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“Dozens of people with connections to President Donald Trump and his associates will receive document requests this week, as the House Judiciary Committee starts a broad new probe looking at possible obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power. The panel sent letters to 81 people asking a flurry of questions about Trump’s activities before and after he was elected president. Those included family, former business associates and current and former White House advisers.” AP News
On Sunday Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told ABC, “It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice.” ABC News
The left believes Congress is fulfilling its constitutional duties by investigating the President.
“Democrats have long said they want to wait to act on impeachment until after Mueller issues his final report. But Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to commit to providing Mueller’s findings to Congress—combined with the recent testimony by Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen that Trump implicitly asked him to lie to Congress—has given Democrats a new sense of urgency.”
Natasha Bertrand, The Atlantic
“I do not know whether former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s explosive testimony before the House Oversight Committee last week is sufficient to prove that there are grounds to impeach Trump. But Cohen’s testimony, coupled with the indictments of many of Trump’s other close advisers and the federal and state investigations into Trump’s business affairs, compels Pelosi to authorize a formal impeachmentinquiry… At this point, it would be an abdication of responsibility for the House not to pursue [an investigation].”
Philip Allen Lacovara, Washington Post
“In many ways, the congressional investigation offers advantages that Mueller’s probe lacks… While Mueller is bound by grand jury secrecy rules and Department of Justice policies to prevent public disclosure of matters under investigation, congressional committees operate largely in the public…
“Mueller is [also] limited to looking for federal crimes. But just because conduct does not amount to a violation of the criminal code does not mean that Congress should permit it to occur unchecked.”
Barbara McQuade, New York Magazine
“Political investigations tend to be marathons rather than sprints, requiring the slow, meticulous accretion of evidential layers. It’s easy to forget how slowly and painfully the Watergate investigation unfolded. It was more than a year after John Dean’s congressional testimony that President Richard Nixon resigned. With his investigation, Mr. Nadler is looking to build a case for impeachment so compelling that it will have enough bipartisan support to survive the Republican-controlled Senate… This is what oversight looks like.”
Michelle Cottle, New York Times
Some posit that “the Framers fantasized that the Senate would be made up of disinterested natural aristocrats who would always put country above party… [But] it hasn’t exactly turned out that way. In a two-party system with roughly equal distribution of power, whichever party holds the presidency will almost inevitably be able to block removal in the Senate, provided its members think the party has more to lose from removal than to gain from it…
“Constitutionally, this aggressive exercise of oversight may answer a question that has troubled many observers, myself included: What happens to the rule of law if there is evidence that the president is guilty of serious crimes, but there’s insufficient political will to impeach him? The answer may well be that such a president can be made to twist slowly in the wind, provided the opposition party controls one chamber of Congress.”
Noah Feldman, Bloomberg
Regarding the Cadillac tax, “high-premium employer-based plans raise the cost of health care for everyone by encouraging the overconsumption of expensive services. This means that even Medicare and Medicaid face higher prices. Quite aside from its benefits for the health-care market, the Cadillac tax would also have the effect of expanding the tax base and making the tax code more efficient. It would raise revenues by about $15 billion a year… Rather than killing or delaying the Cadillac tax, Democrats should be trying to make it operational. The tax would raise revenue, lower costs, increase the efficiency of the tax code and give the Obamacare individual market its best chance at success.”
Karl W. Smith, Bloomberg
“The two issues with which he is most often associated, support for a balanced budget and opposition to free trade, put him at odds with both of our major political parties. An old-fashioned, soft-spoken Southerner, he nevertheless held views on so-called ‘social issues’ that would be to the left of the mainstream of the Republican Party, both then and now. He was a fervent supporter of the Vietnam POW/MIA movement in the late '80s and early '90s, but he was not in any sense a hawk. Never mind 2003. Perot opposed the first war in Iraq in 1990… Perot's death should be mourned by all Americans who regret the fact that it is no longer possible to make reasoned, non-ideological arguments about questions of public import, and by the devolution of our political life into mindless partisan squabbling.”
Matthew Walther, The Week
The right dismisses the investigation as politically motivated, and believes Democrats have already made up their minds to impeach Trump.
The right dismisses the investigation as politically motivated, and believes Democrats have already made up their minds to impeach Trump.
