Paxton Acquittal Proves Republicans Corrupt

Last Saturday proved that most of the Texas Senate’s Republican membership is just as corrupt as their federal counter-parts by acquitting Attorney General Ken Paxton of all 16 charges. Only two Republican senators, Kelly Hancock of Fort Worth and Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, had the integrity to vote for conviction.

The evidence presented of criminal wrong-doing, such as Article 10 accusing Paxton engaged in bribery in violation of the Texas Constitution when Paul provided extensive renovations to Paxton’s Austin home and in return, Paul received favorable legal help from Paxton’s agency, was overwhelming yet 16 of 18 Republican senators ignored the facts and testimony of former staff in order to fulfill an entirely partisan agenda. It’s not even like removing Paxton from office would have somehow placed a Democrat in the Attorney General’s office, after all an appointee of Gov. Abbott has been running the office since Paxton was suspended after the House impeached him months ago. Every senator who voted go acquit is now complicit in the Paxton’s crimes.

I’m no stranger to crooks holding high public office, I lived in Louisiana when Edward W.  Edwards served four terms as governor and the only time I voted for him was in 1991 when the Republican candidate was Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and even many Republicans voted for Edwards. At the time there was a bumper sticker that many Republicans put on their cars “Vote for the crook, it’s important”. Here in Texas we voters knew Paxton was dirty and we didn’t have such a poor choice in the last election and yet Paxton won handily.

As Common Cause Texas Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez pointed out after the acquittal, "During the course of this trial, corruption, bribery, abuse of office, and dereliction of duties were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In any impartial court in the country, the verdict would almost certainly have gone differently." Now that even more evidence of Paxton’s corruption has been presented to the public we can hope that real independents and the few Republicans with integrity will vote him out of office in 2026.

Every Democrat will have to talk to their friends and family about Paxton’s criminality and the complicity of Republican senators when they’re up for election again. We’ll have to be more persuasive than Republican cultist and Gazette columnist Terry Harper who was one of the leaders of the effort to censure Rep. John Kuempel for among other things not being sufficiently “conservative”.

As reported in the Texas Tribune Rep. Steve Toth, a Republican from the Woodlands and a member of the House’s Freedom Caucus stood outside the Senate chamber after the acquittal and stated “The Texas House owes all of Texas a big apology, this was a sham … This is terribly destructive to the Republican Party of Texas.” Toth said he expects there to be “retribution” by voters for his fellow Republicans who supported Paxton’s impeachment. And he agreed that the party’s internecine conflict has no end in sight. Since Rep. Kuempel voted in favor of impeachment I suspect he’ll find himself challenged in the primary. Conversely Senator Donna Campbell who voted to acquit probably won’t. The radical right truly does run the Republican Party of Texas.

Edwin W. Edwards finally went to federal prison in 2001, five years after leaving office. With the current federal criminal cases hanging over Paxton we can only hope justice is served quicker than in Edwards’ case.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 20, 2023

Common Cause Calls For Impeachment

Last Friday the nation-wide non-partisan organization, Common Cause, called for impeaching President Trump. In a letter to every member of congress Karen Hobert Flynn, the president of Common Cause, reviewed the organization’s reasons as “The President and his Administration’s abuse of power, subversion of the rule of law, solicitation of a bribe, campaign finance violations, and obstruction of justice by ignoring subpoenas, undermining congressional investigations, threatening witnesses, and refusing document requests leave Congress no choice but to impeach and convict him.”

Flynn then lists the articles of impeachment recommended by Common Cause, the first four of which are related to Trump’s withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid which Ukraine needed to defend itself from Russian aggression. The impeachable offenses tied the Ukraine scandal are abuse of power, the solicitation of a bribe, campaign finance violations, and obstruction of justice in the President’s effort to thwart the House Impeachment Inquiry of the Ukraine matter.

Common Cause also recommends Articles of Impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of justice related to the Russia investigation, and abuse of power for failure to adequately safeguard U.S. elections from foreign interference. Additional Articles of Impeachment are also recommended for campaign finance violations related to “hush money” payments, and violations of the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

All of the recommended Articles of Impeachment as well as a review of Senate rules for an impeachment trial and the additional procedures developed for the Clinton impeachment are described in detail in the 60 page report delivered to every member of congress with the letter on Friday. Common Cause has made the full report available for free at the commoncause.org website.

“Abuse of power,” is not defined in the Constitution or criminal statutes, yet it is most assuredly an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor.  Constitutional law scholar Noah Feldman has explained, “Abuse of power is anything the president does that he can only do by virtue of being president that threatens the basic freedoms and capacities of other people.” One of the three Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon was for abuse of power as was one of the four against President Bill Clinton.

