President Trump has showed dangerous and dictatorial behavior again, saying that if he is impeached, he will go “directly to the Supreme Court” according to a report:
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’ll go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court “if the partisan Dems” ever try to impeach him.
But Trump’s strategy could run into a roadblock: the high court itself, which said in 1993 that the framers of the U.S. Constitution didn’t intend for the courts to have the power to review impeachment proceedings. The Supreme Court ruled that impeachment and removal from office is Congress’ duty alone.
“I DID NOTHING WRONG,” Trump tweeted. He said not only are there no “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” one of the bases for impeachment outlined in the Constitution, “there are no Crimes by me at all.”
He alleged Democrats committed crimes and said they’re looking “to Congress as last hope!” because “We waited for Mueller and WON.” That was a reference to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The Mueller report did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election but revealed that Trump tried to seize control of the Russia investigation. In the report, released last week, Mueller laid out multiple episodes in which Trump directed other people to influence or curtail the investigation after the special counsel’s 2017 appointment, but he said those efforts “were mostly unsuccessful,” largely because “the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”
Trump’s threat to “head to the U.S. Supreme Court” would seem to face an uphill battle. In his 1993 opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that a federal judge’s appeal of his impeachment was not reviewable by courts. He said the framers of the Constitution “did not intend for the courts to have the power to review impeachment proceedings.”
If the courts were allowed to review impeachments, Rehnquist wrote, it could plunge the country into “months, or perhaps years, of chaos.”
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, who subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn , said this week in a statement that Mueller’s report, even in redacted form, “outlines substantial evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction and other abuses.”
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged divided Democrats to focus on fact-finding rather than the prospect of any impeachment proceedings after the damning details of Mueller’s report. (source, source)
Far from “Making America Great Again,” President Trump’s actions towards the legal and judicial system are making the Executive Branch of government more into a reflection of the dictators of the old world with the latter two as its personal puppets.
In November 2018, we reported that Trump’s actions of open contempt towards the judicial process by threatening to go straight to the Supreme Court, comments which provoked the rebuke of Chief Justice John Roberts, threatened to undermine the stability of the legal system as it ignored the process by which all other cases must go through and in doing so, especially as the president, could set a precedent for future actions.
In January 2019, Trump showed the same contempt this time towards the Legislative Branch as he said that he wanted to “bypass” Congress and declare a national emergency, in spite of their not being one, so that he could “build the wall.” It does not matter if he would do this or not, because the fact that he would say it in public is to again set forth an idea that could establish a new precedent for presidential power and actions.
Now, Trump has come out and said that he will go to the Supreme Court even though the Courts say that impeachment proceedings are outside of the powers allocated to them. Yet he does not care, and whether or not he would do this, the fact is that merely by making such a statement, he is sending the message that, like with the previous two examples, is that the President can do what he wants to because he is “the President.”
Many people on the “right” will defend Trump for doing these thing. However, what if this was Obama? They would say that such actions are “proof” that “Obama is a communist/cultural marxists/Muslim terrorist/America hater” and other claims.
As noted above, what Trump is doing has the potential to set a precedent in terms of what is acceptable behavior for a president. Trump is in office now, but as we have noted, assuming a Trump 2020 victory (which is likely), the balance of power in 2024 will likely switch back to the Democrats.
If one is a Republican or “conservative” supporter, ask yourself, would you want a Democrat acting in the same way that Trump has?
If the answer is “no”, then one has an obligation to criticize him when he acts this way for the sake of the system that he is charged to uphold and for the future. Eventually, be it in 2024 or later, a Democrat is going to be elected, and if one does not want this future president, whoever he is, then one must set and reinforce the proper behaviors now so that if this future president does try to act in such a way, one can expose him for acting outside of his jurisdiction or precedent.
The Democrats and Republicans are equally bad and share the same philosophy, with the difference being that the Democrats are open about their degeneracy while the Republicans try to hide it while still indulging the same degeneracy away from the public eye. Given the rise of socialism among the people as an acceptable form of politics, it is very unwise to set precedents that further undermine the balance of power in government and concentrate power in the Executive Branch more than to the extent that is already is.
Many people will criticize President Erdogan of Turkey, but if they do, then perhaps they should ask why Trump lavishly praised Erdogan and said that “he does things the right way”? (here, here) It is a known fact that Erdogan is a sultan aspirant, oriental despot, and power-hungry madman who loves Islam and hates Christianity.
Perhaps Trump likes Erdogan so much because he wishes that he could have the license to act as how he does.
It is something to think about.