Mueller's message to Nancy Pelosi

Walter Shapiro, writing for the Opinion section of the respected British paper The Guardian, observed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are not known to be friends.   However, Shapiro says:

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". . . . Despite their differing persona, these two past-normal-retirement age figures . . . boast important affinities.   In a political age defined by corrosive cynicism, they both share an old-fashioned belief in institutions whether they are Mueller's justice department or Pelosi's House of Representatives.

"That institutional faith pinpoints  Mueller's target audience for his nine-minute coda to this tenure as special counsel.   In an extreme example of narrowcasting, masked by the careful legalistic language, Mueller was speaking directly to Pelosi.

"His implicit message:   my institution (the justice department) cannot indict a sitting president.   But your institution (the House) can vote to impeach Donald Trump and mandate a Senate trial for obstruction of justice and possible other 'high crimes and misdemeanors'. . . .

"Then Mueller, in the same procedural step-by-step tone of a legal indictment, went on to deliver one of the most important sentences of his tenure as special counsel.  'The constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.'

"Mueller could not have been clearer about impeachment if he had stepped before the cameras with a scarlet I pinned to his suit.

"Up to now, the debates over impeachment roiling the House Democratic caucus have either been political ('It will cost us seats in 2020') or moral ('How can we tell our grandchildren that we did nothing in the face of Trump's lawless behavior?').

"But Mueller, in his subtle, understated fashion, tried to break this Democratic stalemate.  He offered a new argument and perhaps the only one that could possibly trump Pelosi's hard-won political caution.  What Mueller was saying, in effect, was that the constitution and the institutional legitimacy of Congress as an independent body require commencing impeachment hearings. . . . 

"Mueller's other message to Pelosi . . . was to try to convince her not to compel his congressional testimony.  He broadly hinted that he would answer all questions with boring-for-television lines such as:   'You will find my answer on page 84 of the second section of my report' . . . ."

[Mueller then debunks the common notion that impeachment could be a quick process of the House indicting one day, trial in the Senate the next.   But he says that the House judiciary committee's efforts need to be "both investigative and prosecutorial" and should be 'as deliberate as the Mueller inquiry itself'.   In addition: . . . ]

"Mueller had a narrow mandate, but there are no such limitations on impeachment hearings.

"Trump's shameless profiteering in the White House, with some of the money coming from foreign sources, may well violate the 'emoluments clause' of the constitution.   His conduct in office also raises grave national security questions from secret meetings (with no American note-takers)  with Vladimir Putin to Jared Kushner's dubious top-level access to secret documents.  Mueller may be faulted for being too punctilious in his fidelity to justice department rules and precedents.   But he followed what he saw as the path dictated by integrity to the end.   Now it is up to Pelosi also to transcend politics -- and do what the constitution demands."

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Walter Shapiro is a journalist and opinion writer who is also a fellow at the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.   Among other distinctions, he was a speech writer for President Jimmy Carter.

Bob Mueller speaks at last

With only a few hours notice, Special Counsel Robert Mueller held a press conference at the Justice Department on Wednesday morning, in which he said that his work is done, the Office of Special Counsel is closing, and he will be leaving the Justice Department and returning to private life.

He spoke for about 9 minutes, highlighting some important statements from his report, but being careful not to go beyond the written report.   In his almost oracular style of speaking, a careful analyst with knowledge of the report can clarify and speak about the importance of what he said.

He is thorough and clearly factual -- but he is also highly nuanced and subtle.   You have to read carefully to grasp the importance.   A casual reader will miss even the most important points -- which may be why so many people have not actually read the full report.

But, unfortunately, this same style allows President Trump and his minions to spin it their way.   For example, Trump has already tweeted that there is nothing new (true) but also saying that the case is "closed, period."   That is not true.

Some of the main points Mueller highlighted, as clarified by those I respect as legal analysts on MSNBC, include these points:

1.   Mueller quoted from his report:   "If we had confidence . . . that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that."  However, based on the evidence, we cannot so state.   Conclusion:  There is evidence that the president did obstruct justice.    He can't say he did commit a crime, but he can and does say that he "can't say that he didn't."