President Trump’s withholding of military aid to Ukraine’s government was both the carrot and stick used to force an investigation by Ukraine’s government into Trump’s 2020 electoral opponent Joe Biden was an abuse of the power of the presidency. In addition those same acts can fairly be described as bribery and/or extortion, attempting to secure Ukraine government assistance for his 2020 reelection campaign in exchange for nearly $400 million of U.S. taxpayer money and a visit to the White House.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution provides that the president “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

President Trump asked President Zelensky for something of personal political value to Trump that being an investigation of his 2020 electoral opponent Joe Biden in exchange for an official act which was release of military aid to Ukraine. Arguments that President Trump eventually released the Ukraine military aid without assurances of an investigation into Joe Biden and, therefore, did nothing wrong are irrelevant. Under the federal criminal code, a bribe need not be exchanged in order for the law to be violated. It is illegal for a public official to “demand” or “seek” a bribe.

There’s more where this came from, read the report for yourself then call Representative Vicente Gonzalez and urge him to call for impeachment on all nine articles in this report.

Impeachment Looking More Likely

Last week Terry Harper offered the idea that the impeachment hearings could go bad for Democrats. So far that doesn’t seem likely to happen even though many of Trump’s defenders, particularly congressman Jim Jordan, claimed the testimony was all hearsay, second- or third-hand information. In addition to Ambassador William Taylor publicly testifying with the same information he’d already provided in closed door hearings he added a new witness who can testify with first-hand knowledge as that witness was party to a phone call between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump.

Remembering that Republicans wanted to “lock her up” over Hillary Clinton’s private email server it’s astounding that nothing was said about the fact that the phone call Ambassador Taylor described was on an unsecured line to a cellphone in a restaurant with the volume so high several people at the table with Ambassador Sondland could hear Trump asking about progress on investigations. Call me crazy but were president or an ambassador I wouldn’t want much of anything I had to say about negotiations with a foreign power to be overheard in a public setting.

Even if Ambassador Taylor’s staffer never testifies Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine specialist on the Nation Security Council (NSC) has already testified in closed door hearings, a transcript of which has already been made public, that he was among several government officials who listened to the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky.  That’s the call that got the attention of Congress when the whistleblower complaint was passed to them. Vindman registered concern over Trump's request for an investigation into the Biden family almost immediately with the legal staff on the National Security Council. The colonel told investigators that a top NSC lawyer decided to move records about the call onto a highly classified system that few could access. Vindman testified in public yesterday and we’ll have to see how the public reacts to what he has to say.

When Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testified to what she knew about Trump withholding congressionally approved military assistance to Ukraine Trump was tweeting about the purported damage she’d done in her prior foreign postings in a continuation of the smears he’s published about her for a year. Upon completing her testimony she was enthusiastically applauded by audience members. She made very clear the concern she has for the damaging behavior exhibited by Trump toward career foreign service personnel. She also made clear that Trump had both the right and the power to recall her and need not have besmirched her reputation to justify doing so.

Trump hasn’t done his case any favors by his tweets about Yovanovitch as the latest polling numbers now show 51% support for his removal from office via impeachment, that’s a 4 point increase over the last week so the upward trend continues. What’s worse for Trump is that a significant part of the increase comes from independents. So I don’t think Terry Harper’s concerns that the impeachment trial will hurt Democrats is anything the rest of us need worry about.

Pounding the Table

I’ve never been a baseball fan though when I was a kid I watched a few televised World Series games but I have to tell you I sure wish I’d been at the game played Sunday. All the fun happened before the first pitch when Donald Trump was introduced and the crowd booed then started chanting “Lock him up”.

Included in Trump’s World Series entourage was Congressman Matt Gaetz who last week led a group of 30 or so Republican House members to violate the security of closed door hearings involving the impeachment inquiry. Gaetz and his followers ranted about the unfairness of the closed door hearing claiming that Republicans were left out. As usual Republicans have problems with reality, also known as telling the truth, since 12 of the 30 or so in the group are members of the committees meeting in the secure area and were in fact eligible to attend those hearings along with the other 35 Republicans also on those committees.

Last week’s column was about the facts showing Trump’s demands that Ukraine President Zelensky publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son’s membership on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company named Burisma before the U.S. would release funds, previously approved by Congress, for weapons to defend themselves against Russia’s current aggression.

Since then there has been additional testimony some confirming the nature of the “quid pro quo” and some attempting to obfuscate it. For the moment let’s pretend that there was never a connection between Trump’s demands that Zelensky initiate an investigation and the military assistance funds. Trump’s demand in itself is a violation of both campaign finance law and the constitution he and his enablers are sworn to protect and defend. Regarding campaign finance law, it is illegal to solicit or accept a campaign donation from a foreign citizen, foreign company, or foreign nation. Just asking politely for Ukraine to dig up dirt on an electoral opponent is soliciting a donation since opposition research is considered a campaign expense and is therefore a “thing of value” and therefore a campaign donation as defined by campaign finance law.

