THE CASE FOR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Obstruction of justice was among the articles of impeachment drafted against both Presidents Nixon and Clinton. The parallel between Nixon and Trump is almost exact. White House tapes revealed Nixon giving instructions to pressure the acting FBI director into halting the Watergate investigation.

Two weeks after Trump told Comey privately “I need loyalty. I expect loyalty,” he had another private meeting with Comey in the Oval Office. After shooing out his advisers – all of whom had top security clearance – Trump said to Comey, according to Comey’s memo written shortly after the meeting, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”

Then on May 9, Trump fired Comey. In a subsequent interview with NBC Trump said he planned to fire Comey “regardless of [the] recommendation” of the Attorney and Deputy Attorney General, partly because of “this Russia thing.” Trump also revealed in the interview that he had had several conversations with Comey about the Russia investigation, and had asked Comey if he was under investigation.

The federal crime of obstruction of justice applies to “[w]hoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law” in a proceeding or investigation by a government department or agency or Congress.

As in Nixon’s case, a decision to support an “inquiry of impeachment” resolution in the House—to start an impeachment investigation—doesn’t depend on sufficient evidence to convict a person of obstruction of justice, but simply probable cause to believe a president may have obstructed justice.

There’s already more than enough evidence of probable cause to begin that impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump.

My friend Tom phoned this morning:

“I can’t take any more Trump. It’s summer. I’m taking a vacation from him,” he said.

“I understand,” I said.

“I’ve been so stressed out since that moron was elected that sometimes I can’t sleep,” he said.

“Totally get it,” I said.

“I quit. If others want to carry on the fight for the next three months, be my guest.”

“You’ve earned a vacation.“

“You bet I have. Every time I see his stupid face my blood pressure goes into the stratosphere. I can’t take it any more,” Tom said.

“You don’t need to,” I said.

“That’s exactly my point. I don’t need this. He’s a selfish, greedy, narcissistic, fascistic, unhinged, bigot. And to think he’s running this great country makes me want to puke.”

“Right.”

“So … (long pause) “You think it’s okay if I take a vacation from him?”

“Of course, if that’s what you want to do.”

“It’s not as if I’ve had very much effect. I’ve been writing letters, calling my members of congress. I’ve demonstrated. Even gone to a few meetings.”

“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot,” I said.

“So why the fu*k isn’t he impeached already?” Tom raised his voice.

“These things take time.”

“He’s taken bribes from foreign governments, obstructed justice, abused his power. And the as*hole does nothing but lie! Probably conspired with Putin to win the election! Doesn’t give a damn that Russia’s trying to kill our democracy!”

“I agree.”

“We can’t let this happen!” he almost shouted.

“No, we can’t.”

“We have to fight this tyrant!”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

“Legally, peacefully.”

“Yes.”

“If the Dems take back the House next year, they could start the impeachment process. So we have to begin organizing soon, get ready,” Tom said.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“If Jon Osoff is elected in Georgia Tuesday, that could send a clear signal,” he said.

“Right!”

“I’m gonna phone bank all day tomorrow, calling voters in his district.”

“Good,” I said.

“The least I can do.”

“It will help.”

“Good to talk with you, Bob.”

“And to you, Tom. Be well.”

Last Monday, the White House invited reporters in to watch what was billed as a meeting of Trump’s Cabinet. After Trump spoke, he asked each of the Cabinet members around the table to briefly comment.  

Their statements were what you might expect from toadies surrounding a two-bit dictator.

“We thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda,” said Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. “Greatest privilege of my life, to serve as vice president to a president who’s keeping his word to the American people,” said Vice President Mike Pence. 

When I was sworn in as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, I took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I didn’t pledge loyalty to Bill Clinton, and I wouldn’t have participated in such a fawning display.

That oath is a pledge of loyalty to our system of government – not to a powerful individual. It puts integrity before personal loyalty. It’s what it means to have a government of laws.

But Trump has filled his administration with people more loyal to him than they are to America.

“I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” Trump told then FBI Director James Comey in January – even though FBI directors are supposed to be independent of a president, and Comey was only 4 years into a 10 year term. Comey testified before the Senate that Trump tried to “create some sort of patronage relationship,” based on personal loyalty.