2.  Mueller, by speaking about it, emphasized the fact that he does not see this as a finished investigation;  in fact, he made it clear that he does see it as now up to Congress to take it from here.   Neither the Justice Department nor the Attorney General has the authority to clear the president of obstruction.   Mueller seemed clear in saying it was not the AG's job to make that determination but Congress's.  In fact, one can read the report as a direct referral to Congress for them to consider an impeachment process.

3.   He also made it clear that, but for the Office of Legal Counsel memo that a sitting president cannot be indicted -- which is an opinion, not a law -- there was sufficient evidence that the president had committed acts of obstruction of justice.   Mueller's report lists the acts of obstruction that he has evidence for.    He did not take the next step of charging him for it because he was bound by the OLC ruling.

4.   He also repeated what's in the report that, in addition to being unable to indict because of this DoJ policy, it would be unfair to make an indictment that cannot then go to trial where the president would have the opportunity to try to clear his name.

5.   Mueller spoke to his possibly testifying before Congress.    He clearly does not want to testify, but he did not say that he would not.  What he said was that, if he did, he would not go beyond what's in the written report.   In other words, he will not elaborate, give additional evidence, or possibly even speak to clarify what people may have questions about.   He would simply, in effect, read that part of the report to them.  The report is his testimony, he was saying.

I understand and can admire Mueller's very careful choice of words and his wish to avoid hyperbole or saying things that others will sensationalize.    But I also think he has some responsibility to not let his reticent style contribute to that sensationalizing in the opposite direction -- like Trump saying that the report "completely exonerates" him -- when in fact it says the opposite.

The biggest take-away, I think, is this:   Mueller is saying:   "Don't look to me to do your job for you.   I've done my part.   Now it's up to Congress to do it's job.    Don't wait for me to testify to tell you what we found.   It's all there in the report.   Read it.   Read it carefully.  It's all there."

Yes, but . . .   Mueller assumes that people will actually read it.   And, if they read it, that they will read it carefully.    And, if they read it carefully for what it says, they will also read it without putting their own political spin on it -- and then claiming that that's what the report actually says.

I guess I'm saying that I think a writer has some responsibility not to be mis-understood.

Ralph

The progressive case against impeachment -- necessary reading

Krystal Ball is an opinion contributor for The Hill and the liberal co-host of the bipartisan, morning new show Hill.TV.   She is president of The People's House, which recruits Democratic candidates in Republican held congressional districts.   Here is her take on the question of impeaching President Trump, published online by The Hill.  It is well worth reading and thinking about.

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"In another time and context, President Trump's behavior in office would have led to his impeachment and conviction in the Senate. But impeachment today represents a wholly inappropriate approach to dealing with his presidency. Impeachment might be a so-so tactic for damaging Trump himself, but it's a disastrous way to deal with 'Trumpism.'  And Trumpism is a much graver threat to Americans than Trump himself.

"To think properly about impeachment, you've got to understand the time we are living through. Donald Trump in the White House is not an accident. Yes, there were the actions of former FBI Director James Comey and Russian election interference and Trump's Electoral College win ... and geez, why didn't Hillary Clinton just go to Wisconsin? But while Trump feels unique, if you look around the world, his brand of politics is quite common. Look at Australia, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Austria - the neo-liberal world order, established and maintained by the United States, is being repudiated in nearly every corner of the world.

"Globalization has put workers in a brutal competition against their low-wage, developing world brothers and sisters. Automation is making an increasing amount of that workforce irrelevant. The elite consensus has defined growth as stock market gains and gross domestic product growth, without regard to the fact that the overwhelming beneficiaries of a bull market and increased GDP are big corporations, banks and the 1 percent. This is no accident, of course, since these folks wrote the rules to make sure they were the primary beneficiaries.

"Here in the U.S., instead of church and community, our lives have become centered around shopping and social media platforms. We worship the twin gods of cheap Chinese products and filtered photos to create illusions of the meaningful lives we imagine others must live. We are a nation of addicts - addicted to consumerism, to social media and gaming dopamine hits, to porn, to sugar, to alcohol, to work, to the opioids that made Big Pharma billions of dollars.

Donald Trump is no aberration, despite what Joe Biden may think. He is a response to a culture in tailspin. Far from unique, he is the global norm. Impeaching Trump for telling former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself addresses none of that.

