FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 2.0: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, AUTOCRACY, PLUTOCRACY, OR FACISM?

American intelligence agencies have confirmed Russian interference in the 2020 United States presidential election. They recently advised the House Intelligence Committee of their conclusion Russia wants to do again what most believe it did in 2016 - help tip the scales in President Donald Trump’s favor. A consensus exists that Russian social media activity, other forms of disinformation, and computer hacking helped Trump in 2016.   By talking with Congress, the intelligence briefers provoked Trump’s ire. He reacted by firing Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Trump reportedly raged that Democrats will use the reports of meddling against him.  The interference disturbs us, especially since the nation was warned this was coming, and precious few precautions have been taken against its possible effects. In his congressional testimony during the summer of 2019, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller emphasized his belief the Russians were meddling, “as we speak.” With it now established the Russians are at it again, the question of why we should care arises. American Elections for Americans We wouldn’t have thought we’d need a rationale for eliminating foreign interference in our elections. Sanctity of the ballot enjoys a treasured place in American democracy. Having the ballot means much less if citizens can’t depend on a secure electoral system and campaigns free of foreign meddling. In many contexts, American history shows the value democracy places on voting. Much of the civil rights movement concerned voting rights. Lyndon Johnson  thought giving blacks the vote would level the playing field in the South where they suffered under the spell of Jim Crow. Before he ran for president, Barack Obama expressed the view that advocates for social progress should focus on elections as a way of winning rights and power, not litigation, reasoning that what courts can give, they can take away. Once a majority of Americans have spoken through their ballots, elected officials are less likely to go a different direction.   From the beginning, the nation’s leaders took steps against foreign interference in America’s internal affairs. The constitution’s framers, for example, included an emoluments clause that keeps foreigners from buying influence with U.S. officeholders. Congress enacted legislation, like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a the ban on foreign campaign contributions, aimed at limiting outside influence on the American government. Managing our own affairs, including voting and elections, without foreign interference occupies a sacred place in American democracy.       Results v. Process Despite this seemingly obvious rationale for elections decided without fake Facebook ads Fake Facebook ads posted by Russians per Intelligence Committee and flyers containing falsehoods composed by Russian operatives, we know some Trump supporters who accept such interference because the 2016 meddling produced the right outcome. The result, they say, justifies the means.   They note the strong economy, Trump’s immigration policies, his judicial appointments, and other aspects of the incumbent’s tenure they like. They can overlook the process, so long as they get their desired result. The three of us view process as imperative. Are American campaigns and elections run fairly and on a playing field that gives everyone a fair chance? Has an unseen force, like Russian operatives, placed a thumb on the scale, corrupting the process? With campaigns and elections run fairly and without interference from outside our borders, we think democratic principles have prevailed and we can live with whatever outcomes such elections produce. With a fair process, Americans more likely trust results that ensue. What Goes Around Comes Around We’d prefer believing no Democratic president would behave as Trump has or accept foreign help in getting elected. Sadly, we could no more guarantee that than we can perform magic tricks. Of course, a future Democratic president could engage in his or her own set of deplorable acts. Take Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President, to whom we referred earlier. Johnson’s most 36th US President Lyndon Johnson significant biographer, Robert Caro, wrote in the preface to his 1982 book, The Path to Power, the first volume in his series, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, that the more one follows Johnson’slife, “the more  apparent it becomes that alongside the thread of achievement running through it runs another thread, as dark as the other is bright, and as fraught with consequences for history: a hunger for power in its most naked form, for power not to improve the lives of others, but to manipulate and dominate them, to bend them to his will.”   Caro further argued that “if during the long evolution from a ‘constitutional’ to an ‘imperial’ [p]residency there was a single administration in which the balance tipped decisively, it was the [p]residency of Lyndon Johnson.”  Caro’s observations on Johnson make chillingly clear a Democrat capable of Donald Trump’s excesses is quite possible. It’s so possible, it’s already happened. Perhaps only the details differ. So, we remind Trump supporters who see results they’re getting from the current presidency and, therefore, support anything that keeps it in place, that American politics runs in cycles. A president you don’t like will hold the office someday, perhaps a president who advocates forced abortions or wants confiscation of firearms. Are you really comfortable with THAT president getting help from foreign governments?     America stands at a crossroads. Do we stay with democracy  and keep working out its imperfections or do we toss it onto the scrap heap of history and try fascism, autocracy, plutocracy, or some other form of government? The current occupant of The White House shows little interest in strengthening democracy and its institutions. Rather than take our word for it, we again recommend former State Secretary Madeleine Albright’s  insightful Fascism: A Warning. She makes the compelling case that our current president takes his cues from a long line of leaders who were popularly elected but turned their countries into autocracies, plutocracies, or fascist states. We feel compelled to sound the alarm.

