House Democrats move to block Trump's emergency declaration on border
February 20, 2019 / 4:06 PM / Updated an hour ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives plan to introduce a resolution on Friday to end President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration on border security, according to aides to Representative Joaquin Castro.
So far, 92 lawmakers have joined Castro in backing the legislation, which under House rules could advance within weeks to a debate by the full chamber, which is controlled by Democrats.
Trump declared a national emergency last week in order to take money Congress had appropriated for other activities and use it to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump’s move came after Congress declined to fulfill his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall this year.
Both the House and the Republican-led Senate could pass a resolution terminating the emergency by majority vote. However, any such measure would then go to Trump, who would likely veto it. Overriding the veto would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
A coalition of 16 U.S. states led by California sued Trump and top members of his administration on Monday to block his decision to declare the emergency.
The lawsuit said Trump’s declaration was a misuse of presidential power.
Reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
Opinion -- The Mueller Report Is Coming. Here’s What to Expect. A concise report will probably act as a “road map” to investigation for the Democratic House — and to further criminal investigation by other prosecutors.
By Neal K. Katyal Mr. Katyal was an acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama.
Feb. 21, 2019 The special counsel Robert Mueller will apparently soon turn in a report to the new attorney general, William Barr. Sure, there is still a lot of activity, including subpoenas, flying around, but that shouldn’t stop Mr. Mueller.
The report is unlikely to be a dictionary-thick tome, which will disappoint some observers. But such brevity is not necessarily good news for the president. In fact, quite the opposite.
For months, the president’s lawyers have tried to discredit Mr. Mueller and this report, but their efforts may have backfired. A concise Mueller report might act as a “road map” to investigation for the Democratic House of Representatives — and it might also lead to further criminal investigation by other prosecutors. A short Mueller report would mark the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.
The report is unlikely to be lengthy by design: The special counsel regulations, which I had the privilege of drafting in 1999, envision a report that is concise, “a summary” of what he found. And Mr. Mueller’s mandate is limited: to look into criminal activity and counterintelligence matters surrounding Russia and the 2016 election, as well as any obstruction of justice relating to those investigations.
The regulations require the attorney general to give Congress a report, too. The regulations speak of the need for public confidence in the administration of justice and even have a provision for public release of the attorney general’s report. In a world where Mr. Mueller was the only investigator, the pressure for a comprehensive report to the public would be overwhelming. This is where the “witch hunt” attacks on Mr. Mueller may have backfired. For 19 months, Mr. Trump and his team have had one target to shoot at, and that target has had limited jurisdiction. But now the investigation resembles the architecture of the internet, with many different nodes, and some of those nodes possess potentially unlimited jurisdiction. Their powers and scope go well beyond Mr. Mueller’s circumscribed mandate; they go to Mr. Trump’s judgment and whether he lied to the American people. They also include law enforcement investigations having nothing to do with Russia, such as whether the president directed the commission of serious campaign finance crimes, as federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have already stated in filings. These are all critical matters, each with serious factual predicates already uncovered by prosecutors.
Had Mr. Trump and his coterie done nothing wrong, they would have had little to fear from the special counsel, and a report from Mr. Mueller that cleared him would be the gold seal of approval. But Mr. Trump’s behavior, including his dangling of pardons to witnesses in the investigation, makes total exoneration unlikely, even though it is enormously difficult to prosecute crimes with international dimensions and assertions of privilege. The investigation has been further clouded by the fact that people in Mr. Trump’s inner circle lied repeatedly when it came to Russia (that long list includes Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone).
Sure, it is at least possible to envision the special counsel resolving each strand of the investigation and making such information public in detail. But it is also quite possible — and more likely — to think that the president’s bashing of Mr. Mueller may induce him to issue a more limited, by-the-book report, which will spawn further investigation. And the bashing may have encouraged Mr. Mueller to turn matters over to other investigators who have not been subject to the same sorts of public attack.
