The only constitutional crisis is in Democrats’ synapses
Democrats want secret grand jury information and investigative files so they can doxx, harass, and attack political opponents. Unless and until the courts finally rule, there is no crisis, much less a constitutional crisis.
There is no constitutional crisis regarding the House Intelligence Committee’s unsuccessful attempt to get the unredacted Mueller report, including secret grand jury information, and the documents underlying the investigation.
Disregard what Jerrold Nadler says about there being a constitutional crisis.
Disregard Nancy Pelosi parroting Nadler:
This is all just more Democrat theater of the absurd.
House Democrats not getting their way is not a constitutional crisis. At some point the issue will land in court, and a court will determine whether the Executive Branch properly is withholding the material. Then more judges will rule on the appeal, and it will end up at the Supreme Court, in all likelihood.
If the Supreme Court rules that the material must be turned over, and if the administration defies that court ruling, then we have a crisis. I’m not sure it’s technically a constitutional crisis, because the constitution does not provide for judicial supremacy. But the norm since Marbury v. Madison in 1803 is that the judiciary’s interpretation of the law prevails.
Remember what is at issue. Congress has been offered the entire Mueller report except for grand jury material, which DOJ say it is prohibited from disclosing. Nothing in that slight percentage of grand jury material in the Mueller report changed Mueller’s conclusions, so it’s unlikely to be helpful to Democrats. Nadler and crew refused even to view the redactions related to classified material and ongoing investigations, which DOJ offered to provide for viewing. What Democrats want is not the grand jury material, but the ability to cry “constitutional crisis!” over being denied access.
At issue also are underlying investigation documents, which DOJ is not required to disclose (it didn’t even have to disclose the Mueller report), and would not normally be disclosed. Those files would contain unfiltered personal information about people, such as bank account and telephone records, and personal information about their lives. To turn that material over to the Democrats so it could leak within minutes would be the height of irresponsibility and would lead to the type of doxxing and savage internet and physical attacks we have seen #TheResistance carry out.
This is all part of the attempt to unwind the 2016 election. Trump and DOJ should play hardball, since Democrats are acting in bad faith.
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Comments
I think you have it exactly right, Professor. This is just politics, and my read from the heartland is that a fair number of people know this.
But the proper response here isn’t just “no, we won’t produce the un-redacted report.” The proper response is, “we can’t produce that report because the very law you passed won’t let us. If you, Congressman Nadler, will propose a change in the law, we’ll consider whether the President will sign such a bill.”
Put the shoe on the other foot, always.
And then press forward with the real investigation that is needed.
SYNAPSES??? Er ,should be “synapse”, as it is a more
accurate description of a liberal brain.
I wouldn’t even go that far. I would say moron! Er, I mean neuron.
Do you have to have a frontal lobotomy to be a Democrat CongressCritter? If I go down the entire Democrat House I cannot find any normal intelligence with which anyone can reason.
The constitutional crisis is over, Trump has been vindicated, all that is left is prosecution of those who caused it.
I think what we’re seeing is the Democrats traditional “Shoot for the moon, settle for few stars” ratchet racket, where they ask for three billion things and settle for a few dozen that they should not have been able to get anyway.
That used to work just fine when pushing Republicans around. The words “Compromise!” and “Fairness!” would be waved around, and the Dems would slink away with their prize until they went and tried the same thing next week, and the week after that…
What they *want* is the 1.4 million pages of documents the Trump campaign turned over, the transcripts of hundreds of FBI interviews, the internal workings of the investigation now locked up in a vault (where hopefully the NeverTrumpers of the investigation did not make illegal copies). With that treasure trove in their greedy little hands, they can make life a living Hell for anybody caught up in Mueller’s web, with tidbits both true and false fed to their willing accomplices in the media. Doesn’t matter if the person is innocent or not, the hateful little wretches will spit out their bile in daily headlines and nightly news until the whole country is covered in slime.
