White House fright nights
Things in this country, frightening for a couple years, got a lot scarier over the weekend. It was revealed that lawyers for Donald Trump insisted in a letter to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president could not be indicted for obstruction of justice because, as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Trump essentially would be obstructing himself if he obstructed justice in the Russia probe.
Trump’s lawyers’ memo was written in January but came into the hands of the New York Times over the weekend. In the letter, Trump’s lawyers argue that Trump essentially can do as he pleases as president, and the only remedy for his wrongdoing would be impeachment. And good luck with impeachment with Trump lackeys controlling Congress.
Essentially Trump, according to his lawyers’ argument, believes he can’t be indicted for crimes, which means he has license to do whatever he pleases as president.
That’s scary, but a little mulling makes the situation horrifying.
What if Trump, believing he might lose, decides to cancel the 2018 or 2020 federal elections, citing the likelihood of hacking of election systems by the Russians? Aside from being ironic to the point of absurdity, considering Trump’s connection/affection for Russian leadership, it would cause a constitutional crisis like we’ve never had in our land. Trump could insist he is the person with the ultimate authority in protecting our national security, and corrupt elections could put our nation at risk, so he has no choice but to cancel federal elections for the foreseeable future.
Who could step in? Who would step in? Congress under Republican control? Hah! The Supreme Court? Not as it is currently constituted. Our attorney general? He would be fired by Trump in a heartbeat.
And what would happen if there was an uprising of the populace in response to such actions and Trump, as commander-in-chief, decided to violently quell such protests with the National Guard? After all, he’s the person in charge of the nation’s military, and his authority cannot be questioned, right?
The authors of our nation’s Constitution — primarily James Madison, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson — were brilliant thinkers and writers who put together a peerless document that has served our nation beautifully for 231 years and provided a model for constitutions around the world.
I doubt, though, that our framers, considered the possibility of the American people electing a vengeful, narcissistic, power-mad cad with no respect for the separation of powers as president of the United States. They expected we would elect great men such as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, or good men with noble intent such as Reagan, the Bushes, Obama and the Roosevelts, not a wannabe autocrat who would bully constantly and lie pathologically to serve himself more than our nation.
Now we’re on the verge of something horrible happening to our nearly perfect Constitution.
I’m not going to make a big deal about other developments in recent days, including Trump’s lawyers admitting in the same memo, despite previous denials, that Trump actually did dictate the official, untruthful response regarding the notorious meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, because most people already knew the previous story was bogus.
And I’m also not going to go on and on about Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani saying that Trump could have shot James Comey and not been indicted. That’s Giuliani being outrageous Giuliani, seeking the attention he so craves.
But like most of you, I grew up believing in the axiom that “no man is above the law in this country.”
If people don’t stand up soon for what’s right, we may have to amend that to “one man is above the law in this country.”