The House of Representatives has already begun its investigation. To understand the dangers Mr. Trump may face in the aftermath of a limited Mueller report, consider the request Congress made in 1974 to the special prosecutor Leon Jaworski as it opened an impeachment inquiry. Mr. Jaworski is analogous to Mr. Mueller — indeed, his appointment was a model for the special counsel regulations. In March 1974, Peter Rodino, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Mr. Jaworski, requesting all information he had uncovered in his investigation. Mr. Rodino understood that Mr. Jaworski’s mandate was far more limited than the House’s, and his letter stated that “it would be unthinkable if this material were kept from the House of Representatives in the course of the discharge of its most awesome constitutional responsibility.” Of course, there is no open impeachment inquiry now. But that could quickly change if Mr. Mueller writes a report that is anything less than a full clearing of the president: Congress would be under a constitutional obligation to investigate the facts for itself. Congress cannot be satisfied that impeachable offenses were not committed when Mr. Mueller’s investigative mandate did not cover many impeachable offenses, and when his report does not provide detailed information and answers to the few offenses that are within his mandate. This is where Mr. Mueller’s “by the book” behavior may be initially unsatisfying to Mr. Trump’s critics but ultimately more threatening to the president in the long run.
The overlapping investigations by different entities, housed in different branches of government, spanning geography and even different governments (such as the New York attorney general’s investigation into the Trump Foundation), make it difficult for anyone, even Attorney General Barr, to end the inquiries.
This news may be disappointing, for various reasons, to the president’s critics and supporters alike. But the ultimate result is a good one. It means the truth is likely to come out — maybe not on the timetable anyone wants, but it will. So whenever Mr. Mueller turns in his report, do not assume that things are over. Like “The king is dead, long live the King,” the investigations here serve a purpose that transcends any one individual or law enforcement entity. This is the architecture of our Constitution, which is designed to ferret out high-level wrongdoing through a variety of channels for the American public to see.
White House Asked McGahn to Declare Trump Never Obstructed Justice
"Intimidation, Pressure and Humiliation: Inside Trump’s Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him"
President Trump believed that Donald F. McGahn II, his former White House counsel, showed disloyalty by telling investigators about Mr. Trump’s attempts to maintain control over the Russia investigation.CreditCreditAndrew Harnik/Associated Press
By Michael S. Schmidt
May 10, 2019
WASHINGTON — White House officials asked at least twice in the past month for the key witness against President Trump in the Mueller report, Donald F. McGahn II, to say publicly that he never believed the president obstructed justice, according to two people briefed on the requests.
Mr. Trump asked White House officials to make the request to Mr. McGahn, who was the president’s first White House counsel, one of the people said. Mr. McGahn declined. His reluctance angered the president, who believed that Mr. McGahn showed disloyalty by telling investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, about Mr. Trump’s attempts to maintain control over the Russia investigation.
The White House made one of the requests to Mr. McGahn’s lawyer, William A. Burck, before the Mueller report was released publicly but after the Justice Department gave a copy to Mr. Trump’s lawyers in the preceding days. Reading the report, the president’s lawyers saw that Mr. Mueller left out that Mr. McGahn had told investigators that he believed the president never obstructed justice. Mr. Burck had told them months earlier about his client’s belief on the matter and that he had shared it with investigators.
Mr. McGahn initially entertained the White House request. “We did not perceive it as any kind of threat or something sinister,” Mr. Burck said in a statement. “It was a request, professionally and cordially made.” A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a message seeking comment.
But after the report was released, detailing the range of actions Mr. Trump took to try to impede the inquiry, Mr. McGahn decided to pass on putting out a statement supportive of the president. The report also revealed that Mr. Trump told aides he believed Mr. McGahn had leaked to the news media to make himself look good.
The episodes show the lengths the White House has gone around the release of the Mueller report to push back on the notion that Mr. Trump obstructed justice. House Democrats have used the report to open investigations into whether Mr. Trump abused his position to insulate himself from the Russia inquiry.
In the days after the report was released, White House officials asked Mr. McGahn again to put out a statement as Mr. Trump fumed about his disclosures but Mr. McGahn rebuffed the second request as well.
White House officials believed that Mr. McGahn publicly asserting his belief would calm the president and help the administration push back on the episodes that Mr. Mueller detailed in the obstruction section of the report, said one of the people. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations involving the White House.
Around the time Mr. McGahn declined the second request, the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani began publicly attacking his credibility, saying that Mr. McGahn had a bad memory. “It can’t be taken at face value,” Mr. Giuliani said of Mr. McGahn’s account .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/us/politics/giuliani-mcgahn-trump-mueller.html?module=inline .. one day after the Mueller report was released. “It could be the product of an inaccurate recollection or could be the product of something else.”
