As a career sailor in the U.S. Navy, I have taken the oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America" on four occasions. That oath is still binding, and it prompts me to write what follows. Members of Congress, both Representatives in the House and Senators take a similar oath. The point of this article is to illustrate that some members of the House and Senate are not living up to their responsibilities of that oath.
The conclusion of the Mueller report and of Nance's detailed narrative are echoed by congressional testimony from the heads of U.S Intelligence Agencies; the FBI; representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter; and representatives from commercial cyber security firms.
The conclusion that the United States was attacked by a foreign adversary is beyond question, as is the conclusion that the attack was carried out by Vlidimir Putin's Russian Federation. This was an act of cyber warfare. It was as much an attack on the United States as Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
The Mueller report also notes, "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities (Mueller report pp 1-2, emphasis added)
From this we can infer that the Trump Campaign knew about the Russian cyber attack and not only failed to take any action to stop it, but expected to benefit from it, and perhaps even encouraged it. We can also conclude that Donald Trump knew about the cyber attack, if not from his campaign staff, then from public reports and briefings from intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, in her book The Case for Impeaching Trump, spends an entire chapter detailing the numerous times, all verifiable from the video and other records of the news media, that Trump as denied or minimized the cyber attack, or attempted to exculpate Russia. She also details the lack of action taken by Trump and his administration to carry into execution two bill passed by Congress aimed at preventing future attacks, or any other actions that would prevent or minimize damage from future cyber attacks.
The U.S. Constitution defines Treason:
The Mueller report did not address the question of Treason, which is the first listed cause for impeachment, along with "bribery and other high crimes or misdemeanors." And it is but one of many potential causes to commence impeachment proceedings. Short of Treason, From the Mueller report we could find Trump's failure to act to prevent or minimize the danger of future cyber attacks is a dereliction of his duty as Commander-in-Chief; his failure to carry the bills passed by Congress in to execution is a dereliction of his duty to "...take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,...;" the ten instances detailed in volume 2, as a bipartisan group of more than 700 former prosecutors has informed us, is chargeable as Obstruction of Justice. Beyond Mueller, his willful shutdown of the government to try to coerce Congress in to funding his border wall is a failure to see that the laws are faithfully executed; his emergency declaration to bypass the Legislative power of appropriation is an attempted usurpation of Congressional power; his refusal to divest his business, etc. are potential violations of the emoluments clauses in Article I Section 9 and Article II Section 1 of the Constitution; his current stonewalling of all requests for documents or testimony and his failure to comply with subpoenas is contempt of Congress and an attempt to avoid Congressional oversight; and finally, his pattern of lies and misinformation misleads the American people.
(Each of these has, in one form or another, been included in an Article of Impeachment at one point or another. Contrary to common belief - and the assertions of Alan Dershowitz in The Case Against Impeaching Trump - the phrase "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" does not mean a violation of the Federal Criminal Code, but over simplified, is a failure to do his job. Impeachment is not a question of sending him to jail, but a question of Trump being on the receiving end of his signature line from The Apprentice, "You're fired!" The standard of proof is not "beyond a reasonable doubt," but a determination by a majority of the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority of the Senate that the United States would be better off without him that it is with him in the White house. See To End a Presidency, Laurence Tribe & Joshua Metz and The Case for Impeaching Trump, Holtzman - Note that Holtzman was a member of the House during the Nixon impeachment hearings in 1973-74. )
Although it is tempting to say that there is already enough evidence in the public view to begin impeachment proceedings, I am not going to draw that conclusion here. Instead, I am going to draw the conclusion that there is more than enough evidence to investigate Trump's conduct to determine if the country would or would not be better off without him.
As I noted in my initial premise, between the findings of the Mueller report, other Congressional testimony, and information in the public sphere, a case, even a strong case, for Treason can be made. If the Republicans in Congress are deliberately obfuscating, delaying, or dissembling in order to prevent the American people from learning the truth and making a fair assessment of whether Trump's conduct is treasonous the they have not only failed in their duty to protect and defend the Constitution, but they are, at a minimum, accessories after the fact to Treason. If the reasons for their obfuscation is to allow future Russian interference in our elections to secure advantage in future elections, then they are guilty of Treason.