But they can’t have it. Not even if they hold their breath until they turn blue. Blue-er. Thank God for Trump and Barr.
I want a hamburger… no, a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake…
You’ll get nothing, and like it!!!
50 bucks says the Smails kid picks his nose. 😉
No, this is different. They want to make their demands sufficiently outlandish (and illegal) that they get nothing. This will enable them to continue to scream about “cover-up” and “contempt for the Constitution” and “refusal to cooperate with Congress” and “dictatorship!” It cheers up the foaming-at-the-mouth element in their base, and they are hoping that enough of these accusations will make an impression upon more moderate voters that they will be able to win in 2020. If they did get the information they ask for they would abuse it to their own advantage of course, but what they really want is eighteen months of continuous confrontation.
PJDT should offer the Democrats a compromise. Either they get back to business, or he goes into full campaign mode to get as many replaced as can be done. Pelosi and Nadler sit in gerrymandered House seats in CA, so they are safe with the >+10 Democrat majorities. Others, they should be sweating as Trump took a lot of House seats in 2016 and can do so again in 2020.
Sometimes I wish our Congress ran like some of the videos you see from certain eastern European and Asian countries… when lying bitches like Nadler run off at the mouth somebody just jumps up and beats the fuck out of them.
Hey Paul, find someone to toss a sandwich down the hall in front of nadler and watch the destruction as he bulldozes everything in his path to get the sandwich.
Post video for our amusement if you do get someone to do it.
Our founders created a Republic that requires citizens to want a Republic. Many of the Democrats no longer support the Republic, so the Republic is failing.
Infanticide, gun control, loss of free speech, elimination of the electoral college, abuse of the law, etc. are examples of societal breakdown.
Upholding the constitution in the face of those who seek to destroy it won’t work. We’re defenseless in the face of such calumny.
If the struggle were truly hopeless, why would be wasting your time decrying it in threads such as this? It is exactly at times like this that the many Americans who are not brain-dead progressive warriors have to rally to the cause of our Constitution and the Republic facilitated by it. Not everyone is willing to throw away 231 years of our history. They just have to be reminded what is at stake when they are told we should change something fundamental because of a short-term or imaginary issue. They have to be reminded often. And sometimes very loudly. But it can work.
When I heard Nadler quote Ben Franklin, I was actually surprised he did used the word “republic” instead of changing it to say “democracy.” I was not sure that he knew the word, and was surprised lightening didn’t strike him when he said it, ya know like the old legends that said a witch could not take communion without turning into ashes.
I think it was Fat Jerry who led a walkout of Dems back in ’12 when Holder was held in contempt for failing to provide documents, claiming it was all political theater. Well, let’s see what Fat Jerry thinks he can do about this. Send the Sergeant-at-arms to arrest Barr? I hope he tries something that stupid.
Even Nadler can’t order the House Sgt. at Arms to arrest the AG. (Well, he can, but he’d look more stupid when Mr. Irving refuses)
SaA responsibilities cover the House members and guests in hearings. He coordinates with the Capitol Police for real arrests and security. He doesn’t arrest anybody, and the Capitol Police won’t touch this with a ten foot pole.
No, the Sergeant at Arms can arrest people, as he has “the same law enforcement authority, including the authority to carry firearms, as a member of the Capitol Police.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/5605
This scenario will not happen because he would be trying to arrest the AG for upholding the law. What Chairman Fatso wants is to have the AG break the law. The administration has broken zero laws, plus it is fighting this in court – it’s doing everything in a lawful way.
The (D) party wants to turn this country into a police state. I cannot believe people are not more mad about this. And by “people” I mean the entire (R) party. This is absolute BS.
“And by “people” I mean the entire (R) party.”
The problem is, much of the R party are like scumbag Burr.
Darnit, I could have *sworn* there was a case back somewhere in the ’50s or so where the Sgt. of Arms was directed to go arrest somebody, the police stopped him, chaos ensued, and Congress subsequently throttled back the jurisdiction of the SofA to just House/Senate representatives and guests, with no real arrest power, but Google isn’t being cooperative. Maybe I’m just delusional.
