Today’s Tweetstorm: Trump vs. the Constitution

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Today, the Creature threatened the Justice Department. This morning’s tweets in chronological order:

Article II of the Constitution does not say anything about unfettered power to fire anyone.

Alex Ward at Vox explains,

Here’s what he’s referring to: Trump’s GOP congressional allies are upset the DOJ won’t hand over unredacted documents related to ongoing investigations. Basically, law enforcement officials say it’s inappropriate to hand over those materials to Congress while investigations are still in progress. But conservatives in Congress allege the DOJ is a corrupt institution that bungled multiple investigations — not least the one about possible Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential election — and, therefore, requires stringent oversight.

That, in part, is why Reps. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) requested the memo Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote where he outlined what special counsel Robert Mueller could investigate. But on Monday, the Justice Department told the Congress members it would not send along that memo.

Trump may have heard of the denied request and threatened to involve himself in the standoff — which could jeopardize the DOJ’s independence to do its job.

But you know does have the power to declassify anything he wants to declassify? The President of the United States. So he’s whining about not being allowed something that he could get if he just asked. Apparently no one has explained this to him. Perhaps even his handlers lawyers don’t want him to know.

In other Creature news, the New York Times reports that Ukraine is refusing to cooperate with the Mueller investigation.

In the United States, Paul J. Manafort is facing prosecution on charges of money laundering and financial fraud stemming from his decade of work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

But in Ukraine, where officials are wary of offending President Trump, four meandering cases that involve Mr. Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, have been effectively frozen by Ukraine’s chief prosecutor.

The cases are just too sensitive for a government deeply reliant on United States financial and military aid, and keenly aware of Mr. Trump’s distaste for the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into possible collusion between Russia and his campaign, some lawmakers say.

The decision to halt the investigations by an anticorruption prosecutor was handed down at a delicate moment for Ukraine, as the Trump administration was finalizing plans to sell the country sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins.

As Jonathan Chait explains, supporters of the Creature have been pointing to Trump’s sale of weapons to Ukraine as a sign he was willing to crack down on Russia. Today’s news puts a darker spin on it — he’s bribing Ukraine to withhold evidence from Mueller. Chait wrote,

Ukrainian officials are not even hiding the fact that they’re doing so because of the missile sale. “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials,” one Ukrainian lawmaker says. “We shouldn’t spoil relations with the administration.”

Also, it’s looking more and more like the list of questions leaked by Trump’s lawyers didn’t even come from Bob Mueller. It’s very possible that they were drawn up entirely by Trump’s lawyers to prepare him for what questions Mueller might ask. Leaking them and blaming Mueller might have been Trump’s idea.

9 thoughts on “Today’s Tweetstorm: Trump vs. the Constitution”

  1. Forty people in Nixon's administration were indicted for various infractions. Some of the top people went to jail for obstruction of justice. This needs to be pointed out to people in DOJ – I think Sessions was the first to figure it out – which was why he recused himself. Others who are asked to take an active role in suppressing the investigation and/or destroying evidence WILL go to jail, unless Trump succeeds in the coup. 

    This will be the bet you place – and it's black or white with no middle ground. You will bet either 1) Trump will prevail and your subversion protected OR  2) Trump will fail, in which case you don't want your name attached to anything criminal. 

     

  2. Re Doug: looking at *you* Paul Ryan joking about The Imbecile’s Russian connections Summer of 2016. You knew and FAILED to act.

  3. At this point, unfortunately, I am betting Trump will prevail.  Trump has already had enough presidency-ending scandals to end multiple presidencies.  Nixon was a piker in the scandal and law breaking department compared to Trump. That he's still there speaks volumes.

    The republicans are not only dead set against doing their Constitutional duty to hold Trump accountable, House republicans are actively working to help him obstruct justice.

    The media showed at the WHCD that they are total lapdogs to Trump and care more about preserving their Village and normalizing this presidency than being actual journalists and reporting objectively.  

    The democrats?  Well, let's just say that if roles were reversed the republicans would not be silent waiting for something to happen.  They'd be pushing every lever they could, and using every medium and public forum to at least call attention to what's going on.  Even if they take the House in November it would not surprise me if the leadership issued another "we want to look forward, not back" excuse to do nothing.

    Unless the Supreme Court upholds that a sitting President can be indicted, and any accountability is left to the political process, forget it. Seriously, what’s to stop him, other than some form of Divine Providence?

    Lastly, the American "voting" public, beset with apathy and mind numbing ignorance, deserves much if not most of the credit for this current state of affairs.  When you have republicans with felony convictions running in and/or leading primary races, when you have voters lauding the tax cuts even though recent history would tell them the result would be what they're starting to see now, there's really not much hope that "the people" will play the role Jefferson envisioned.  The focus and intellect is just not there.

    Given this state of affairs and the direction things are heading, if the moron in chief doesn't end up blowing up the world, we might come to wish he had.

  4. So now Trump has a new lawyer, same old lawyer Bill Clinton had. That didn't work well for Clinton( testify on camera under oath) and repeated attempts to assert executive privilege were overruled.

  5. Wow csm, thats some rosy picture you paint? Unfortunately I basically agree. The repugs are never going to hold Trump accountable and as you say even if the dems take the house (which I bet they don't and Nancy P will still be leader) I still feel like Don the Con is going to slide on by. Trump, FAUX and his water carriers in the house have done a good job of trashing the investigation and the dems have sat on their hands.

  6. Blithering idiot Giuliani just outed Trump on the Daniels payment, perhaps, naively believing this would end scrutiny of Cohen. Nice going, Rudi! Keep it up!

  8. Gulag's email, you should have it, it is part of the wordpress reply login? He did leave a comment on Monday?

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