Preet Bharara, who had been the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York before Trump fired him, said Trump tried to create the same sort of relationship.

Bharara’s office had been investigating Trump’s secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, and also looking into Russian money-laundering allegations against Deutsche Bank, Trump’s principal private lender. Bharara said Comey’s testimony “felt a little bit like déjà vu.”

In his first and best-known book, “The Art of the Deal,” Trump distinguished between integrity and loyalty – and made clear he preferred loyalty.

Trump compared attorney Roy Cohn – Senator Joe McCarthy’s attack dog who became Trump’s mentor – to “all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who make careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty … What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite.”

Trump continues to prefer loyalty over integrity.

His top advisers are his daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The White House director of social media is Dan Scavino Jr., who had been Trump’s caddie. 

Lynn Patton, just appointed to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s important New York office, knows nothing about housing. She had organized golf tournaments for Trump and planned his son Eric’s wedding. 

To run his legal defense and be his spokesman on the investigation into collusion with Russian operatives, Trump has hired Marc Kasowitz.

Kasowitz is not an expert in criminal or constitutional law. His only apparent qualification is his utter loyal to Trump.

Kasowitz has been Trump’s personal legal fixer for almost two decades – representing him in his failed libel lawsuit against a journalist, the Trump University fraud case, and candidate Trump’s response to allegations of sexual assault by multiple women last year. (Kasowitz called the New York Times article containing interviews with the women “per se libel” and demanded “a full and immediate retraction and apology,” which the Times refused.) 

Not incidentally, Kasowitz has said he played a central role in the firing of Preet Bharara. Kasowitz told Trump, “This guy is going to get you,” according to a person familiar with Kasowitz’s account.

Now, Kasowitz is taking on a public role. Bypassing the White House Counsel, he instructed White House aides to discuss the investigation as little as possible, and advised them about whether they should hire private lawyers.

The horrifying reality is that in Trumpworld, there is no real “public” role. It’s all about protecting and benefiting Trump.

When loyalty trumps integrity, we no longer have a government of laws. We have a government by and for Trump.

At a roundtable discussion with state transportation officials on Friday, Donald Trump said America’s aging roads, bridges, railways, and water systems were being “scoffed at and laughed” at. He pledged that they “will once again be the envy of the world.”

This seems to be a core theme for Trump: America’s greatness depends on others envying us rather than scoffing and laughing at us.

He said much the same thing last week when he announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. “At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us, as a country? We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be.”

To be sure, America is in dire need of massive investments in infrastructure. The nation suffers from overflowing sewage drains, crumbling bridges, rusting railroad tracks, outworn roads, and public transportation systems rivaling those of third-world nations.  

The American Society of Civil Engineers, giving America’s over-all infrastructure a grade of D-plus, says we would need to spend $3.6 trillion by 2020 to bring it up to par.

The problem isn’t that we’re being laughed at. It’s that we’re spending hours in traffic jams, disrupted flights, and slow-moving trains. And we’re sacrificing billions in lost productivity, avoidable public health problems, and increased carbon emissions. 

But what Donald Trump is proposing won’t help. It’s nothing but a huge and unnecessary tax giveaway to the rich.

His “$1 trillion infrastructure plan,” unveiled last week, doesn’t amount to $1 trillion of new federal investment in infrastructure. It would commit $200 billion of federal dollars over ten years, combined with about $800 billion of assorted tax breaks to get developers to build things instead of the federal government doing it.

And it’s hardly a plan. It’s not much more than a page of talking points.

Worse, its underlying principle is deeply flawed.  It boils down to a giant public subsidy to developers and investors, who would receive tax generous tax credits in return for taking on the job. 

Which means the rest of us would have to pay higher taxes or get fewer services in order to make up for the taxes the developers and investors would no longer pay.

For example (in one version of the plan I’ve come across), for every dollar developers put into a project, they’d actually pay only 18 cents – after tax credits – and taxpayers would contribute the other 82 cents through their tax dollars.

No one should be surprised at this scheme. It’s what Trump knows best. After all, he was a developer who made billions, often off sweeteners like generous tax credits and other subsidies.  

The public would also pay a second time. The developers would own the roads and bridges and other pieces of infrastructure they finance. They’d then charge members of the public tolls and fees to use them.