The case for Congressional investigation
The Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election (Mueller report) found, "
The Russian Government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systemic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its compter network. Releases of hacked materials--hacks that public soon attributed to the Russian government--began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November. (Mueller report, pg 1)The Mueller Report goes on to summarize details of the Russian uncovered by that investigation. Malcom Nance, a retired US Navy Cryptology Techntian, and civilian intelligence specialist, (The Plot to Hack America) presents in greater detail the breath of the attacks that not only impacted the DNC, but also attempted to breach the election systems in 21 states. Nance's narrative details the publicly available information concerning the attacks, including the Internet Protocol Addresses of the hackers, and in some cases can even identifies the type of keyboard in use, clearly tying. Specific hacker groups withing the Russian FSB (successor to the KGB) and GRU (millitary intelligence) are identified.
The conclusion of the Mueller report and of Nance's detailed narrative are echoed by congressional testimony from the heads of U.S Intelligence Agencies; the FBI; representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter; and representatives from commercial cyber security firms.
The conclusion that the United States was attacked by a foreign adversary is beyond question, as is the conclusion that the attack was carried out by Vlidimir Putin's Russian Federation. This was an act of cyber warfare. It was as much an attack on the United States as Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
The Mueller report also notes, "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities (Mueller report pp 1-2, emphasis added)
From this we can infer that the Trump Campaign knew about the Russian cyber attack and not only failed to take any action to stop it, but expected to benefit from it, and perhaps even encouraged it. We can also conclude that Donald Trump knew about the cyber attack, if not from his campaign staff, then from public reports and briefings from intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, in her book The Case for Impeaching Trump, spends an entire chapter detailing the numerous times, all verifiable from the video and other records of the news media, that Trump as denied or minimized the cyber attack, or attempted to exculpate Russia. She also details the lack of action taken by Trump and his administration to carry into execution two bill passed by Congress aimed at preventing future attacks, or any other actions that would prevent or minimize damage from future cyber attacks.
The U.S. Constitution defines Treason:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." (emphasis added)It is difficult for me to see the expectation of electoral benefit from the Russian cyber attack, the failure to report the offers of information, Trump's extensive pattern of denial, minimization, and attempts to exculpate Russia, especially in light of his statements that he trusts Putin over his own intelligence services, and his other statements in Helsinki as not "adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
The Mueller report did not address the question of Treason, which is the first listed cause for impeachment, along with "bribery and other high crimes or misdemeanors." And it is but one of many potential causes to commence impeachment proceedings. Short of Treason, From the Mueller report we could find Trump's failure to act to prevent or minimize the danger of future cyber attacks is a dereliction of his duty as Commander-in-Chief; his failure to carry the bills passed by Congress in to execution is a dereliction of his duty to "...take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,...;" the ten instances detailed in volume 2, as a bipartisan group of more than 700 former prosecutors has informed us, is chargeable as Obstruction of Justice. Beyond Mueller, his willful shutdown of the government to try to coerce Congress in to funding his border wall is a failure to see that the laws are faithfully executed; his emergency declaration to bypass the Legislative power of appropriation is an attempted usurpation of Congressional power; his refusal to divest his business, etc. are potential violations of the emoluments clauses in Article I Section 9 and Article II Section 1 of the Constitution; his current stonewalling of all requests for documents or testimony and his failure to comply with subpoenas is contempt of Congress and an attempt to avoid Congressional oversight; and finally, his pattern of lies and misinformation misleads the American people.
