Tag: Trump abuse of power

Dershowitz says media ‘willfully distorted’ his view of presidential power

The Hill logoHarvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Thursday sought to clarify remarks he made at President Trump’s impeachment trial while articulating his view of presidential power, saying media outlets “willfully distorted” his argument.

Dershowitz said CNN, MSNBC and other news outlets intentionally ignored a nuanced point he made on Wednesday about the mental state a president must possess in order to commit an impeachable offense.

“They characterized my argument as if I had said that if a president believes that his reelection was in the national interest, he can do anything,” Dershowitz, a opinion contributor to The Hill, said on Twitter. Continue reading.

Video here: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/480669-dershowitz-says-media-willfully-distorted-his-view-of-presidential?jwsource=cl

An old Ted Cruz quote proves he had a very different opinion on the core of Trump’s impeachment just months ago

AlterNet logoRepublican Sen. Ted Cruz Texas was once a fierce opponent of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, but he’s now become a happy warrior for the president, especially in the face of impeachment.

But as Cruz has settled into his defense that Trump did nothing wrong in the Ukraine scandal, his attitude is in stark contradiction with worries he expressed just months ago, in May of 2019.

At the time, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation had been released by the Justice Department, and Attorney General Bill Barr was defending his own response to the end of the probe. Cruz, along with other Republicans, were proclaiming Trump’s supposed vindication and raising alarms about the origins of the Russia investigation under former President Barack Obama. Continue reading.

5 takeaways from the Senate’s first day of questioning

Washington Post logoMembers of the Senate on Wednesday are finally getting to ask questions in the impeachment proceedings, but only in writing: Senate rules dictate that senators, known for grandstanding, have to write questions for the prosecution and defense that the chief justice reads out loud.

Here are five takeaways from the first of two days of the question-and-answer part of the Senate impeachment trial. Senators are expected to vote Friday on whether to extend the trial by allowing witnesses.

1. Trump’s defense embraces the ‘and so what if he did it’ argument

So what if Trump did hold up Ukraine’s military aid to get the country to investigate former vice president Joe Biden? That argument was first made earlier this week by Trump defense lawyer and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who elaborated Wednesday in eyebrow-raising fashion in response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Continue reading.

Bolton’s lawyer contends his book does not contain classified material and asks White House for expedited review so he can testify if called

Washington Post logoAn attorney for John Bolton has pushed back against the White House’s assessment that his book manuscript contains classified material and asked for an expedited review of a chapter about Ukraine in case the former national security adviser is called to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.

The Jan. 24 email to the White House from Bolton’s lawyer, Charles Cooper, was in response to a letter from the National Security Council a day earlier warning that the manuscript contained “significant amounts” of classified material that could not be disclosed publicly.

“We do not believe that any of that information could reasonably be considered classified,” Cooper responded, according to a copy of the email he released Wednesday. Continue reading.

Republicans Move to Block Impeachment Witnesses, Driving Toward Acquittal

New York Times logoEfforts to bring wavering Republicans into line appeared to be working as President Trump’s lawyers argued that anything a president did to win re-election was “in the public interest.”

WASHINGTON — The White House and Senate Republicans worked aggressively on Wednesday to discount damaging revelations from John R. Bolton and line up the votes to block new witnesses from testifying in President Trump’s impeachment trial, in a push to bring the proceeding to a swift close.

As the Senate opened a two-day, 16-hour period of questioning from senators, Mr. Trump laced into Mr. Bolton, his former national security adviser, whose unpublished manuscript contains an account that contradicts his impeachment defense. The president described Mr. Bolton on Twitter as a warmonger who had “begged” for his job, was fired, and then wrote “a nasty & untrue book.”

On Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s aides circulated a letter informing Mr. Bolton that the White House was moving to block publication of his forthcoming book, in which he wrote that the president refused to release military aid to Ukraine until its leaders committed to investigating his political rivals. That is a core element of the Democrats’ case, which charges Mr. Trump with seeking to enlist a foreign government to help him win re-election this year.