In place of public roads and bridges, we’d have private roads and bridges. Think of America turning into giant, horizontal-like Trump Tower wherever you looked.   

These tolls and fees won’t come cheap. They’d have to be set high in order to satisfy the profit margins demanded by the developers and the investors who back them.

Worst of all, we’d get the wrong kind of infrastructure. Projects that will be most attractive to developers and investors are those whose tolls and fees bring in the biggest bucks – giant mega-projects like major new throughways and new bridges.

Developers and investors won’t be interested in the thousands of smaller bridges, airports, pipes, and water treatment facilities across the country that are most in need of repair.

They’re not likely to respond to the needs of rural communities and smaller cities and towns that are too small to generate the tolls and other user fees equity developers and investors seek.

They won’t be attracted to the most important first priority for our nation’s infrastructure: Better maintenance of what we already have. With improved maintenance, it wouldn’t be necessary to completely rebuild.

But investors and developers want to build anew. They can’t reap big rewards from maintenance.

Nor will they want to put their efforts and money into projects that don’t yet have proven financial track records, like many clean energy innovations – which, not incidentally, might have enabled us to meet our targets under the Paris climate accords, were we still part of the Paris accords.

We shouldn’t have to pay twice over for the wrong infrastructure.

To really make America great again we need the correct infrastructure in the right places – infrastructure that’s for the public, not for big developers and investors.

Sorry, Donald. The only way we get this is if big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes to support it.

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) is already drafting articles of impeachment related to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, believing there’s enough evidence of Trump’s obstruction of justice to begin an impeachment inquiry (not to mention Trump’s blatant violation of the Constitutions emoluments clause by profiting off his presidency, and much else).

But Democratic leaders are pushing back, warning there aren’t enough facts to justify an impeachment inquiry at this point, and, in any event, such an inquiry would politicize ongoing congressional investigations. 

Baloney. 

Historically, the three previous impeachment inquiries in the House (involving presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton) rested on less evidence of obstruction of justice than is already publicly known about Trump.

Comey’s testimony to Congress is itself more than enough – confirming that Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty, asked Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn, repeatedly told Comey the FBI investigation was a “cloud” on his presidency, and asked Comey to declare publicly that Trump wasn’t an object of the investigation

In addition, we have Trump’s interview with Lester Holt on NBC and Trump’s subsequent meeting with Russian officials in the Oval Office. In both instances, Trump connected his firing of Comey with the Russian investigation.

Also bear in mind the obstructions of justice that caused the House to impeach previous presidents concerned issues far less serious than Trump’s possible collusion with a foreign power to win election.

Democratic leaders say they don’t want to talk about impeachment now because they’re worried about politicizing the current congressional investigations, which aren’t impeachment inquiries. Hello? Republicans have already politicized them. 

The real reason Democratic leaders don’t want to seek an impeachment now is they know there’s zero chance that Republicans, who now control both houses of Congress, would support such a move. So why engage in a purely symbolic gesture? 

Democratic leaders figure that between now and the midterm elections there will be even more revelations from non-partisan sources – future testimony by Trump operatives like Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, early reports from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and leaks to the press – that will build the case, and fuel more public outrage. 

That outrage will give Democrats a strong chance of taking back the House and maybe even the Senate. Then they’ll really impeach Trump.

I can’t argue with the political logic of Democratic leaders. And if their strategy will lead to Trump’s ouster sooner than any other way, I’m all for it.

But here’s the problem. It’s not clear America can wait for the midterm elections, followed by what’s likely to be a long and drawn-out impeachment investigation, followed by a trial in the Senate. (Note that none of the presidents listed above was ever convicted by the Senate and thrown out of office.) 

With each passing day, Donald Trump becomes a greater danger to America and the world. We don’t have time. 

The advantage of introducing a bill of impeachment now – even attempting to do so – is that such an action might itself galvanize the vast majority of Americans who want Trump out of office. It could mobilize and energize people around the most important immediate issue facing the country. 

Never underestimate the power of a public aroused to action. It is worth recalling that Nixon resigned of his own accord before the House had even voted out an impeachment resolution. The American public demanded it. 

The arrest of Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old federal contractor from Atlanta, Georgia, for leaking a National Security Agency report describing in far more detail than previously known Russian efforts to intrude in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump, comes in the midst of a deluge of Trump tweets and leaks.

