An Existential Threat To Our Democracy
Perhaps I’m getting too sensitive in my old age, but I find the lack of urgency with which the media and even Democrats are responding to what we have learned about the attacks on the core of our democracy by Donald Trump and his, at this point, criminal co-conspirators in the Republican Congress to be almost as frightening as the attacks themselves.
It goes well beyond the already overwhelming evidence that Trump and his team have been engaging in a massive obstruction of justice since the day he was elected, evidence that was further enhanced by revelations in the last two days. The NY Times reports that contemporaneous notes from the then chief-of-staff, Reince Priebus, corroborate James Comey’s claims that he was pressured by Trump to publicly say he was not under investigation. In addition, Trump order the White House Counsel, Don McGahn, to persuade Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself but rather stay in his job and protect Trump from the ongoing FBI investigation. Also, the original draft of the memo that outlined the reasons for firing Comey was primarily based on the fact that the Russia investigation was “fabricated and politically motivated”. That was eventually deemed as politically and probably legally unacceptable and so the reason for firing Comey became his mishandling of the Clinton email investigation and his supposed inability to effectively lead the Bureau. This, then implicates, Kushner, Miller, Rosenstein, and potentially Sessions in a clear obstruction of justice.
Sessions, himself, is also implicated for some of his other actions. Apparently, a DOJ staffer was sent out to uncover any dirt on Comey and Sessions wanted to plant one negative story about Comey in the media every day. This is a truly bizarre scenario where the Attorney General is actively sabotaging an FBI director and is yet another clear obstruction of justice.
Michael Wolff’s new book only confirms what 70% of the country and virtually everyone in the Beltway, even Republicans, already knew, namely that Trump is totally unfit for his office. But the book also reports that a member of Trump’s legal team resigned after coming to the realization that virtually the entire Trump team was engaged in obstruction of justice with their handling of the initial response to the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians.
That should be disturbing but nothing like four new revelations in the last few days. First, the Trump administration has apparently forced the FBI to reopen investigations into one of Trump’s political opponents based on no new information that would prompt such a move. The opponent, of course, is Trump’s perpetual punching bag, Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Clinton Foundation, and the Uranium One deal. Now, most legal experts believe that nothing will come of this investigation because all of these issues have already been thoroughly investigated and the statute of limitations will probably run out on any potential crimes, of which there is still no evidence, next month. Of course, the one thing we can be sure of the Trump era is that nothing goes as expected.
Yesterday, two senior Republican Senators made a referral to the DOJ to investigate Christopher Steele, the author of the Russian dossier, for potentially lying to investigators. Lindsay Graham and Chuck Grassley, members of the Judiciary Committee, apparently are relying on the DOJ’s own transcripts of its interview with Steele for their referral which begs the question of why the referral needed to be made as the DOJ could already make the determination whether a crime might have been committed. That referral was made unilaterally with no consultation with Democratic members of the committee. As Maddow pointed out last night, there are at least nineteen Trump campaign officials were approached by the Russians during last year’s election. None of them reported those contacts to the FBI. The one person who did report evidence to the FBI that Russia was hacking our election and potentially trying to get Trump elected is now the only person to be referred for a criminal inquiry by the investigating Congressional committees controlled by Republicans and that referral was made on a unilateral and purely partisan basis.
Yesterday, Paul Ryan agreed to force the FBI to respond to a subpoena from Devin Nunes, who has spent virtually all of his latest term sabotaging the Russia investigation, to produce “FBI investigative documents that are considered law enforcement sensitive and are rarely released or shared outside the bureau.” This is, of course, just part of Nunes’ and the Republicans’ fishing expedition to not only discredit the FBI but also be able to pass on any potentially damaging information to the Trump team so they can prepare a defense. In addition, the FBI has agreed to release even more private texts between FBI employees in a separate attempt by Republicans to smear the Bureau.
Lastly, a sitting President is trying to preemptively stop the publication of a book, not on national security grounds, but simply because he does not like what is in the book. A legal representative for Donald Trump sent a “cease and desist” letter to Wolff and his publisher in order to stop the publication of the book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House”. This is an attempt at censorship in its most blatant form, regardless of its limited chance for success.
It seems like the rumors that Trump will fire Mueller are becoming more and more frequent, with Republicans in Congress starting to demand Sessions resign and Scott Pruitt’s name is now being floated as his replacement. You can be sure that Trump will only accept anyone in that position who will fire Mueller. That is what Trump believes the job entails.
