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Bill Curry: A democracy that can't look itself in the eye may not be long for this world
Bill Curry was White House counselor to President Bill Clinton and a two-time Democratic nominee for governor of Connecticut.When Robert Mueller comes to Congress next week to field questions — "answer" is too optimistic — about what he learned in his investigation of Russia and Donald Trump, it’ll be his and our last chance to get it right; to inform the American people of the enormity of Trump’s offenses and our sacred duty to impeach him. If he doesn’t want to, or can’t be made to, we may all say, in unison with Mitch McConnell, “case closed” as all hope of impeachment will have died.
...We’re arrived here for two reasons. One is that Mueller, without telling anyone, took it upon himself to limit the scope of his mandate in a way no one foresaw or even imagined. Having accepted the idea — enshrined not in the Constitution or a law or a Supreme Court ruling, but only in a department memo — that no president may be indicted while in office, not even under seal for later prosecution, Mueller decided it would be unfair to the president even to mention that he’d committed multiple felonies. Till Mueller said it, no one, not even Bill Barr, had thought it.
The second reason is that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic political and media establishments bungled their jobs from the first. That’s true not only of impeachment but of all matters pertaining to corruption. The media doesn’t know how to cover it; Congress doesn’t know how to investigate it; neither grasps its centrality to our politics or to the sad condition of our middle class, our democracy and our country.
...It is a poor tactician who thinks only of tactics. The job of Pelosi and her caucus now is to focus on duty. If they do, I think they’ll be rewarded politically, but they must put that consideration aside, because other considerations so outweigh it. First is the magnitude of the crimes. Altogether, the crimes of Johnson, Nixon and Clinton don’t equal Trump’s. He’s the most corrupt president in history. He plotted with a foreign power to steal an election, which meets most Americans’ definition of treason. He obstructs justice, which violates his oath of office. His incessant lies shred democracy’s very fabric. Loyalty to country, the rule of law and the truth aren’t just "norms." They are core values. We must defend them.
Second is our need for a public record of Trump’s crimes. When Pelosi says she’d rather see Trump jailed, she’s kicking the same can Mueller kicked to her. At least Mueller knew to whom he kicked it. For all Pelosi knows, a President Biden may decide bipartisanship means letting bygones be bygones. In an earlier column, I talked about the price we paid for our failure to investigate the lies that led to the Iraq War and the 2008 global financial meltdown. Deep down, we know if we fail to impeach, we may never know what happened, and that a democracy that can’t look itself in the eye may not be long for this world. Most important is that these crimes are all ongoing. This isn’t Whitewater, a look back at a failed real estate deal. Our democracy is under siege. While Trump and Putin laugh out loud, our next election is being stolen right out from under us. If you say we can stop it without resort to impeachment, you must say how.
More at https://www.salon.com/2019/07/16/last-chance-for-impeachment-next-week-robert-mueller-will-shape-history-but-how/
...We’re arrived here for two reasons. One is that Mueller, without telling anyone, took it upon himself to limit the scope of his mandate in a way no one foresaw or even imagined. Having accepted the idea — enshrined not in the Constitution or a law or a Supreme Court ruling, but only in a department memo — that no president may be indicted while in office, not even under seal for later prosecution, Mueller decided it would be unfair to the president even to mention that he’d committed multiple felonies. Till Mueller said it, no one, not even Bill Barr, had thought it.
The second reason is that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic political and media establishments bungled their jobs from the first. That’s true not only of impeachment but of all matters pertaining to corruption. The media doesn’t know how to cover it; Congress doesn’t know how to investigate it; neither grasps its centrality to our politics or to the sad condition of our middle class, our democracy and our country.
...It is a poor tactician who thinks only of tactics. The job of Pelosi and her caucus now is to focus on duty. If they do, I think they’ll be rewarded politically, but they must put that consideration aside, because other considerations so outweigh it. First is the magnitude of the crimes. Altogether, the crimes of Johnson, Nixon and Clinton don’t equal Trump’s. He’s the most corrupt president in history. He plotted with a foreign power to steal an election, which meets most Americans’ definition of treason. He obstructs justice, which violates his oath of office. His incessant lies shred democracy’s very fabric. Loyalty to country, the rule of law and the truth aren’t just "norms." They are core values. We must defend them.
Second is our need for a public record of Trump’s crimes. When Pelosi says she’d rather see Trump jailed, she’s kicking the same can Mueller kicked to her. At least Mueller knew to whom he kicked it. For all Pelosi knows, a President Biden may decide bipartisanship means letting bygones be bygones. In an earlier column, I talked about the price we paid for our failure to investigate the lies that led to the Iraq War and the 2008 global financial meltdown. Deep down, we know if we fail to impeach, we may never know what happened, and that a democracy that can’t look itself in the eye may not be long for this world. Most important is that these crimes are all ongoing. This isn’t Whitewater, a look back at a failed real estate deal. Our democracy is under siege. While Trump and Putin laugh out loud, our next election is being stolen right out from under us. If you say we can stop it without resort to impeachment, you must say how.
More at https://www.salon.com/2019/07/16/last-chance-for-impeachment-next-week-robert-mueller-will-shape-history-but-how/
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