Bill Clinton Impeachment Trial

US V Nixon; Clinton V Jones; And Now Trump Lawsuit Against January 6 Committee Appeal To Supreme Court!

The Supreme Court has come out with two decisions in the past half century that made it clear of the limits of Presidential power!

In 1974, in US V Nixon, the Supreme Court, including three appointees of President Richard Nixon, unanimously by an 8-0 vote, declared that Nixon had to hand over the Watergate tapes to the Special Prosecutor, leading to the resignation of Nixon from the Presidency within weeks!

In 1997, in Clinton V Jones, the Supreme Court, including two appointees of President Bill Clinton, unanimously by a 9-0 vote, declared that a President had no immunity from civil law litigation in federal court for acts done before taking office. This case involved the sexual harrassment charge brought by Paula Jones against Governor Bill Clinton

Clinton’s evasiveness in testifying in court about Paula Jones led to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, and his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1998, although found not guilty by the Senate in the impeachment trial in 1999.

Now, Donald Trump wants “executive privilege” to be in effect to prevent evidence in White House records of what he was doing on January 6, 2021 involving the Capitol Hill Insurrection, to be presented to the January 6 House Committee, investigating the events of that day. President Joe Biden has authorized waiver of such privileges, since Trump is a former President.

Despite having three Trump appointments to the Supreme Court, the strong likelihood is that the Court will, unanimously, reject such arguments, as earlier Courts did involving Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

If such does not happen, which seems like a long shot, then the Court will have besmirched its reputation for the long term, and the reputation of Chief Justice John Roberts will be damaged forever.

And that will promote the likelihood of attempts to add four new members to a Court which will be the most condemned and pilloried since the time of Chief Justice Roger Taney during the Civil War!

Alan Dershowitz Trashes Laurence Tribe, Fellow Harvard Law Professor, But Only Undermines His Own Credibility On Presidential Power

Retired Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz went out of his way yesterday, in the first of two days of questioning of the prosecution and defense lawyers in the Donald Trump Impeachment Trial, to trash fellow Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe.

Dershowitz has come under fire for arguing that Trump has NOT committed an impeachable offense, and he went further yesterday to claim that anything a President does to help his political campaign, even using foreign nations’ assistance, is legal and not an abuse of power, a startling statement with zero merit!

Dershowitz has undermined his own credibility as an expert on the subject of impeachment, with his complete reversal from the time of the Bill Clinton impeachment trial, and with almost all law professors and historians taking the completely opposite view.

According to the view of Dershowitz, Presidential power is unlimited, and if that is the trend of the future, then the Constitution is in shreds, and the idea of a republic is destroyed!

To trash a respected professor such as Tribe is a terrible tactic, and shows the lack of ethics and common sense of Alan Dershowitz!

Trump Defense In Impeachment Trial Is Weak, Lifeless, Boring, And Hypocritical

The Trump Impeachment Trial defense attorneys yesterday gave us a weak, lifeless, boring, and hypocritical defense.

Particularly disgraceful were Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz, as they contradicted their stands on the Bill Clinton impeachment a generation ago.

The vast majority of legal and historical scholars are in total disagreement on impeachment views from these two attorneys.

Also, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who assisted Donald Trump on the Trump University scam, made a fool of herself.

For Ken Starr now to deplore impeachment when he made a spectacle of pursuing Bill Clinton a generation ago is shameful.

And Alan Dershowitz lost all credibility as a legal scholar with his changing views, evolving as more confused than ever over the past week from what had been his honest, reasoned view a generation ago.

Trump’s Impeachment Defense Team The Most Obnoxious, Obscene, And Crooked Imaginable!

Donald Trump is employing Alan Dershowitz, a clearly demented, egotistical, unethical former Harvard Law Professor, who is totally contradicted by most prestigious law professors, including those at Harvard, to present his case in the upcoming impeachment trial.

Dershowitz has represented many of the most despicable criminals imaginable, and while he says he is a “Liberal Democrat”, he clearly has no principles other than his own economic aggrandizement and egotistical glorification. Dershowitz is a criminal lawyer, not a great constitutional lawyer, and he is undermining American democracy with his willingness to defend the abuse of power by Donald Trump.

Trump is also employing Ken Starr, the prosecutor who brought about the ultimate impeachment trial against Bill Clinton, glorying in providing precise sexual details about Clinton’s love life, and then, being President of Baylor University, which had a football player sex scandal which he handled terribly, and resigned in disgrace.

