that impeachment "should not even be allowed to proceed," briefly explained

excerpt:

"While Article II Section 4 does list the impeachable offenses as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” it offers no clear-cut definition of the last category — and, crucially for Giuliani’s argument, does not specify that they have to be high crimes or misdemeanors as outlined in federal criminal law. Moreover, federal criminal law didn’t really exist when the Constitution was created.

Historically, the House, which the Constitution gives “the sole power of impeachment,” has interpreted that last category in a number of ways. Bill Clinton, for instance, was impeached for the high crimes and misdemeanors of perjury and obstruction of justice. Richard Nixon resigned before a vote on impeachment could be held, but the House Judiciary Committee overseeing his impeachment process approved articles that included both abuse of power and contempt of Congress. The full House was expected to impeach him.

Most recently, the 116th House impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstructing Congress — and explained why it felt each was an impeachable offense."

 

Trump’s new argument that impeachment "should not even be allowed to proceed," briefly explained

excerpt:

"As Vox’s Ella Nilsen has explained, the courts — including the Supreme Court — have already weighed in on the judiciary’s role in impeachments and have decided the courts ought to play no part in the process:

In past cases challenging impeachments (mostly of federal judges), the courts have upheld Congress’s right to impeach and have a trial. The US Supreme Court weighed in on this in 1993, when the House impeached and the Senate convicted Walter Nixon, the chief judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Nixon, who was impeached after he refused to leave office even after being convicted on a charge of committing perjury, decided to challenge the decision. The Nixon v. United States case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which dismissed the suit after finding it was nonjusticiable. Then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the majority opinion that the Supreme Court would not review the decision, because the Constitution gave the Senate the “sole” power to convict and remove a federal officer.

Furthermore, Rehnquist wrote that because impeachment is a constitutional means to check the power of members of the judicial branch, it would not be proper for the judicial branch to weigh in."

 

Bolton and his lawyers say that there is no classified info in the book. Attorney Charles Cooper said he submitted the manuscript to the National Security Council's Records Management Division to review its contents for classified information on Dec. 30, as a courtesy and standard practice for former government officials writing books. Apparently, some of the contents have leaked form the NSC--so much for "classified" info. It seems the national security review is being used to delay release of the manuscript and book indefinitely a la the Daniel Ellsberg tapes during the Viet Nam war. Prior restraint!

 

Manuscript has already been leaked to the NYT

Alas, nothing of any consequence, and will put a serious dent in book sales

 

Alas, Alan Dershowitz, once a respected legal scholar, now a shill who will bend the law any which way to his client's advantage. His credibility is sorely strained by taking positions 180 degrees contrary to those he took in the past and claiming it's a result of more research. This after defending Mike Flynn's lies as lawful. Topped off with news of his visits for a massage at Jeffrey Epstein's underage parlor. Dershowitz admits the massage but says he kept his pants on. Right. And Bill Clinton didn't inhale.

 

Justices OK immediate Trump crackdown on immigrants' use of public benefits
Caitlin Dickson
Yahoo News
January 28, 2020, 8:12 PM EST

Justices OK immediate Trump crackdown on immigrants' use of public benefits

excerpts:

"The Supreme Court said Monday it will allow the Trump administration to begin enforcing a controversial new policy making it harder for low-income legal immigrants to obtain green cards or visas.

The administration's new, expanded “public charge” rule, which makes it easier for officials to bar immigrants who use, or are deemed likely to use, non-cash government benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps, is one of the most consequential policy changes by the Trump administration to date in its efforts to curtail legal immigration. (Under previous practice, the public charge rule was only applied to immigrants who were considered likely to receive cash welfare payments.)"


"The Trump administration’s approach of imposing its hard-line views by presidential proclamation, executive orders and regulatory changes rather than through Congress, has been met with lawsuits across the country — and resulted in a much larger role for the courts in shaping immigration policy."

 

Justices OK immediate Trump crackdown on immigrants' use of public benefits

excerpt:

“By their nature, universal injunctions tend to force judges into making rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions,” Gorsuch argued, writing that the “increasingly widespread” use of such orders in recent years “is not normal.”

“He’s right,” said Jesse Bless, director of the litigation department at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It's not normal because the administration’s policies and the way they’re issuing them are not normal.”

“I’m not a historian, I’m a trial lawyer, but I’ve never seen a period in time when courts have been asked to do so much not as a result of legislation, but as a result of executive power,” Bless told Yahoo News. He suggested that Gorsuch’s comments reflect “a growing frustration, by everyone, on the way in which [immigration policy] is being settled in the courts.”

Ultimately, the absence of congressional action on immigration has enabled the executive branch to push the boundaries of what is legal, said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. This trend began under President Barack Obama, whose administration faced legal challenges over a number immigration policies including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a work authorization extension for foreign students post-graduation, and the use of family detention. But, Pierce said, “the amount the Obama administration was entangled in the court system is laughably small compared to the Trump administration.”