Among the most sensitive leaks about national security since the start of the Trump administration was Trump’s own Oval Office conversation with top Russian officials last month, in which he revealed allied intelligence information apparently coming from Israel. At that same meeting, Trump discussed his firing of former FBI Director James Comey the previous day, thereby relieving “great pressure” on him, he said. (Comey will be testifying before Congress Thursday).

How do we even know about these discussions between Trump and Russian officials? They were leaked! So we had a leak about a leak, coupled with a leak about a potential coverup by the president of his attempt to obstruct justice.

The essential message of the Justice Department’s decision to go after Reality Winner is that those who leak will be targeted for prosecution if the information they give journalists is about Russia helping Trump win the election.

But let’s be clear. This particular leak of an NSA report is not the central problem.

The problem is Russia has directly and brazenly interfered in our democratic system. Yet we don’t know exactly how – and we don’t have a means of stopping Russia from doing it again.

The other part of the problem is that instead of resolutely focusing on this brazen attack on American democracy, we have president who’s been actively trying to obstruct public knowledge of what happened.

To Donald Trump, the world is made up of only two sorts of people, or nations: strong winners whom others respect and fear, and weak losers whom others exploit and laugh at. There is no other alternative.

“At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us, as a country?” Trump asked Thursday during his major announcement from the White House Rose Garden that the US would be withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be.“

For Trump, there is no such thing as collaboration for mutual gain. Cooperation is a sham. 

Similarly, social insurance is a con. Billionaires can be trusted because they’ve already made their money – presumably by out-exploiting others. 

Dictators are admirable because they’re respected and feared. But democratically-elected prime ministers and presidents need to be shown who’s boss – their hands grabbed in white-knuckled contests of dominance, their bodies shoved aside if they get out in front. And treaties and compacts need to be renegotiated so America wins.

It’s the same at home: Political opponents must be humiliated, White House staffers demeaned (even the Vice President shown his place), the press degraded, recalcitrant judges debased, others intimidated. 

Everything is a giant zero-sum game in which either you win and they lose, or they win and you lose. And if they dare put up a fight, you get even.

This is the personality of a sociopath. 

Trump is now the single most powerful person on the planet, with the ability to order the destruction of the world in just over four minutes. It is necessary to get him out of the White House, peacefully and legally, as quickly as possible.

Say you’re Vladimir Putin, and you did a deal with Trump last year. I’m not suggesting there was any such deal, mind you. But if you are Putin and you did do a deal, what did Trump agree to do?

 1.  Repudiate NATO. NATO is the biggest thorn in your side – the alliance that both humiliates you and stymies your ambitions in the Baltics and elsewhere. Trump almost delivered on this last week by pointedly not reaffirming Article 5, which states that an attack on one NATO ally is an attack on all.

2.  Antagonize Europe, especially Angela Merkel. She’s the strongest leader in the West other than Trump, and you’d love to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Germany. Your larger goal is for Europe to no longer depend on the United States, so you can increase Russia’s influence in Europe. Trump has almost delivered one on this, too. Merkel is even saying Europe can no longer depend on America.

3. Take the U.S. out of the Paris accord on the environment. This will anger America’s other allies around the world and produce a wave of anti-Americanism – all to your advantage. Nothing would satisfy you more than isolating the United States. Trump has already delivered. 

4. Then unravel the accord. Russia is the world’s second-largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia, and biggest exporter of natural gas. And the oil and gas industry contributes about half the revenues to your domestic budget. The last thing you want is for the world to shift to wind and solar, so you’d love for the whole Paris accord to unravel. Trump has promised to help. 

5.  Embark on a new era of protectionism. Or at least anti-trade rhetoric. This will threaten the West’s economic interdependence and loosen America’s economic grip on the rest of the world. Trump is on the way to delivering on this one.

6.. End the economic sanctions on Russia imposed after the annexation of Crimea and Russian backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine. Oil production on land is falling, so you want to tap the vast petroleum and gas reserves offshore in the Arctic. In 2011, you and ExxonMobil’s Rex Tillerson, signed a $500 billion deal to do this. But sanctions imposed in 2014 by that damned Obama administration stopped the project. Tillerson, now secretary of state, and Exxon lobbied against the sanctions. Trump has promised to lift the sanctions, so you can get on with oil and gas extraction in the Russian Arctic.

