Mark Levin on the SDNY case against Trump for campaign violations
Here’s the law, according to Mark Levin. But there’s no guarantee whatsoever that the rule of law will prevail, when partisan politics are involved (which is just about all the time, lately).
Levin makes five main points. The first is this:
A sitting president CANNOT be indicted. That’s official DOJ policy since 1973.
And yet, “policy’ can be changed if the desire is strong enough. This is one reason, however, why it was probably quite important to Trump to get someone as AG who would be a stronger force than Sessions ever was.
Levin’s second point:
SDNY is NOT expert in campaign finance violations and neither is the Clinton appointed district judge. They rarely handle campaign finance cases. The left-wing media and politicians are regurgitating what the prosecutors have merely filed in their own self-serving brief. The media and others intentionally refuse to look at the actual rules and context. They refuse to even question what these prosecutors have thrown together.
Of course. Why would the MSM question something that makes Trump sound bad?
Point three:
The actual campaign rules and context do NOT include Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) or infinite other contracts, payments, arrangements, acts of a private nature, etc. as campaign contributions. This is normal human behavior and was never intended to be regulated or reported. SDNY is dead wrong.
Ordinarily these things are standard operating procedure, and certainly Trump would have been well within his rights (and Cohen too, for that matter) in thinking the payments were not a legal problem.
Point four:
[SDNY prosecutors] knew they couldn’t charge a sitting president. Thus, they convict the president in the press, not only an extreme act of professional misconduct but a violation of the very purpose of the DOJ memos banning the indictment of a sitting president while effectively indicting him in the court of public opinion, and watch as untold numbers of media personalities and former members of the SDNY, among others, use this dirty work to predict or demand the president’s indictment and/or impeachment.
That’s something I’ve written about before, most recently here. Many others have made the same point, which is rather obvious actually.
Levin’s fifth point:
As for impeachment, NDAs involving wholly private matters occurring before the president was even a candidate and completely unrelated to his office cannot legitimately trigger the Constitution’s impeachment clause. Indeed, they could not be more irrelevant. The history of the clause and its ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ language make it crystal clear that the office and the president’s duties are not affected in any conceivable way by these earlier private contracts.
True but irrelevant. Members of the House can impeach a president for anything it wants and call the offense a “high crime and misdemeanor,” as long as they’ve got the votes for it.
Established rules of statutory construction can certainly be applied to the interpretation of the Constitution. Article 2 Section 4 states: “The President . . . shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
While it is often said that a “high crime[] or misdemeanor[]” is anything a majority of the House says it is, I’ve never thought the founders intended to make the Executive subject to the passing whim of the Legislature.
The basis for my opinion is the use of the word “other.” Apples, oranges or other fruits. Fords, Chevrolets or other Detroit Iron. Pelosi, Comey or other liars. The word “other” establishes a similarity in kind or meaning of the words which precede and follow it. Nothing Trump has done comes anywhere near treason or bribery.
Members of the House can impeach a president for anything it wants and call the offense a “high crime and misdemeanor,” as long as they’ve got the votes for it.
Yeah, but thats ONLY if the president LETS them…
Public disclosure under Section 552 (b) (1) of Title 5, United States Code – is recognized in the Federal Criminal Code as providing a basis for prosecution…
yes or no?
The powers of an HONEST president are HUGE…
however, given people cant tell tactics from strategy, they fail miserably to even think of the potential actions available… Revealing criminal action whether or not for revenge is seldom an issue, is it?
Who controls the strings of the curtain?
[for just this one thing, there are lots more]
SEC. 2. Authority to Classify – Executive Order 11652
Executive Order 13526 – revokes and replaces the previous Executive Orders in effect for this, which were EO 12958 and EO 13292
Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority.
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations.
WHAT ELSE is well within the limits of a sitting president to achieve order if HE DECIDES he has the will and or desire?
to go with the prior post [filed under people in glass houses shouldnt stow thrones!!!]:
FBI Communication on Discovery of Hillary Clinton E-mails on Anthony Weiner’s Laptop Computer – [1 page]
https://vault.fbi.gov/fbi-communication-on-discovery-of-hillary-clinton-e-mails-on-anthony-weiners-laptop-computer/fbi-communication-on-discovery-of-hillary-clinton-e-mails-on-anthony-weiners-laptop-computer-part-01-of-01/
Former election commissioner: Cohen and Trump didn’t violate campaign finance law
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/former-election-commissioner-cohen-and-trump-didnt-violate-campaign-finance-law
why?
cause you cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear, even if the sow is hillary…
Neo wrote: “True but irrelevant. Members of the House can impeach a president for anything it wants and call the offense a “high crime and misdemeanor,” as long as they’ve got the votes for it.”
