Rather than rejoice that our president did not commit treason, the Democrats in both Congress and the media seem more determined than ever to find something, anything they can use to drive him from office.
We're now told that we find ourselves immersed in a "constitutional crisis" a claim made by, inter alia, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler and CNN's Don Lemon. Here's Lemon:
Ever wonder what a constitutional crisis looks like? Well, open your eyes. The president of the United States is just blowing right through our system of checks and balances, the very thing that is supposed to keep our Congress, the judiciary, and the executive branch working, which means our country working.As the Federalist's David Harsanyi responds, however, Lemon's claim is a pile of horsepucky:
He is engaging in an ongoing cover-up by defying at every turn the representatives of you, the American people, the very people who are supposed to be investigating fact-finding on our behalf.
None of this is remotely true. Our checks and balances are working exactly as they should. Congress is free to make perpetual demands for information and testimony, and threaten the White House with contempt charges and impeachment when it doesn’t get its way. The White House, in turn, is free to assert executive privilege and decline to hand over that information or give testimony.Which raises the question, why doesn't the House, which is controlled by Democrats who claim that there's already enough evidence to prove the president guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, stop playing around with interminable investigations and get on with entering articles of impeachment?
Both the legislature and the executive branches have the option of asking the judiciary to weigh in on the matter. It’s not as if Donald Trump is blatantly ignoring the courts, as his predecessor often did. If voters disagree, they have the option of punishing elected officials by voting against them. If the legislature disagrees, it has an even more forceful solution available, and that’s impeachment.
Why don't they get this over with? Why drag it out? Why claim that there's a cover-up when the Mueller report is available for every Democrat congressperson to read (though none have), when the administration submitted reams of requested documents to House investigators, and supplied every witness requested by Congress?
Harsanyi again:
If Trump is a criminal who flirts with treason and threatens the very existence of the Constitution, don’t Democrats have a duty to impeach the president? When Lemon asked Nadler about this, the congressman answered, “[i]t may come to that if the president keeps up with this conduct, but we’ll see.” Why wait?So why not do it whether or not the Senate will vote to convict? If Trump is such a bad guy every day the Democrats delay is bringing more harm to the country. If they have the evidence they claim to have, let's see it, let's get on with it.
The intelligence committee’s Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) has maintained for years that he has incontrovertible evidence of the administration colluding with Russia. Pelosi has claimed on numerous occasions that Trump engaged in criminal behavior. It’s so bad, she recently argued, that the president is “self-impeachable,” whatever that means.
Democrats run the House. They have the votes to get it done. According to their own rhetoric, they have duty to impeach no matter what the Senate does. An impeachment proceeding that compels Democrats to lay out their case would be far preferable to this show trial—what the Wall Street Journal editorial page dubbed “The Pseudo-Impeachment.”
As Harsanyi concludes, "Let’s do it already." Otherwise, it seems the Democrats simply hate Trump more than they care about the country.
Of course, if they don't have any evidence, if their claims to the contrary are all bluster and octopus ink, if they hate Trump more than they care about the country, well, then maybe they'll continue their endless, Kafkaesque investigations no matter what the cost.