IMPEACHMENT: IT’S THE REAL DEAL NOW

Impeaching President Donald J. Trump now seems inevitable.  On a party-line vote, the House of Representatives last week endorsed a resolution opening a formal impeachment inquiry. The vote never would have

been taken if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn't confident she has the votes for impeachment. Soon public hearings will begin, followed by approval of at least one article of impeachment in the judiciary committee. If the full House supports

at least one article, action would shift to the Senate for a trial. There, conviction and removal from office require a two-thirds vote, admittedly an unlikely prospect now.   

Mounting evidence Trump abused his office by withholding aid from a beleaguered ally while demanding help from that foreign government in digging up dirt on a political opponent has persuaded about half the country Congress should remove him. Though

Trump’s sins as described in the report of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller didn’t produce widespread support for impeachment, shake-down of a foreign leader for personal domestic political advantage appears to have broken through.

The story isn’t complicated. A White House  summary of a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president

told most people all they needed to know. When House investigators began taking testimony from people involved in U.S. – Ukrainian relations the doubts about Trump’s constitutionally prohibited behavior fell away.  A host of credible witnesses, like Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor and a decorated National Security Council official, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, have given the Ukraine scandal gravitas and staying power with the public. House leaders, like intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, indicate Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, and perhaps even former National Security Advisor John Bolton may testify in the public hearing phase. History suggests increasing public support for impeachment would likely result from public hearings.

Our Say

We return to impeachment now because it’s real. In four previous posts we looked at it under abstract circumstances. This isn’t hypothetical anymore. This will happen.

We began writing about impeaching Trump in March 2017, just two months into his presidency. Early signs of corruption  produced Woodson’s prediction that impeachment proceedings against the President would begin “in the next year.”  It took a little longer, but even then the road pointed in the direction we’re now headed.

                   

Three months later, in June 2017, Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey induced from us a piece on the history of the Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings. We speculated about what might happen politically if Trump were impeached and removed. As things move forward in 2019, we realize we’ll have to revisit the political calculus.  It’s different now that we’re on the cusp of an election, but no less important in developing an understanding of what all this means for American politics.

In July 2018, we briefly revisited impeachment in the wake of Trump’s shameful performance in Helsinki alongside Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. With former State Secretary Madeleine Albright’s

book Fascism as a backdrop and organizing principle, we asked if impeachment “could reign in Trump’s behavior,” even if the Senate didn’t remove him from office.

Finally, in April 2019, evidence of Trump’s scandalous behavior became clearer and clearer. We learned of so many sins, we asked, “Impeachment Anyone?” We addressed the issue in terms of political reality versus the country’s need for a moral response, in the process revealing our own varied views on the issue.

Ukraine Changes the Game

Throughout the now nearly three years of the Trump presidency, as the specter of impeachment lurked beneath the surface and the bad acts piled up, there has always been the idea of relying on the 2020 election as the best way of ridding the nation of Trump disease. Wait, counseled people like Rob, who for most of that time, thought the political price of impeaching Trump wasn’t worth it. We could tough it out until the election in the belief limiting Trump to one term wouldn’t permanently damage the country. Trump’s behavior in connection with Ukraine calls the morality of that view into serious question.

Woodson and Henry now offer compelling

observations about why leaving it to the election isn’t a good idea. Woodson notes the possibility of tampering with the 2020 election. Mueller told Congress he was sure the Russians were, as he spoke, readying their next attack. Trump, by saying he’d welcome dirt on his opponent from foreign sources, invited just such interference. It happened in 2016. It could happen again.   

Henry, a former federal magistrate judge who says perhaps the best part of his job was swearing in new citizens, reminds us morality commands we not betray the brave citizens like Ambassador Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, and the original

whistleblower who stepped forward and told what they knew, sometimes at great personal cost. Trump and his allies vilified these men and women for doing nothing more than honoring their duty under the constitution.

 

All three of us learned in law school the venerable principle that the law is entitled to every person’s evidence. People like

Ambassador Taylor and Lt. Col. Vindman followed that principle with their closed-door testimony and probably will again when the hearings go public. In the absence of impeaching Trump, we will have done those individuals and the principle they followed a great disservice. We cannot afford the price of doing that.   

