Apparently tigers do not change their stripes.
Yoni Applebaum (The Atlantic)Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs.
As a House Judiciary Committee staff report put it in 1974, in the midst of the Watergate investigation: “The purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment; its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government.” Impeachable offenses, it found, included “undermining the integrity of office, disregard of constitutional duties and oath of office, arrogation of power, abuse of the governmental process, adverse impact on the system of government.” ❧
January 18, 2019 at 07:36PM
The question of whether impeachment is justified should not be confused with the question of whether it is likely to succeed in removing a president from office. ❧
January 18, 2019 at 07:41PM
Here is how impeachment would work in practice. ❧
January 18, 2019 at 08:01PM
The Nixon impeachment spurred Charles L. Black, a Yale law professor, to write Impeachment: A Handbook, a slender volume that remains a defining work on the question. ❧
January 18, 2019 at 08:07PM
In fact, the Nixon impeachment left Weld with a renewed faith in the American system of government: “The wheels may grind slowly,” he later reflected, “but they grind pretty well.” ❧
January 18, 2019 at 08:12PM
Friday on the NewsHour, a report by BuzzFeed alleges that President Trump personally directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a business project in Moscow. Plus: The president announces a second summit with North Korea to discuss denuclearization, how the shutdown is affecting people in D.C., David Brooks and Ruth Marcus on the week in politics, hockey and race and an unusual ice formation.
“Such an instruction would amount to obstruction of justice,” one Democrat said.
Trump received 10 personal updates from Michael Cohen and encouraged a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin. Update: The office of the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report.
President Donald Trump was startled Tuesday as he watched television coverage of his nominee for attorney general describing a warm relationship with the special counsel Robert Mueller in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Marci Whitaker, wife of the acting attorney general, says the Mueller investigation is “wrapping up.”
Directed by Rob Greenlea. With Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, Keith Carradine, Patina Miller. Elizabeth goes head to head with a U.S. governor over the state's new policy of separating unauthorized immigrants from their children.
The investigation, whose fate is unclear, led counterintelligence investigators to consider an explosive question: whether the president’s actions constituted a possible threat to national security.
GoFundMe said Friday that it would refund $20 million raised by more than 300,000 donors for President Trump's border wall after an account aiming to raise $1 billion for the wall changed part of its campaign.
Between Friday’s New York Times story and other earlier material, we might be in a position to revisit the relationship between the “collusion” and obstruction components of the Mueller investigation.
John McWhorter (The Atlantic)They suggest not just inadequate manners or polish, but inadequate thought.
President Trump said Thursday that he will “maybe definitely” declare a national emergency to free up funds for his long-promised wall at the southern border. One reason for the president’s hesitation might be that he is awaiting word from the people who would be asked to give such a declaration the green light: Justice Department lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel, or OLC, where I worked from August 2016 until I quit in mid-November.
We look at the major twists in the investigation over the past year and what to expect in 2019.
Many conservative lawmakers support a bill that would enact the most significant changes to the federal criminal justice system in decades.