The worst of humanity is what Dershowitz and Starr are, and their ethical violations should lead to their disbarment and disgrace, as they are the most obnoxious, obscene, and crooked defense teams of lawyers ever conceived!

Impeachment Investigations Of Government Officials In American History Mostly Without Basis, More For Political Purposes

The impeachment of Donald Trump seems possible in 2019 IF the Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives, which seems highly likely, based upon polls 100 days out, and with the reminder that the party out of the White House always gains seats in the midterm elections, with the exceptions of 1934 under Franklin D. Roosevelt and 2002 under George W. Bush.

Having said that, it is reality that impeachment does not lead to convictions and removals from office, with the exception of seven federal district court judges over the long span of American history.

Richard Nixon would have been an exception if he had not resigned, but Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton both were found not guilty in their impeachment trials.

Other Presidents have been threatened with impeachment, but it was more just a threat or simply could not gain enough support in the House of Representatives to lead to impeachment.

That list of threatened impeachments include: John Tyler in 1842 and 1843; James Buchanan in 1860; Ulysses S. Grant in 1876; Herbert Hoover in 1933; Harry Truman in 1951; Ronald Reagan in 1987; George H. W. Bush in 1991; George W. Bush in 2008; Barack Obama in 2013: and Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018. Notice most of these were not serious, and in many cases occurred in the last year of the President’s term or near the end of his last term in office.

Vice Presidents who have faced impeachment threats are: Schuyler Colfax in 1873, as he was leaving the Grant Administration; Spiro Agnew in 1973 as he neared resignation due to scandal under the Nixon Administration; George H. W. Bush in 1987 as the Iran Contra scandal emerged; and Dick Cheney in 2007 as the second Bush Administration dealt with the Iraq War continuation. None of them gained any traction.

Impeachment motions against Cabinet officers and other federal officials have been mostly just a gesture, a threat, as with, for example, Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013; Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez in 2007; and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004. Most recently threatened with impeachment is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the past few days, but unlikely to gain any traction, more used as a political ploy.

The Harvey Weinstein Scandal Makes Holding Donald Trump Accountable For Misbehavior With Women An Urgent Matter!

The disgraceful behavior towards women of Harvey Weinstein, famed Hollywood producer, has brought the issue of sexual harassment and sexual aggression of powerful men toward women in Hollywood and the corporate world and in society in general into new attention.

It is totally unacceptable that any woman in the work world should have to deal with this.

One would think after the Justice Clarence Thomas debacle in 1991, and the adoption of sexual harassment laws shortly after, that this would not be the problem that it clearly is in 2017.

One out of five women, and possibly more, have faced or will face such misbehavior by men, and our President is clearly a leading abuser of women and their bodies, as he himself bragged about in the infamous Access Hollywood tape a year ago, which should have been the nail in the coffin of his Presidential candidacy, but did not lead to his defeat.

But Trump still needs to be held accountable, as much as Harvey Weinstein and every other sexual abuser, no matter how famous or unknown each person is.

Bill Clinton was held accountable and impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998, although not convicted and removed from office by the Senate in 1999. But he suffered the torment and embarrassment of going through the impeachment process.

Meanwhile, the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives were themselves engaged in such misbehavior, including then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and others, including Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, and even Dennis Hastert, future Speaker who had victimized teenage boys in his earlier career as a high school wrestling coach.

The Republicans were very willing to pursue Bill Clinton, while continuing their own bad behavior.

Where is the Republican outrage about Donald Trump and his misbehavior over the years?

It is time to hold Donald Trump accountable, as much as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, and others, and to impeach him for his misbehavior, along with many other impeachment charges, and make it clear that just because one is wealthy and powerful, that he cannot get away with such abuse.

35 Years Of CNN!

On this day in 1980, the Cable News Network began, and it is hard to recall the time before cable news, news 24 hours a day, came to be the norm!

CNN, founded by Ted Turner, has undergone a tremendous amount of change, and has been much criticized, but it set the standard for cable news all over America, and was unchallenged, until the emergence of MSNBC and Fox News Channel in 1996.

CNN first became widely popular during the Persian Gulf War; and also gained by its coverage of the O J Simpson Murder Trial; the Bill Clinton Impeachment Trial; the controversial Presidential Election of 2000; the September 11, 2001 attacks of Al Qaeda; the Iraq War; Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans; the election of Barack Obama in 2008; and the Boston Marathon Bombing, among many other historic and, often, tragic events.

As much as there is room for vast improvement in news coverage, CNN has contributed a great deal to public discourse and discussion, informing the American people of what they need to know to be good American citizens, and to understand the world we live in!