The White House learned in August that Mr. McGahn had told Mr. Mueller’s investigators that he believed the president had not obstructed justice, according to one of the people. After a New York Times article .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/us/politics/don-mcgahn-mueller-investigation.html?module=inline .. revealed that Mr. McGahn had spoken to investigators for at least 30 hours, Mr. Burck tried to reassure the White House by explaining that his client told Mr. Mueller that he never believed Mr. Trump had committed an obstruction offense.
Mr. McGahn’s cooperation with Mr. Mueller played a crucial role in allowing the special counsel’s investigators to paint a picture in their report of a president determined to use his power atop the executive branch to protect himself from the Russia investigation.
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The findings from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are now available to the public. The redacted report details his two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The president’s lawyers are particularly concerned about two episodes that Mr. McGahn detailed to prosecutors. In one, Mr. Trump asked him to fire the special counsel but backed off after Mr. McGahn refused. After that episode was revealed, the president asked Mr. McGahn to create a White House document falsely rebutting his account. Mr. McGahn declined to go along but told Mr. Mueller about the encounters.
It makes no difference legally whether Mr. McGahn believes Mr. Trump obstructed justice. That is a determination made by prosecutors, not witnesses. But politically, such a statement could have been a powerful argument for Mr. Trump, who faces scrutiny from House Democrats about whether he obstructed justice and abused his power.
Mr. Mueller declined to make a determination about whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice, saying that because a sitting president cannot be indicted, it was unfair to accuse him of committing a crime. Attorney General William P. Barr stepped in and decided with his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, to clear Mr. Trump of wrongdoing.
But because Mr. Mueller made no determination — and wrote a damning report that showed repeated efforts by Mr. Trump to interfere with his inquiry — questions about whether the president obstructed justice have lingered as Democrats have sought to gain momentum in their investigation of Mr. Trump.
The Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Mr. McGahn to testify. But White House advisers have indicated .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/politics/don-mcgahn-subpoena.html?module=inline .. they will try to block him from appearing before lawmakers, and Mr. Trump has said that there is no reason for Mr. McGahn to speak with congressional investigators because he had cooperated so extensively with Mr. Mueller’s team.
“I’ve had him testifying already for 30 hours and it’s really — so I don’t think I can let him and then tell everybody else you can’t,” Mr. Trump said last week in an interview with Fox News. “Especially him, because he was a counsel, so they’ve testified for many hours, all of them, many, many, many people. I can’t say, ‘Well, one can and the others can’t.’ I would say it’s done.”
Mr. McGahn left the White House last year but is still entangled with the president on matters related to the Mueller investigation. The White House instructed Mr. McGahn on Tuesday to not turn over documents he had to the House in response to a subpoena. Mr. McGahn followed the White House’s advice and is now waiting to see whether Democrats will hold him in contempt.
How to Impeach Trump, Do Justice and Win an Election
"Intimidation, Pressure and Humiliation: Inside Trump’s Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him"
There’s an approach that avoids both a “civil war” and Trump’s guaranteed re-election.
By Thomas L. Friedman Opinion Columnist Oct. 1, 2019
Damon Winter/The New York Times
I’m going to discuss impeachment today, but first I want to talk about the National Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert and gala last Saturday night. It was very revealing.
At mid-concert, the chairman of the Kennedy Center, David M. Rubinstein, came out to greet the audience and the V.I.P.s. He welcomed the different ambassadors, then he went through the cabinet members present and then the Supreme Court justices. He introduced Justice Samuel Alito, who got a smattering of applause. Then he introduced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seated in the balcony. First many women in the audience stood up to applaud. And then everyone stood up. And then everyone applauded. And then everyone applauded more. And then some people cheered. And then some whistled. And it went on and on and on.
It was extraordinary. I’ve been to a lot of Kennedy Center concerts, and a few when the president, sitting in his official box, was introduced. But I’ve never witnessed anything like the reception for Justice Ginsburg. And this was not a totally liberal audience. There were many older G.O.P. donors and corporate types there. This was a spontaneous, bipartisan expression of respect for, and longing for, a national leader of integrity and humility — after three years of a president utterly without shame, for whom no ethical red line has been too red to cross.