“Until recently, the left routinely claimed Mueller was essential to the survival of our democracy. Now they seem prepared to skip right past his final conclusions… While ‘collusion’ is fading away, the Democrats are ready to deploy ‘obstruction’ and ‘tax returns’ in its place as their anti-Trump mantra. This is Congressional Democrats showing us what their true motive has been all along: Get Trump in any way, at any cost.”
Buck Sexton, Fox News
“A President can obstruct justice while in office but only if he is committing a per se illegal offense. That is, if he suborns perjury or destroys evidence, or commits ‘any act deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence,’ as [Attorney General William Barr] put it. Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton committed such acts in Mr. Barr’s view, but Mr. Trump has not as far as we can see…
“A President cannot obstruct justice when he takes actions that are consistent with his Article II powers under the Constitution. That includes in particular firing inferior executive-branch officers such as Mr. Comey. Such acts may be politically stupid, but they aren’t obstruction.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
Unfortunately, “Nadler sounded less like a man weighing the evidence than a man who has has made up his mind… Nadler's talk with ABC was the clearest indication yet that Democrats have decided to impeach Trump and are now simply doing the legwork involved in making that happen. And that means the debate among House Democrats will be a tactical one — what is the best time and way to go forward — rather than a more fundamental discussion of whether the president should be impeached.”
Byron York, Washington Examiner
Meanwhile, “because investigations by Mueller, the House, the Senate, and the national news media have only produced evidence of process crimes or years-old bank fraud and tax evasion, it’s not obvious that Americans even know what they’re supposed to be alarmed about.”
Eddie Scarry, Washington Examiner
Some argue that “this Dem investigation blitz is going to be the most ambitious taxpayer-funded oppo research project for an election in the history of the country. Democrats are much less interested in the ostensible and futile goal of that research, the president’s removal by the Senate, than they are in winning next November and hoping that the blue tide carries them to a new Senate majority as well. They won’t impeach. They’ll ask voters to do it for them.”
Allahpundit, Hot Air
Others note that Congress’s ability to conduct these investigations shows there was no need for the special counsel in the first place. This is “how the process should work. Congressional Democrats, who are politically accountable, will now decide how to investigate and handle inherently politically charged matters out in the open; they will pay the price if they seem unreasonable or like they are going too far. This work never should have been wedged into the executive branch via the special counsel.”
Rich Lowry, National Review
“NBC and MSNBC embraced Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in the first debate of Democratic presidential candidates Wednesday night, treating her like the star of the show. The debate led off with Warren, who had a huge popularity advantage from the start… NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie started it off sounding more like Warren’s press secretary. ‘You have many plans – free college, free child care, government health care, cancelation of student debt, new taxes, new regulations, the breakup of major corporations,’ Guthrie said, before teeing up an economy question. Guthrie even used Warren’s plan to break up tech companies as the foundation for a question for Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey… the round-robin final comments also ended with Warren, as Maddow asked her for the ‘final, final statement.’ That let NBC bookend the entire debate with Warren and Warren.”
Dan Gainor, Fox News
“President Trump should be happy. As much as Warren is articulate, obviously intelligent, and energetically supported by Democrats, she would also be far easier to defeat than Joe Biden… Considering Trump's economy, the president is well placed to defeat Warren.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
A libertarian's take
“The fans who avidly followed the men’s tournament certainly weren’t doing anything wrong. And it’s hard to argue that each of them had a moral obligation to be exactly as interested in women’s soccer. Even if we could stop them from watching the men more than the women, should we?…
“It’s tempting to answer that the fan choices aren’t innocent, they’re sexist. But since we can’t peek into their hearts, to say that definitively, we’d have to assume that men’s greater speed, strength and endurance definitely make nodifference to the sport’s quality. Fair enough, but then why do fans prefer to watch Megan Rapinoe play instead of the sedentary elderly who could presumably use some exercise? Alternatively, maybe pay should be equalized precisely because biology is unfair. But that seems to be an argument for curbing the pay of all top-level athletes, who have to hit the genetic lottery just to get on the field. It might be easier to focus on the distributions across society at large, rather than every individual industry, especially when fundamental biology is in play.”
Megan McArdle, Washington Post
She read the fine print on her insurance policy. It won her $10,000 in a contest.
Tampa Bay Times