These attacks on our democracy are coming from not only a corrupt President but also an entire political party. Republican obstruction goes well beyond just being unwilling to pursue certain avenues of investigation or approve certain subpoenas to actively trying to sabotage on ongoing investigation. Republicans are specifically calling to “investigate the investigators“. Another GOP Representative has called for a “purge” at the FBI. Jim Jordan is one of many pushing the evidence-free conspiracy theory that the Clinton campaign, the FBI, and Christopher Steele were engaged in a conspiracy to work with Russia to interfere in our election, interference that somehow confusingly only helped Donald Trump.
As Maddow pointed out last night, these attacks have been remarkably successful. There is now a re-opened investigation into Clinton. There is now a criminal referral from the Senate Intelligence Committee. Calls by Republicans for Sessions to resign are growing daily, paving the way Mueller’s firing. FBI personnel are being forced out, retiring early, or being investigated. This goes way beyond attacking the independence of Mueller. It is outright obstruction. And it will only get worse. Today, Jeffrey Toobin predicts “There will be calls for a criminal investigation, and probably an actual F.B.I. investigation, of the Democratic nominee for President in 2020. Doesn’t matter who it is.”
Yet most of the media seems to look at these actions as just partisan posturing by the Republicans, assuming that these efforts will come to naught. With obvious reason, the media’s obsession is focused on Wolff’s book and the clear evidence that Trump is unfit for office. But that has been obvious for a long time and, as I say, everyone in Washington and a majority of the country already know that.
What’s worse is that when the media does confront these actions by Republicans, they tend to frame it as just another both-siderism issue. Chuck Todd, in one of the worst MTP Daily episodes in recent memory not only gave air time to Jim Jordan to rant about his conspiracy theory but then spent much of the episode trying to show just how extreme the partisanship on both sides had become. Understandably, his examples were pathetic. In one case he compared the comments of Pelosi and Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady regarding decent but underwhelming jobs reports. The example he used for Pelosi, he was forced to admit, did not contain her full comments which showed she recognized the underwhelming nature of the report. In another, he pointed out that people were calling for Holder to resign and now they are calling for Sessions head. This, of course, makes no sense because it is Republicans calling for the resignation in both cases and, besides, there is no equivalence to what Holder may have done to the lies that Sessions has told Congress under oath.
But, by focusing on Trump’s unfitness or engaging in blind both-siderism, the media once again gives Republicans a free pass for their responsibilities and actions. Our country was attacked in 2016 and Ryan and McConnell refused to lift a finger and defend our democratic process. To this day, neither the Trump administration nor Republicans in Congress have made a single effort to make sure that attack is not repeated in 2018 and/or 2020. Republicans in Congress, beyond refusing to do anything about Trump’s unfitness, are engaged in far more than partisan attacks on the independence and fairness of Mueller investigation but are actively making efforts to obstruct and subvert it.
While the pundits may be right that these GOP efforts at obstruction will come to nothing, (hardly a sure thing), it once again moves the Overton window about what is acceptable partisanship even further to the right. And there is no guarantee that a more competent President with autocratic tendencies and a sycophantic party in control of Congress will not use these precedents to further his or her own dictatorial inclinations.
The refusal to give a hearing to Merrick Garland was treated as just a partisan move to get Republican votes in the 2016 election, with the general assumption by the punditocracy that Garland would be confirmed when Hillary won the election. Well, does anyone doubt that the precedent set in 2016 will not be used again and that the time frame when we have to “wait for the American people to speak” on a Supreme Court nomination will someday soon get extended back to a two year window after a midterm election when the opposition party controls gains control of the Senate.
Moreover, there is no attempt in the media to link Republican hyper-partisanship to the other erosions in our democratic system. How can anyone justify the fact that gerrymandering and the structure of our electoral process leads to results where Democrats can get up to 10% more votes than Republicans yet still end up as a minority party. There is no other country in the world where that would happen and we would still call it a democracy. Yet it is just accepted as a given in our own country.
Just yesterday, the chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development stated, “Today, autocrats don’t need to kill people, they just need to control media and money. If you’re good at that, you can stay in power for a long time.” He certainly wasn’t referencing the US but it is more appropriate than even he probably imagines. Republicans certainly have the money, relying on a handful of plutocratic donors to fund the party and its candidates with primarily dark money contributions. The media, while not totally supine, is primarily an oligopoly of corporate conglomerates focused purely on the bottom line and afraid of the offending the government in power. It is hardly focused on defending our democracy.
To quote David Atkins today, “Democrats and all public officials of decency and patriotism must fight to preserve small-d democratic norms throughout the next year until hopefully Republicans lose control of Congress. But it will be a time of trial and extreme peril. It’s not clear how much longer our institutions can persevere against the strain of Trump’s authoritarianism and a Republican Party that has wholly lost its moral compass.” Time is of the essence and increasingly I believe our country is not up to the task.