No delivery on this as yet, but you understand why. Trump has got to cope with all the suspicions in America about his deal with you. (Why can’t he stop all those leaks?) Once that business dies down, he’ll end the sanctions. In the meantime – as a symbolic down payment – he’ll hand back to you two diplomatic compounds in America that were taken by the U.S. government in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

And what did you agree to do in return, Vladimir? What was your side of the deal? Two things: You’d help him win the presidency. You’d also shut up about your help so Trump wouldn’t be impeached and convicted of treason.

In other words – if you did do a deal (and I’m not suggesting you did, Vlad) – Trump has delivered part of it but is still in the process of delivering the rest. And you’ve delivered part but are also still delivering the rest. That way, each of you can maintain pressure on the other. It’s what’s so beautiful about the art of the deal.

7 Reasons Why Trump’s Corporate Tax Cut is Completely Nuts

Donald Trump wants to cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, in order to “make the United States more competitive.”

This is nonsense, for 7 reasons:

1. Profitable U.S. corporations already pay on average of only 14% according to the Government Accountability Office. That’s less than a lot of middle-class families pay. (And that’s less than half the official 35% corporate tax rate.) What’s more, some giant corporations pay little (if any) U.S. taxes because of loopholes or because they shift their profits offshore to tax havens.

2. Trump’s corporate tax cut will bust the federal budget. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center projects it will reduce federal revenue by $2.4 trillion over 10 years. This will either require huge cuts in services for all of us, or additional taxes paid by us to pick up the corporate tab.

3. It’s based on supply-side, trickle-down nonsense. The White House says the tax cuts will create a jump in economic growth that will generate enough new revenue to wipe out any increase in the budget deficit. Rubbish. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both cut taxes mostly for the rich, and both ended their presidencies with huge budget deficits.

4. It will create a new special loophole for hedge fund managers, big law firms and real estate moguls like Donald Trump. They could slash the  tax rate they pay on their business income from 40 percent to 15 percent. 15 percent is what a middle-class person pays. Do you think people like Trump should pay a tax rate that someone making $60,000 a year pays?

5. It creates an international race-to-the-bottom on corporate tax rates that the U.S. cannot possibly win. One of its supposed attractions is it makes U.S. corporate taxes more “competitive” internationally. But we can’t match the rates in tax havens, which are often ZERO. And other countries will just lower their taxes in response. That’s what happened after 1986, the last time the U.S. cut corporate tax rates.

6. American corporations don’t need a tax cut to be competitive. They’re already hugely competitive as measured by their profits – which are near record highs– while the share of taxes they pay are at record lows. Corporations should be doing more to pay their fair share, not getting a giant tax cut!

7. Corporations won’t use the extra profits they get from the tax cut to invest in more capacity and jobs. That’s the White House line, but it’s baloney.  Corporations are now using a large portion of their profits to pay their CEOs’ hefty pay packages and to buy other companies in order to raise their stock prices. There’s no reason to suppose they’ll do any different even with more profits.

So don’t fall for Trump’s corporate tax plan. It will be a huge windfall for corporations and billionaires – like many of Trump’s own cabinet members, family members, and likely even Trump himself (although because he won’t release his taxes, we can’t tell how much he’ll enrich himself from his own tax plan).

We do know who will lose out: The rest of us.

Trump’s budget isn’t just about massive tax cuts for rich and major cuts in assistance for the poor. He also wants to roll back civil rights. Under his proposed budget:

1. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice – which  has long investigated hate crimes, voter suppression, and other forms of discrimination – would lose at least 121 positions.

2. The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program – in charge of policing against discrimination by companies with federal contracts – would be eliminated altogether. That’s 600 positions. (Just last September, the office reached a $1.7 million settlement with tech giant Palantir for discriminatory hiring practices.)

3. The Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice program – which combats higher-rates of pollution in communities of color – would be eliminated.

4. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights – charged with investigating discrimination in America’s schools – would be drastically cut. The Trump administration itself has admitted these cuts will hamper its ability to conduct investigations.

Trump has made clear his priorities: Benefit the most comfortable Americans and stick it to the most vulnerable.