As to violating the constitution Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 states: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." Emoluments in the case of this clause broadly encompasses any kind of profit, benefit, advantage, or service, not merely gifts of money or valuable objects. Having a foreign nation provide a campaign advantage is obviously in the scope of the prohibitions established in the constitution.

Gaetz and his cronies haven’t given up on claims that impeachment process hasn’t been fair and even now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a vote on future procedures for holding open impeachment hearings and releasing all the transcript from the closed door hearings they find other reasons to complain. This is typical legal wrangling rather than any focus on substance, in fact there’s an old legal aphorism that goes, "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table."

Trump, Gaetz and Republicans in general are going to continue to pound the table as they have neither the facts nor the law on their side.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 1, 2019

Impeachment How and Why

Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees regarding his team’s investigation of the Donald Trump and his associates it is time to consider what impeachment means and how it works. For the purposes of this discussion I have cited the various paragraphs of the constitution and provided their text including the archaic spelling used at the time.

Article I, Section 2, paragraph 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

We should think of this duty of the House as similar to that of a grand jury, meaning that House’s job isn’t to determine guilt or innocence but rather to determine if there is enough evidence of impeachable offenses to proceed to trial.

Article I, Section 3, paragraph 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

If the House finds that there is sufficient evidence of impeachable offenses it is the Senate which must then hold the trial and it requires at least 67 members to vote convict assuming that all 100 Senators are present.

Article I, Section 3, paragraph 7: Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Impeaching the President is specifically limited to removal from office with no other penalties attached. The constitution is also clear that anyone removed from office is subject to criminal trial and attendant penalties, such as imprisonment or fines as appropriate to the charges, if there is evidence of criminal acts just like anyone else.

Article II, Section 4: 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.

Any federal official including judges but not members of Congress are subject to impeachment and if convicted are removed from office. Treason and bribery are just the crimes spelled out in the constitution but it includes the vague “high crimes and misdemeanors” phrase to give future legislatures the flexibility to impeach for actions not imagined by the authors of the constitution.

If you haven’t read the Mueller report yet you really should, the first section regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election is enlightening though dry. While it doesn’t name Trump or others in his orbit it is part of the evidence of the conspiracy which evidence described later in the report suggests a conspiracy. Note the legal term is conspiracy, not collusion, so no Mueller’s team found no evidence of collusion because they weren’t looking for it, they were looking for conspiracy and found some evidence of it. As Mueller testified last week they also found that Trump and his lackeys withheld documents and testimony that might have provided further evidence for conspiracy.

Withholding those documents and testimony in addition to Trump’s efforts to fire James Comey are all the evidence the House should need that Trump obstructed justice and that is an impeachable offense.

Congressman Vicente Gonzalez hasn’t yet made a public statement on his position regarding impeachment.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 1, 2019

Mueller Report Evidence Favors Impeachment

It’s been a week since the release of the redacted version of the long awaited Mueller report. As the policy of the Department of Justice is that a sitting president cannot be indicted no matter the crime, Special Counsel Robert Mueller ended his report with the following statement: "Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President 's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

That’s quite different from what Attorney General William Barr claimed when he first summarized the 448 page document. Barr tried to use Obi Wan Kenobi’s “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” Jedi mind trick. Fortunately the American public aren’t all weak minded Imperial Stormtroopers and we aren’t buying it.

The section identified as Trump Campaign and the Dissemination of Hacked Materials has a high concentration of material redacted and labelled as “Harmful to ongoing matters”, meaning releasing that information might jeopardize ongoing investigations and possible prosecutions. According to the report there are thirteen such ongoing investigations, other sources indicate that half of those are being conducted by the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, at least one in New Jersey and one in California.

The un-redacted majority of the report makes clear that senior members of the Trump campaign went so far as to setup a meeting with a group of Russians with the intent to conspire with them and likely would have if only the Russians had real dirt on Hillary. My understanding of the law is that such behavior qualifies as conspiracy with a foreign power against the United States and that’s a crime even if it was ultimately unsuccessful. That being said there is no clear evidence that Donald Trump, Senior was a party to that conspiracy.

On the other hand the case for obstruction of justice by Trump is most compelling. Trump committed clearly criminal acts repeatedly, speaking both publicly and privately to subordinates suborning perjury and tampering with witnesses by suggesting pardons and issuing threats of retribution. Trump’s efforts to get Don McGahn to change the record of his conversations with Trump so there would be no evidence that he demanded FBI Director James Comey be fired is just the most egregious of several such criminal acts.

We should all remember that impeachment is not the same as a criminal trial and the same standards of evidence don’t apply nor at the penalties the same. Unlike a criminal trial the standard isn’t guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s more can Congress and the American people trust this individual to act in the best interest of the nation. As to penalties there is no provision in the constitution for fines or imprisonment simply removal from office.

One of my major complaints about the Obama administration is that he failed to hold George W. Bush and his staff accountable lying to start the Iraq war and the torture and other war crimes committed. I hope Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t make the same mistake.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 26, 2019