Still, I don’t think the SofA (or his staff) has ever arrested anybody other than members, and that’s a symbolic arrest as in “Hey, Senator Bob, they want you back on the floor for a vote.” Really, there’s an impressive little security organization built up around the SofA.
(edit) You’re right, I was thinking of the Teapot Dome scandal, about the only time when the SofA used his law enforcement powers, so that’s once in two hundred and some years.
You taught me something, I had no clue they went that route back then. And yet, in that case, it was a cabinet member who did wrongdoing while in office. Today, the Police State Party wants to jail people who have done nothing unlawful while in office.
This should scare the hell out of everyone. (D) voters are too stupid and/or complicit and/or both to ever care.
Donald Trump Jr. re-tweeted a tweet from Nadler on June 28, 2012.
https://i.redd.it/5bgewuq362x21.jpg
Nadler indeed was part of the walk-out over Holder.
Criminalizing political differences is what the (D) party stands for.
Pure tyranny. The (R) party has to put a stop to this crap. They never do.
If they did, the left would be screaming that they were criminalizing political differences….
The R party is part of the problem? Don’t you get it?
But for the Tea Party, that POS clinton would be president.
The R party is dead to us.
Agree, although Trump is a good fighter. When he’s gone I have a feeling we are so screwed.
We are in a sense in a Constitutional Crisis, we have a National Socialist Party that is out of control with their hatred that they step all over laws and rules to push to get their way while a propaganda machine media cheers them on and offers nothing but justification for that Party to keep lying and pushing the lies that the previous regime had set up.
If there is a Constitutional Crisis, it is from the Obama regime which weaponized the CIA and FBI and IRS against political opponents, and used them to spy on the opposition, and set up a bogus narrative that has hampered this country through an investigation that was an attempted coup.
We have a National Socialist Party which had it’s President stepping all over constitutional limits with not word being said. We have a Congressional body which is over stepping their duty to push for any and every means possible to keep the investigations against Trump going while they work to keep the true crimes under cover.
We have a report from Herr Mueller which was not done in accordance with the law and rules for political reasons, and which should have Herr Mueller in legal jeopardy along with his minions of the Democrat party who were part of his huge team that looked to create anything that could be used to remove Trump, and they couldn’t get it, so put things in the report which had no place being there.
We have a vile group of National Socialists who voted for holding the AG in contempt of Congress because he refused to break the law with regard to grand jury testimony.
So, once again, the Dems project onto others what they themselves are guilty of doing.
They want a Civil War. They are pushing as hard as they can to see it happen. It’s almost too bad Trump isn’t the Fascist they claim him to be, for every one of them would be locked up, and deservedly so.
I say the Democrats want to see what is in the underlying material…to protect the players who tried to stage the coup. If they can’t save those “spys”, then they will be thrown under the bus.
President Trump holds all the cards, aces high. And the Dems know this, hence the continuing drama.
I really want to see retribution.
Lots of it, preferably.
Has anyone been counting the constitutional crises of Trump’s first term? I think we’re well into the double digits.
The problem with the Left and language is that they’ve really adopted 1984’s dictionary — words like “white supremacist” and “constitutional crisis” are really just ways of saying “double-plus-ungood person” and “double-plus-ungood situation”.
Responding by asking for evidence that someone is a racist or that a situation threatens constitutional norms is entirely beside the point. That’s not what they’re saying at all.
