I think Special Counsel Mueller’s presentation yesterday means that the House will be under unremitting pressure to begin impeachment proceedings. Clearly the President welcomes that development believing it will help him politically to play the victim of “sore loser” Democrats, knowing he is safe in the Senate.
He is increasingly acting without any required Congressional authority whatsoever, citing “emergency” or “national security” to act on his agenda on matters large and small even though we are a nation at relative peace and the economy is reasonably healthy. Judges in the lower federal courts have been a bulwark, protecting the rule of law. As the old Romans said “the die is cast”.
Reading the Mueller Report and listening to the Mueller press statement yesterday, the case for Russian interference in our nation’s elections and for the President’s efforts to obstruct the investigation into them is immensely strong. However, Senate and House Republicans understand that if the President goes down, so too do they and their wish list for judicial appointments and other high Republican priorities – an incalculable political cost. Only Representative Justin Amash, a very conservative Republican House member from Michigan, has shown the political courage to say – he had carefully read the Mueller report and it is very clear to him that the Constitution requires the House to begin impeachment proceedings. The “Long Knives” are out for those who do not toe the Trump Administration’s line; the evisceration of the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security was the latest act, and the law enforcement and intelligence officials might be next.
I think there is a great deal of preliminary investigation and fact gathering that has to be done before the House decides how and whether to proceed. Yet the handwriting is now on the wall and is unlikely to be erased.
It is incumbent on all of us to help the public and our elected representatives understand and navigate the fraught road ahead.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 5/30/19