There is still a civic pulse in this country. Some Americans still support President Trump, but far, far more are exhausted and disgusted by him. And that is why his latest outrage is so dangerous to him. He knows that we know that many Republicans know that he committed an impeachable offense. And it’s all out there now: a whistle-blower complaint filed by a C.I.A. officer detailing how Trump dangled military assistance in front of the president of Ukraine if he would do Trump a “favor” and investigate bogus corruption charges against Joe Biden. Sign Up for Debatable
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I believe that this not only could warrant Trump’s impeachment but that it could be done without plunging the country into “civil war” or guaranteeing Trump’s re-election — provided Democrats keep stressing four things.
First, this charge against Trump began with an independent whistle-blower — an intelligence officer, aided by other insiders. Sure, it could turn out that he was a Hillary Clinton fan, which Trump would use to rile up his base, claiming that Democrats were trying to steal his election mandate. But if this turns out to be what it appears — a nonpolitical C.I.A. analyst and other civil servants motivated by their oath to uphold the Constitution in the face of a president who was violating his oath — then Trump and the Republicans will have a problem.
Democrats in Congress need to make sure they say and do nothing that gets in the middle of this framing of the story, which, for now, appears to be accurate: nonpolitical civil servants inside the government acting on conscience against a law-breaking president acting on political greed and excess.
That so many G.O.P. senators have kept quiet up to now — save for uber-sycophants like Lindsey Graham — suggests that they fear that this framing is accurate and it stinks to them.
Second, there almost surely will be another nonpolitical, high-integrity civil servant who will testify about Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. That’s Masha Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who was abruptly yanked home in May, months before her assignment was up. My State Department friends who know Yovanovitch say she was a widely respected, professional diplomat. She was apparently removed because she was somehow resisting Giuliani’s efforts to enlist the Ukraine government in Trump’s sordid effort to take down Biden.
Again, how eager will Republicans be to defend Giuliani and Trump by trashing a U.S. ambassador — with a stellar record — who was trying to prevent foreign interference in our elections?
Unlike Robert Mueller, who never spoke until it was too late and had his work “interpreted” by Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, the whistle-blower and his allies and the former ambassador are — and will be — speaking for themselves.
Third, unlike the Mueller investigation, this case is very easy for people to understand: Trump called the new Ukrainian president, who was desperate for U.S. military aid to use against Russian aggression, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: guns for Biden.
Finally, I have no doubt that Trump’s base will stick by him. But they are not the important constituency today, because Trump needs more than his base to get re-elected. He needs the moderate Republicans, independents and suburban women who came his way in 2016 — but then abandoned him in 2018, enabling the Democrats to retake the House. What will they do in 2020?
I believe that more than a few will be thinking about a question that will hang over all the impeachment testimony about Trump’s actions in Ukraine: If this is how he behaved while constrained by re-election concerns, how will Trump behave if he gets re-elected — despite this wretched behavior — and no longer needs to worry about re-election? America will become a banana republic.
It’s for all these reasons that Democrats have to be so disciplined in how they prosecute this case. They need to have a single spokesman, Representative Adam Schiff, and everyone else needs to keep quiet. They need to have professional prosecutors, not uninformed legislators, question witnesses; they need to keep the focus on the nonpolitical witnesses; and they need to have their presidential candidates stay out of this impeachment story and concentrate on their ideas for reviving and reuniting America.
Impeaching Trump right now on the eve of the next presidential election is very inconvenient. But doing the right thing is often inconvenient and unpopular — and doing it precisely when it’s inconvenient often indicates that it’s the right thing to do. But you have to do the right thing for the right reasons the right way.
Democrats should pursue impeachment in the House as if there were no election in 2020. And they should pursue the 2020 election as if there were no impeachment.
And they should do it by letting the nonpolitical whistle-blower and the other civil servants take the lead. These humble patriots started this, and it will go only as far as their credibility sustains it. And it’s their credibility that will influence the swing voters that brought Democrats the House in 2018 — those independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women — a few of whom, I suspect, were at the Kennedy Center last Saturday night, giving a standing ovation to Justice Ginsburg.
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