There is nothing in the unredacted report or in the accumulated evidence which will be particularly harmful to Trump. If it was there then Mueller would have leaked it or recommended indictment. He did neither. And, knowing how the game is being played, Nadler KNOWS there is nothing there. But, if he does not read the redacted version of the report, he can reasonably state that he does not know there is a lack of evidence of wrong doing. So, in order to discredit Barr, Nadler demands that Barr release the unredacted report, due to federal laws, passed by the Congress. He KNOWS that Barr can not satisfy the subpoena. So, the subpoena is issued and Barr has to refuse and Nadler’s committee passes a motion to hold Barr in contempt of Congress. This allows the Dems to shake their fists and claim the Administration is creating a constitutional crisis, by essentially following the law. And demand to know what Trump is hiding. Of course, there is no way for Trump to prove he is not hiding anything, without violating the law, at which point the Dems would jump on that as grounds for impeachment.
Now, this contempt citation has to be passed by the entire membership of the House, or it means nothing. It simply evaporates. And, there is no guarantee that the House would pass the contempt citation.
It is all political Kibuchi, on the part of the Dems and they know it. It was planned.
Do you really think that Democrats won’t be able to muster 219 votes in the House?
There aren’t enough sane ones left in that caucus to fill a bathroom stall at Waffle House, let alone stop the Lunatic Majority from lunatic-ing
“There aren’t enough sane ones left in that caucus to fill a bathroom stall at Waffle House…”
LOL
Which bathroom will they try to fill?
Do not think for a moment that the Democrat Party can not control the House. Nothing gets to the floor without the approval of the Speaker. Whether passing a contempt resolution against Barr is tactically or strategically advantageous, will depend upon future conditions and timing. If this goes through the courts and the courts rule in favor of Barr, and the President, this could hurt the Dems going into the 2020 elections. However, if Pelosi embarks on a strategy of negotiating with the DOJ, then Nadler, and others, can continue wringjng their hands and claim a constitutional crisis exists until Barr violates the law.
Professor, thank you. When I first heard the “breaking news” on CNN about this “Constitutional Crisis”, my first thought was “what Constitutional crisis?” The CNN story did not suggest an answer, did not mention any Constitutional issues at all.
“We are not getting our way” does not constitute a Constitutional crisis.
The “Constitutional Crisis” ship set sail the day the previous pResident used all of the powers the governments Intelligence community and the FBI to spy on an opposing party candidate
By the way, Mark Levin has come around to my way of thinking. The
democratscommies have gone too far to just sweep it under the rug. We will need to use the same tactics on them in retaliation in order to get them to stop.Barr should give Nads (see Scott Adams) a watermarked copy of the full report saying he will indict and go after any leaks of the priviliged material to the full extent of the law.
So Nads (Nadler) will have the full report and consider what is so significant, and decide to break the law or do something else.
Won’t work. He’ll leave it sealed, won’t read it, and declare that the information inside is too valuable to be restricted to just him, and needs to be given to all House and Senate or else.
Irrational people do not behave rationally.
Adam Schiff will leak it, with the same repercussions he’s faced for past leaks.
Blah, blah, blah…
Now, indict them all, perp march them, and lock them up for life.
The Democrats are clearly suffering from an extreme case of “Gluckschmerz”.
They are also suffering from the “Peter Principle”. I am amazed how many college graduates do not know what the Peter Principle is. Close encounters with the Peter Principle, as long as one overcomes it, is what builds character and expertise.
How about a Constitutional crisis of House Dems’s criminal conspiracy to coerce the commission of a crime?
A few hundred years ago, another 5 foot 4 inch politician co-wrote the Federalist Papers during an actual constitutional crisis (would it be ratified?).
Well put, Prof. Jacobson!
Poor Jerry, when he lost 150+ lbs., many were brain cells. What a buffoon.
All people are created with a more or less equal number of brain cells. Having them and being able to use them are very different.
Democrats have eagerly worked to bring the dumbest people into their ranks, and unfortunately into America. Now they stand as a testament of the error of embracing stupid.
Looking at those old photos of Rep Nadler, I’d have to say the man was a living and breathing “Constitutional Crisis”.
This is all just more Democrat SCARE theater. It’s to keep as many dimwit people as possible scared thinking Trump & Barr might be bringing down out Constitution & rule of law.
‘Constitutional crisis’ ? Try Ex-Lax