For the past three months, President Trump and his Administration have left no stone unturned stonewalling the efforts of Congress to investigate: (a) Attorney General Barr’s dismissive treatment of the Mueller report, which remains redacted to this day; (b) Trump’s business ties to Russia; (c) and, Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, which seem to multiply with each passing month.
In addition, Congress would like to see Trump’s personal taxes, which he had promised during his campaign to release for public scrutiny, because some of his family business transactions over the years look fishy, to say the least. Congress writes tax law, so it wants to know where loopholes exist.
The President has fallen on an expansive interpretation of “executive privilege” to deny Congress the information that it properly seeks, and has added that Congress has no right for this information because it doesn’t relate to any specific legislation that has been proposed.
Basically, he just doesn’t want to cooperate with a Democratic-majority Congress.
Gee, how the tables have turned.
For eight years, the Republican-controlled Congress and Senate conducted innumerable “investigations” into supposed wrongdoing by the Obama Administration, subjecting many Cabinet appointees, high-ranking officials, and even low-ranking employees (who worked for the more recognizable politicos) to withering, public flayings on the pretense that this was critical government fact-finding.
When they weren’t conducting these important investigations, the Republicans spent their time refusing to even consider every policy initiative that came from President Obama, and devised very little meaningful legislation of their own, which is the primary purpose of the Legislative branch.
Basically, they spent all of their time “investigating”.
The Obama Administration cooperated with the so-called investigations, despite their obvious political motivation, because the investigative function of Congress is imbedded in the Constitution.
Hillary Clinton, an ex-State Department official, was investigated ad nauseum for two years by Congressional and Senatorial committees, the objective not being legislative in any manner, but obviously a means of dirtying her reputation running up to the 2016 Presidential election. No criminal wrongdoing was ever found; no criminal charges were brought. And, importantly, no legislation was put forth pursuant to the witch trials; i.e the investigations served no legislative purpose.
Donald Trump was a private citizen at that time, campaigning for President. He loudly regaled the Congressional and Senatorial “investigations”, and publicly led the chants to “Lock her up!” In his mind, the investigatory function of Congress was one-hundred percent legit, and he publicly commended the particular committee members who were very theatrically putting the wood to his likely Presidential opponent.
What can we deduce from all of this?
- It is now apparent that our Constitution, which doesn’t mention political parties, allows Congress to conduct investigations of Federal employees and functions only if the political party holding the Presidency or controlling Congress is Republican.
- It is now also apparent that Executive Privilege, which also isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, can apply to anything that a President wants it to, including investigations by Congress leading to the filing of articles of impeachment, which is its responsibility under the Constitution.
- In other words, a President can do whatever he wants to do.
We, basically, now have the same government in place as the Russian kleptocracy under Putin, the dictatorship in the Philippines, the personality cult over in North Korea, and the military junta that runs Turkey.
Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump has publicly expressed admiration for those folks.
I’d hate to be a high school civics instructor right now, trying to explain how this nonsense comports with our precious democratic form of government.