Anything a president does to stay in power is in the national interest, Dershowitz argues.

New York Times logoAlan Dershowitz, one of President Trump’s impeachment lawyers, pushed an extraordinarily expansive view of executive power during his trial on Wednesday, arguing that any action taken by the president to help his own re-election is, by definition, in the public interest.

“If the president does something that he thinks will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” said Mr. Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer and constitutional law professor.

The assertion amounted to an argument that even if all of Democrats’ impeachment allegations are true — that Mr. Trump was, in fact, seeking election advantage when he demanded that Ukraine investigate his political opponents — it would still be appropriate. Continue reading.

GOP predicts Roberts won’t cast tie-breaking vote on witnesses

The Hill logoRepublicans are signaling confidence that Chief Justice John Roberts will not insert himself into the middle of the looming fight over witnesses at President Trump’s impeachment trial. 

GOP senators are cautiously optimistic they will be able to fend off any effort to call new witnesses. But with several of their colleagues still undecided ahead of Friday’s vote, the possibility of a 50-50 tie is seen as the one remaining wildcard in a trial whose outcome is all but certain to end in acquittal.

Roberts, who didn’t respond to a question this week about possibly casting the deciding vote, is facing pressure from Democrats to allow witnesses, after they unsuccessfully attempted to insert a similar provision in the impeachment rules. Continue reading.

John Bolton and John Kelly finally turn on the boss — and Trump loyalists respond with fury

AlterNet logoMany people wondered what exactly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was thinking when she decided to delay delivery of the articles of impeachment against President Trump until after the holiday recess. That question has never been adequately answered, but if it was because Pelosi had a feeling — or perhaps knew for sure — that more evidence of Trump’s abuse of power would trickle out almost daily, she was absolutely right.

From White House emails revealed through the Freedom of Information Act to Rudy Giuliani’s “associate” Lev Parnas passing on documents and tapes it’s been a steady drip, drip, drip ever since the middle of December. But none of it is as important or as incriminating as the potential testimony of former national security adviser John Bolton. Keeping him from testifying in the impeachment trial has been Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s singular focus from the very beginning. This week we found out why.

As I wrote on Monday, the New York Times’ reporting about Bolton’s book has upended what was to be an open-and-shut trial with no testimony or evidence. The plan was to feature some dull arguments by the House managers and the president’s lawyers, followed by a few questions from senators and a quick vote before the Super Bowl, where Trump is slated to have a “yuge” victory interview with Sean Hannity. Basically, it was to be a constitutional wham, bam, thank you ma’am. Continue reading.

GOP senators believe they have the votes to block witnesses

The Hill logoIt was clear to Senate Republicans on Wednesday after a morning meeting between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that the question of having additional witnesses is settled, and the Senate will vote Friday to wrap up the impeachment trial of President Trump.

There was no discussion of witnesses at a Senate GOP lunch meeting Wednesday, which was held a couple hours after McConnell and Murkowski met for about 20 to 30 minutes.

That was seen as a sign by several senators that Democrats will fail to convince four Republicans to join them in calling for witnesses. Without a vote to hear from witnesses, the trial could end as soon as Friday.  Continue reading.

‘He’s in big trouble’: Vulnerable GOP senator tempts fate as he backs Trump’s cover-up

AlterNet logoFormer Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill warned on Wednesday that Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado is risking his seat by complying with the GOP plan to limit President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

With the initial stages of the trial coming to a close, senators will soon face a choice of whether to bring witnesses into the trial or to move toward a final vote on Trump’s removal. Democrats have been urging for lawmakers to bring in witnesses, including, most prominently, former National Security Adviser John Bolton to fill out the factual record, a plan most Americans approve of. Most Republicans, however, are eager to get the trial over with and fear that bringing forward more witnesses might only make their goal of acquitting Trump harder.

So attention has turned to the key Republican senators believed to be most likely to split with the president’s interest, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah. And on Wednesday, a key Republican from a swing state — Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado — announced that he is opposed to bringing forward more witnesses, including Bolton. Continue reading.