"The crisis is here" Jennifer Rubin's demolishing of the Repubs'
arguments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/09/crisis-is-here/?utm_term=.deb703ea5d29
And don’t miss Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) blistering summary of Trump and friends’ actions (video linked in Rubin’s opinion piece).
(Sorry—I can't copy and paste pghs from WaPo on my phone—tech problems.)
On edit:
"It’s critical to keep in mind five political and legal points.
First, the basis for the Office of Legal Counsel memo has been obliterated. If the attorney general can render a judgment on indictment, but use the excuse the president cannot be indicted in office and then block Congress from access to material and to witnesses essential to consider even the possibility of impeachment, we would have constitutional chaos. A president would be motivated to break the law, the attorney general motivated to help cover it up and the president’s party motivated to help the president stonewall. If nothing else, the next president must revisit the OLC memo (which many legal scholars think is wrong) so that at least one option is available to deal with a lawless president: indictment or Congress’s full access to materials to consider impeachment.
Second, Congress can argue with Barr, McGahn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (who is withholding tax returns that reflect, according to the New York Times, a more than $1 billion loss over 10 years) and their lawyers for months. It can impeach them. However, the best and most effective recourse, I have come to believe, was undertaken in the emoluments case: Go to court.
Congress, as 200 members did in the emoluments case, can file a civil suit directing the president to allow Congress to carry out its constitutional responsibilities (approve or disapprove of foreign payments, investigate the president and consider impeachment). In the case of contempt, Congress can ask both for fines to be imposed (with an order that the person in contempt not receive reimbursement for the fine from the government) and for injunctive action ordering the witness to appear. It’s not swift, but neither will it take months, as some have suggested. Should Trump disobey a court order after appeals are exhausted, there would be no choice but to commence impeachment proceedings..."
snip
= new reply since forum marked as read
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