"Trump is not an all-knowing, brilliant strategist. He showed up at the right place and right time to campaign against a terrible candidate – Clinton – and still hobbled across the finish line. He was conned by former Speaker Paul Ryan and the Chamber of Commerce crowd into a plutocratic-dream tax plan. Thank God Trump is impulsive and incompetent; if he were . . . strategic and disciplined , , ,  America already would be lost.

"But make no mistake, the populist wave that brought Trump to power is strong. It's the reason he easily could be reelected. And it is toward these underlying forces and grievances that we must focus our attention.

"Right-wing populism is on the rise globally because it provides an easy answer to the real, justifiable anger about the neo-liberal world order. To put it simply, the right-wing answer is racism - "nationalism," if you want to put the in vogue spin on it. Right-wing populists say, "Your life is terrible because of immigrants - the Central American or Muslim or African who is taking your job, ruining your community." The nice thing for right-wing populists is that it's easy to deliver on the promise of racism. As we've seen recently, hate crimes are up. Once off-limits ideas are mainstream. The white, working class has gotten a psychological dopamine hit from once again freely asserting their superiority over their black and brown brothers and sisters.

"The only way to combat such ideology is with left-wing populism that addresses the real grievances without nativism and racism. This won't be easy. With left-wing populism, it's more difficult to deliver results because it requires delivering material benefits and not just psychological ones. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the best model we have for what successful left-wing populism might look like - and obviously his agenda would be really hard to enact.

"The American people may want "Medicare for all" but the health care companies will throw billions of dollars at defeating it. The American people may want powerful unions, but big businesses will line up to keep unions from organizing their workers. In other words, dealing with Trumpism is a much more difficult project than just getting Trump out of office - and yet, it is the project we must focus on.

Impeachment would be a distraction from fighting right-wing populism. It actually would encourage and enable the forces that brought Trump to the White House. Yes, we have to get him out of office - but ending Trump's presidency is not enough. And done in the wrong way, deposing Trump actually could hasten the arrival of the next, more effective "Trump." Get over the handwringing about the rule of law and precedents and the guardrails. For most Americans, the rule of law has been meaningless since "banksters" set off an economic nuclear bomb and never suffered a single consequence; the precedents and guardrails were just a way of keeping those with wealth and power fully in control.

Forget about impeachment. Fight for a progressive answer to Trumpism that actually delivers for the multi-racial working class. It might sound far-fetched, but it's our best and only shot.

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Prior to reading Krystal Ball's reasoning here, I had been convinced by those who insist that we owe it to the Constitution and the rule of law to act on this president's obvious obstruction of justice and many others abuses of the power of his office.

But I am now convinced that this argument about Trumpism at least is part of the current situation -- perhaps it's totally right.   At least it should be part of the debate as we feel our way forward in this perilous time.

Ralph

Brutal truths about income inequality in US

We hear the brutal truth about growing income inequality in the United States.   Here are some stats from an article by Katie Warren in Business Insider.

Warren quotes Ben Silverman from a recent Bloomberg article:  "The bottom half of Americans combined have a negative net worth."    This frames the statistic a little differently and thus makes it even more shocking.

In other words, if you take the net worth of the bottom half of all Americans, they collectively owe more than they own.

This is based on research of economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who also found that:
     top 0.1% of US taxpayers control 20% of the wealth.
     top 1% control 39% of the wealth.
     bottom 90% control only 26% of American wealth.

Zucman says that "The pie has not become bigger.   It's just that a bigger slice is going to the top."

More than 3 million Americans aged 60 and older are still paying off their student loans, while millennials collectively owe $1 trillion in student loan debt.

About 1/5th of Americans don't have any money saved up, according to a Bankrate survey.   Bloomberg News backs this up with its statistical survey.  Despite the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 50 years,  39% of adults say they could not handle an unexpected 400 dollar expense (like car repairs, a new appliance) by paying in cash or credit card, which they would pay with the next monthly payment.

They would have to add it to their long-term credit card debt, borrow from family or friends, or be unable to afford it at all.   That is, nearly 4 in 10 Americans have virtually no liquid savings to cover simple, unexpected living expenses.   It is well known that a major illness is a frequent precipitator of personal bankruptcy.

Donald Trump may crow about the wonderful state of the economy that his own "very stable genius" has created.    But this is the stark reality.   It may be good for that top 1% -- but this trend of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is a story we've heard before.   It does not end well -- for the wealthy.   Think French Revolution, for example.

Ralph