IMPEACHMENT: LET US COUNT THE WAYS

If, as appears increasingly likely, the House of Representatives moves forward with impeaching President Donald Trump, lawmakers will find themselves working in a target-rich environment. Trump has committed so many wrongs, we should expect several articles of impeachment. Most recent attention has focused on Trump’s July phone call to Ukraine  President Volodymyr Zelevksy, in which Trump reportedly pressured Zelevsky about investigating former Vice President and potential 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian company. That’s the tip of the iceberg.

We’d remind everyone of the ten likely acts of obstruction of justice outlined in Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller’s report. Oh, and

don't forget the federal campaign fiance issue rasied by hush money payments that apparently bought the silence of two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal,concern-

ing affairs they had with Trump before the 2016 election. His former attorney, Michael Cohen, remains in federal prison for his role in that. Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator and might also be in prison except for the policy against

prosecuting a sitting president. Today, however, we’ll focus on Trump’s financial transgressions, the ones from which he directly or indirectly profits as a result of being president.

         

Emoluments

Article I, section 9, clause 8 of the United States constitution provides:

“…no person holding any office of profit or trust […] shall without the consent of the Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever from any King, Prince, or foreign state.”

                       

This obscure, somewhat awkwardly written section – the emoluments clause – essentially means presidents can’t profit from being president through gifts or financial benefits received from foreign actors. In numerous ways, Trump has flaunted that provision.

The G-7 Suggestion

In late August, at the end of this year’s G-7 meetings in France, Trump suggested holding next year’s G-7 meeting at his Trump Doral resort in Florida. He promoted the location (“near the airport” Trump claimed), the “luxurious rooms,” and the spacious bungalows. He raised the point in a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

         

Others didn’t think much of the idea. Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, called holding such a gathering at Trump’s resort, “a free, giant international promotion” for Trump’s business interests. It also sounds like an emoluments clause violation, since those foreign governments would spend all that money on rooms, food, and whatever else at Trump’s place. He didn’t offer Doral free of charge. 

Trump International Hotel -- Washington

Unlike most presidents who put their business interests in a blind trust or divest them  altogether upon taking office, Trump maintains his real estate and other holdings,

including Trump International Hotel in Washington. The Washington Post reports that hotel generated $80 million for the Trump organization since he took office, one tenth of the company’s revenues. Hotel officials claim they donate to charity all profits realized from foreign visitors. Still, Trump International remains a major attraction for officials of foreign governments. Whether the hotel constitutes a real violation of the emoluments clause, it doesn’t pass the smell test.

Vice President Pence

It’s not just foreigners who’re benefitting Trump. On a recent trip to Ireland, the

Vice President's business took him to Dublin, where he met with leaders of the Irish government. So, where did Pence stay? At Trump’s National Resort in Doonbeg, 180 miles away. Pence said Trump “suggested” he stay there, then claimed the reason was the “footprint” of

his security detail and staff.  Who paid the $600, 000 in ground transpor-tation costs? U.S. taxpayers, of course.  Who profited from the hotel stays? Trump, that’s who.

Air Force Stopovers

Several U.S. news outlets reported earlier this month that in September 2018, a unit of the Maine Air National Guard stopped at Prestwick, a small commercial airport near Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland.  An Air Force C-17 crew also stopped there on a trip to Kuwait. The U.S. Air Force has had a contract at that airport for refueling since 2015, but crews staffing those flights made their overnight stays at other area hotels. Only since Trump became president have U.S. military crews stayed at Trump’s property. An investigation is underway by the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee.

In fairness, we must acknowledge some confusion exists about the meaning of the emoluments clause. What’s a violation? Who has standing to sue? The issue hasn’t been litigated, mostly because no president has ever done what Trump has done – retain a vast business enterprise that offers services in just the kinds of things that encourage patronizing of those services by those seeking the president’s favor. Foreign governments wanting influence over U.S. foreign policy, lobbyists seeking government contracts or presidential support for or against legislation, and American government officials looking for favorable treatment of their agencies by the White House all have an incentive for currying favor with this president by patronizing his hotels and resorts.

Cases are now working their way through the lower federal courts, so perhaps we’ll soon have a reading on how the judiciary views the emolu- ments clause. If we’re lucky, those cases will become moot soon because Trump has left office.  We can only hope.