(Each of these has, in one form or another, been included in an Article of Impeachment at one point or another. Contrary to common belief - and the assertions of Alan Dershowitz in The Case Against Impeaching Trump - the phrase "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" does not mean a violation of the Federal Criminal Code, but over simplified, is a failure to do his job. Impeachment is not a question of sending him to jail, but a question of Trump being on the receiving end of his signature line from The Apprentice, "You're fired!" The standard of proof is not "beyond a reasonable doubt," but a determination by a majority of the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority of the Senate that the United States would be better off without him that it is with him in the White house. See To End a Presidency, Laurence Tribe & Joshua Metz and The Case for Impeaching Trump, Holtzman - Note that Holtzman was a member of the House during the Nixon impeachment hearings in 1973-74. )
Although it is tempting to say that there is already enough evidence in the public view to begin impeachment proceedings, I am not going to draw that conclusion here. Instead, I am going to draw the conclusion that there is more than enough evidence to investigate Trump's conduct to determine if the country would or would not be better off without him.
The duty of Congress to investigate further
In my initial premise, I have identified at least nine separate areas that could form the basis for Articles of Impeachment that are in full public view for anyone that cares to look. If this conduct is potentially grounds for impeachment, then it is certainly grounds for Congressional oversight, and there are certainly potential legislative actions that would provide a purpose to further investigate. The oath of office each Representative or Senator takes, like the oath I took in the military and the one the President takes, requires them to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," failure to conduct a fair investigation would be contrary to their oath of office. I think this point is so obvious that I shouldn't have to state it, but it appears that many Republican Members of Congress and Republican Senators need to have it explained to them.
The Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, Representative Collins of Georgia described the efforts of that committee to continue to investigating Trump's conduct as a "circus." To continue using his metaphor, it would appear the he and his fellow Republicans on the committee are the clowns in that circus.
While the Democrats on the committee were asking insightful questions of the witnesses, the Republicans, starting with Collins, used their time to promote irrelevant ad hominem attacks on the Democrats, made irrelevant calls to investigate the investigators, presented straw-man arguments, or claimed that the Mueller report was dispositive of all questions. They asked few if any questions and added little of substance to the proceeding. This same pattern of behavior is present in many Republic Senators.
It seems from their rhetoric that one of three things must be true for each of them, either:
- They had not actually read the Mueller report, which would be negligence on their part;
- They had read, but do not understand the significance of the report, which would be indicative of incompetence; or
- They had read and understood the report and were deliberately trying to obfuscate its substance and importance in order to sway public opinion and discredit both the investigation and the need to investigate further for personal or partisan reasons.
Item 3 is troubling.
As I noted in my initial premise, between the findings of the Mueller report, other Congressional testimony, and information in the public sphere, a case, even a strong case, for Treason can be made. If the Republicans in Congress are deliberately obfuscating, delaying, or dissembling in order to prevent the American people from learning the truth and making a fair assessment of whether Trump's conduct is treasonous the they have not only failed in their duty to protect and defend the Constitution, but they are, at a minimum, accessories after the fact to Treason. If the reasons for their obfuscation is to allow future Russian interference in our elections to secure advantage in future elections, then they are guilty of Treason.
Conclusion
Republican members of Congress need to stop accusing the Democrats of partisan politics in their attempts to investigate Trump and his administration. Such claims are irrelevant ad hominem arguments that add nothing to the pursuit of truth. Republicans also need to stop their partisan attempts to obfuscate, delay and obstruct proper investigations. And Republicans need to adhere to their oath of office and conduct fair investigations instead of trying to muddy the waters.
I will go one step further: Any Republican Representative of Senator that believes his chances for re-election are dependent on his support of Trump such that he cannot pursue the truth in these investigations should not be in office and should resign. In matters such as this, Representatives and Senators should be leaders of public opinion, not followers of it.
What good is your office if you stand idly by and allow the Constitution and the rule of law be trashed?
Guidelines for comments
- Let us know whether or not you have read the Mueller report, and whether you understand what it says.
- Please present dissenting opinions, but include in them evidence to support your position, and give your sources. The objective here is to seek the truth, not to create a flame war.
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