Precisely. It has been said before, but warrants repeating: impeachment is not a legal act; it is a political act. The incoming House will be weighing very carefully whether or not they want to take a political act that will not result in conviction in the Senate. Do they want to stir up Republican voters in the year before the next campaign begins? Or merely threaten to do so, in the hope it will stir up Democrat voters but leave Republicans quiet and happy? That is the equation Nancy is weighing every moment.
Don’t wager real money on my prediction, but it is that Nancy will continue to allow her caucus to threaten impeachment, but not get around to it. Just as Paul Ryan continued to threaten to overturn Obamacare as long as Obama sat in the White House and would veto it, but did not do so after Trump was elected.
It’s very strange when the person who paid blackmail over matters that were not illegal suddenly becomes the criminal.
Clinton committed illegal acts (perjury, suborning perjury) while in office. The Senate established the precedent that such acts are not sufficient for removal from office. It needs to be worse.
The hypocrisy of an impeachment would be astounding.
While it is often said that a “high crime[] or misdemeanor[]” is anything a majority of the House says it is, I’ve never thought the founders intended to make the Executive subject to the passing whim of the Legislature.
Study the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Johnson was a “War Democrat” who was Lincoln’s VP. When Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson became President but was really unprepared. The reason he was there at all was Lincoln’s desire to bring the Confederate states back into the Union. His plan was to allow amnesty to all residents of those states once they swore an oath of loyalty to the Union.
The Radical Republicans, with Edwin Stanton as leader decided to punish the South for the Assassination of Lincoln. He and Johnson became rivals.
The House’s primary charge against Johnson was violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in March 1867, over the President’s veto. Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin McMasters Stanton, the Secretary of War—whom the Act was largely designed to protect—and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas. (Earlier, while the Congress was not in session, Johnson had suspended Stanton and appointed General Ulysses S. Grant as Secretary of War ad interim.)
Congress passed a law that the President could not fire a member of his cabinet. That is a Constitutional absurdity.
Yet, Johnson survived by only one vote in the Senate.
And if they impeach they get Pence.
It’s an odd view of the world that considers that “winning” for Democrats.
All this political energy squandered zero gain.
And if they impeached Pence, they’d get another Republican. It’s not a winning strategy. It’s a strategy fired by hate that has left the tracks of logic.
When still a congresscritter, Gerald Ford once opined,
“An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”
(When he became Nixon’s Vice President, replacing the hapless Spiro T. Agnew, he probably wished he could have quietly walked back that statement.)
But Uncle Gerry spoke the plain truth.
I for one am *already* tired of debating whether this or that is an impeachable offense. It is, as Ford correctly noted, whatever a majority of the House wants it to be — in which case, now that the Democrats have the majority, whaddaya say we all impeach Trump because . . .*Trump*, and move right along to the Senate, where a 2/3 vote is required to convict (and where Republicans hold a slight majority of Senate seats)?
And once *that*’s done with, whaddaya say we dispense with all the the breast-beating and virtue signaling and get down to serious work?
Won’t work. Ain’t no way it’s gonna happen.
So because the Senate won’t vote to convict, USA gets to be treated to death by a million small cuts (a political death of Trump).
I was never crazy about Trump, but I am in awe of the sheer volume and intensity of what he puts up with, day in, day out — and still has energy left over to do his job.
It’s analogous to indicting a ham sandwich. If they proceed, don’t be surprised if a Clintonesque outcome takes place with a second term guaranteed.
<iWhen he became Nixon’s Vice President, replacing the hapless Spiro T. Agnew, he probably wished he could have quietly walked back that statement.)
Agnew really destroyed himself with the continuation of his practice of taking cash from contributors. I’m not sure what they thought he could do for them as VP.
You really should read Pat Buchanan’s “Nixon’s White House Wars.” Pat loved Agnew and was one of very few mourners at his funeral.
Mike K:
Agnew came from Baltimore, where taking cash from contributors was accepted practice. That’s a pretty hard habit to break. You know, of course, who else is from Baltimore, whose father was the Mayor of Baltimore during her formative years? Nancy Pelosi. She learned from her earliest years how politics works, and she learned well.
Nancy learned well. Her husband has made millions.
Agnew came from Baltimore, where taking cash from contributors was accepted practice. That’s a pretty hard habit to break.
He took bribes from aspirant contractors to swing public works projects in their direction. He indignantly denied for years he’d done this until his one-time attorney ratted him out. A quondam aide of Agnew’s tried this defense: his propensity to take bribes was less pronounced than his successor or his immediate predecessors.