Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Buzzfeed: Trump Suborned Perjury, Conspired, Obstructed
The digital news site Buzzfeed is reporting today that President Trump instructed his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. The story has two federal law enforcement officials as sources, and other media outlets are working to confirm this. If true, then the president committed no fewer than three crimes. First is suborning perjury. The perjury was intended to derail an investigation, and so, it counts as obstruction of justice. And given that he talked to other people and one of them acted on it, he is guilty of conspiracy. Nothing will come of it, though, since Mr. Trump holds about 40 Republican Senators in thrall. He may be impeached, but they aren't going to convict him.
The story begins, "President Donald Trump [bold in the original] directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.
"Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. 'Make it happen,' the sources said Trump told Cohen."
The defense will begin with mischaracterizing the situation. They are claiming it is a case of one man's word against the other. And as Trump-mouthpiece Rudy Giuliani said, "If you believe Cohen, I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge." However, the FBI raided Mr. Cohen's office and home several months ago, and there are allegedly documents that support Mr. Cohen's side. So, it's a case of one man's word and a pile of documentary evidence against the word of a president who is known as a serial liar.
There is no doubt that the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives will vote to impeach the president if the next few months reveal solid evidence of Mr. Trump's criminality. This particular allegation is distinct from the campaign-finance felonies revolving around Stormy Daniels and the hush money Mr. Trump paid her. That is too easily dismissed in many minds as a trivial matter of not doing the paperwork right. Trying to get other people to lie under oath to cover up one's own wrong-doings is an easier matter to sell to those who want to keep the president around.
Yet, even if the House were to impeach the president, convicting and removing him from office is going to require 67 votes in the Senate against him. There are 53 Republicans in that chamber, meaning 20 of them would have to vote against the president (one presumes the Democrats and the independents who caucus with them will be solidly in favor of conviction). The Pollyannas of American political analysis will argue that there are surely enough patriots in the GOP caucus to put country over party and to remove him if there is proof.
One does not see that there is such patriotism. Yesterday, the Senate voted on whether to overturn the president's decision to lift sanctions on Oleg Deripaska's companies, or rather, they voted to end debate (break the filibuster) in order to move ahead with the vote that would have kept the sanctions in place. Mr. Deripaska is the oligarch to whom the Trump-campaign's former chairman Paul Manafort owed millions. The vote to end debate was 57-42 (one Senator did not vote) in favor of ending debate and maintaining the sanctions. That was 3 votes short.
The NY Times explained, "The Republicans who voted against the administration plan were adhering to what had once been party orthodoxy: taking a hard line against Moscow. The Republicans who voted in favor of lifting the sanctions did so at a time when President Trump"s warmer stance toward Russia has inflamed questions about the Kremlin's efforts to help elect him."
Put differently, the GOP Senators who voted to let the White House lift the sanctions are in the president's pocket. When they could rebel against him on keeping sanctions on a Russian oligarch, they chose not to do so. If the president's job were at stake (a far more serious question), they are certainly more likely not to turn against him.
The best strategy for the Democrats remains 18 months of televised hearings into the administration's malfeasance and incompetence.
© Copyright 2019 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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