You know how everyone says "If Trump does this or this or this or that, it will lead to a constitutional crisis? Let's get real-- as Jonathan Chair wrote yesterday, The Constitutional Crisis Is Already Underway. Does anyone think Putin-Gate is not the biggest constitutional crisis since The South succeeded? Yes, the Trump Regime: "The President not only has unfettered statutory and Constitutional authority to terminate the FBI Director, he also has Constitutional authority to direct the Justice Department to open or close an investigation, and, of course, the power to pardon any person before, during, or after an investigation and/or conviction. Put simply, the Constitution leaves no question that the President has exclusive authority over the ultimate conduct and disposition of all criminal investigations and over those executive branch officials responsible for conducting those investigations."
Trump, in their view, has unlimited control to open or close any federal investigation.Trump has been angrily tweeting demands that the investigation into him and his allies be halted, and that the Department of Justice instead open investigations into his political enemies. These tweets have been treated as the ravings of a blowhard who just happens to occupy the most powerful position in the world, yet is somehow merely blowing off steam. His lawyers are fully endorsing Trump’s right to do exactly the thing he is calling for. Trump’s lawyers are saying that he should be taken seriously and literally.Should Trump’s legal case prevail in the courts-- and the legality of such broad claims remains largely untested-- it would confer upon any president, but immediately Trump, the ability to open charges against anybody the president wants to charge, and prevent investigations of anybody the president wants to protect, beginning with himself. This is l’état, c’est moi rendered as a formal legal case....Trump cannot obstruct justice, according to his official legal stance, because justice is whatever Trump says it is. Before this is over, either Trump’s sweeping claim will survive, or the rule of law will, but not both.
That's why the Trumpists are so worried that the Democrats will stumble into taking back the House in 5 months. On Sunday CNN had RTrump ally Rick Santorum on State of the Union where he explained that the White House looks "at the election results in my home state of Pennsylvania... and the fact is that voter turnout in a lot of Trump areas has been very low among Republicans." The Trump isn't energized-- and even less than energized for congressional Republicans. Democrats and increasingly anti-Trump independents are very energized. They feel a check desperately needs to be put on Trump to slow down his authoritarian tendencies. And the graft and corruption regime of Trump and his congressional enablers is starting to seep down into common knowledge. Yesterday Politico noted that GOP staffers who wrote the tax bill cash in with lobbying gigs. "Top-level GOP aides who helped write the new tax law are now leaving the Hill in droves to cash in as lobbyists on K Street and other marquee private-sector destinations." When is enough enough? When he pardons the whole stinking lot for their criminal, treasonous behavior-- including even his vile family and himself.
