Mueller Report a Blueprint for Impeachment?
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
There’s plenty about Trump to criticize, indisputable just cause to impeach him – for the right reasons, not the wrong ones, for high crimes of war and against humanity, for numerous other offenses harmful to the general welfare, for what his predecessors and vast majority of past and current congressional members are guilty of, not for anything in the Mueller report.
Anti-Trump undemocratic Dems and hostile media never explain that Russiagate was and remains a colossal hoax – cooked up by Obama’s Russophobic CIA director John Brennan, one of the most shameful chapters in US political history.
Mueller never should have been appointed special counsel in the first place. The probe lacked legitimacy — a colossal waste of time and millions of dollars spent proving nothing related to his mandate.
The exercise was a sinister plot to delegitimize Trump for triumphing over media darling Hillary, failing to prove an improper or illegal connection between him and Russia, putting an exclamation point on Russian Federation US election meddling that never happened.
Not a shred of evidence suggests it. In a legitimate court of law, charges are dismissed without proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the gold standard for getting convictions.
No evidence exists about Russian US election meddling nor about illegal or dubious Trump ties to Moscow.
Russiagate is as phony as Watergate. Long knives wielded by dark forces cooked it up to remove Richard Nixon from office on trumped up charges.
It was all about his social, environmental and geopolitical agenda – world’s apart from how Republicans and undemocratic Dems operate today.
He opened China, recognized Taiwan as part of its territory, and wanted war in Vietnam ended he shamefully escalated ahead of the US April 30, 1975 Saigon embassy rooftop exit, ending America’s longest war in modern times until Afghanistan and Yemen – both begun in October 2001.
Nixon threatened entrenched military/industrial/security and other interests, why he was marked for removal.
Trump was supposed to lose, not win, why Dems and vast majority of establishment media want him either too weakened to be reelected or impeached and removed from office.
The self-styled newspaper of record NYT called him “demonstrably unfit for office.” The same characterization applies to ruthlessly dangerous/racketeer/perjurer Hillary, and vast majority of other past and current presidential aspirants, contemptuous of rule of law principles.
Russiagate should have been Hillarygate, a Dem standard bearer by primary election theft and other dirty tricks.
She and the DNC financed former MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s doggy dossier on Trump – filled with unverified accusations and allegations, an effort with no credibility.
The Clinton crime family pursued and endorsed endless wars of aggression during their time in office, state terror on a global scale. Hillary endorsed first-strike use of nuclear weapons she called peacekeeping deterrents.
She’s pushing for Trump’s impeachment, saying “I certainly think that the roadmap, as some call it, of the Mueller report raises so many serious questions in part one about what the Russians did (sic), which is beyond debate (sic), and in part two about all of the evidence about obstruction (sic).”
“I think there is enough there (sic) that any other person who had engaged in those acts would certainly have been indicted (sic)” – referring to Trump.
During 1973 Watergate hearings, Hillary, aged 27 at the time, was a staffer for House Judiciary Committee chief counsel Jerry Zeifman.
He fired her, saying “she was a liar. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
“In one legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel” – ignoring his constitutional rights.
As a young lawyer, she disdained rule of law principles. It showed by her actions as first lady, US senator, secretary of state and two-time presidential aspirant.
Politically dead, humanity is free from fear of her leadership in high office. Her anti-Russia/anti-Iran rage could have launched WW III by now or earlier.
Unthinkable nuclear war remains possible, even likely with numerous other bipartisan hardliners infesting Washington. No other nation threatens humanity like the US. It shows in executive, congressional, and judicial actions.
No case that would hold up in a court of law exists for impeaching Trump on obstruction of justice charges related to the Mueller probe.
His report includes 11 instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his campaign staff – short of accusing anyone of this crime because no evidence proves it.
Trump and his staff didn’t obstruct Mueller’s probe. They cooperated with it. DLT waived executive privilege. According to Law Professor Jonathan Turley, “(h)e took no actual obstructive acts. To charge him would have amounted to a virtual thought crime.”
Dems and supportive media are reinterpreting and using the Mueller report to continue vilifying Trump for the wrong reasons.
Dems are divided, some wanting to go for the jugular by impeaching him in the House they control despite virtually no chance of a GOP-controlled Senate conviction.
Others, including Speaker Pelosi and House Majority Leader Hoyer, prefer a weakened Trump, helping the party’s standard bearer defeat him in 2020.
Following release of the Mueller report, the anti-Trump NYT said “(i)n a functional country, we would be on the road to impeachment.”
A separate times piece posed the question: “Impeach Donald Trump?” Despite no evidence of obstruction of justice, the Times pronounced him guilty, saying he “doesn’t deserve to be president,” calling for his impeachment.
Separately, the Times said “(t)here’s a bigger prize than impeachment. Keeping Trump in office will destroy the Republican Party.”
The neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post went both ways as well, so far more against than for going this far.
No US president was ever removed from office by impeachment. House members impeached Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, both subsequently acquitted by the Senate.
The Constitution’s Article II, Section 4 states: “The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
No US president was ever charged with crimes of war or against humanity, none for serving monied interests at the expense of the general welfare, none for breaching the public trust or repeatedly lying.
Johnson and Clinton were impeached for political reasons. In Johnson’s case, a southerner from Tennessee, it was largely over his loyalty to the union during the civil war.
He was accused of violating the Tenure of Office Act for removing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. By that standard, most or all of his successors would share guilt.
In Clinton’s case, it was over lying under oath about sex and related charges, his legitimate impeachable offenses ignored.
How will things turn out for Trump? Impeachment is possible but unlikely. If occurs, the GOP-controlled Senate most likely would acquit him.
What are his chances for reelection in 2020? It’s way too early to tell, of course. However, the historical record shows sitting presidents have a distinct advantage over challengers.
In US history, only five incumbents failed to get a second term – William Taft, Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and GHW Bush.
Will Trump be No. 6? The fullness of time will tell.
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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
