Kennedy was the showy performer in that ugly spectacle, but Senator Biden, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was the stage director. Prior to Bork’s nomination, Biden had in fact said that he would support it: Bork was, after all, a distinguished legal scholar with a long history in public service. Bork had many challenges in front of him: For one thing, he was very sharp-elbowed in intellectual disputes, which had not won him very many friends.
.. The Senate majority leader at the time was Democrat Robert Byrd, a man who had rejoiced in the title of Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, and who held a grudge against Bork for his role in the Watergate scandal, during which Bork had fired special investigator Archibald Cox on the orders of President Richard Nixon.
.. The Senate majority leader at the time was Democrat Robert Byrd, a man who had rejoiced in the title of Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, and who held a grudge against Bork for his role in the Watergate scandal, during which Bork had fired special investigator Archibald Cox on the orders of President Richard Nixon.
.. The Democratic primary field was very full: There was Biden
.. Biden could not afford to stand by his earlier assessment of Bork and announced his opposition to the nomination shortly after it was made formal.
.. The 14 hours Senator Byrd had spent filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not prevent him from becoming the Democratic leader in the Senate.
.. The Bork nomination, on the other hand, was an ordinary piece of government business elevated by Democrats to the status of national emergency in the service of narrow partisan interests. Biden was running for president, Kennedy was running for conscience of the Democratic party, and Byrd, frustrated by Republicans’ lack of cooperation on a number of his spending priorities, had promised: “They’re going to pay. I’m going to hit them where it hurts.”
.. The hysteria and vitriol directed at Bork were of a sort rarely seen since the early 19th century. But they quickly became commonplace.
.. But the rules of the game are not all there is to the game. What in another context might be called “sportsmanship” is in politics a question of prudence and even of patriotism, forgoing the pursuit of every petty partisan advantage made possible
.. The progress from Robert Bork to Merrick Garland is a fairly obvious story, but there is more to it than that:
- The increasing reliance upon legislative gimmicks such as omnibus spending bills and retrofitting legislation to fit with the budget reconciliation process,
- the substitution of executive orders and open-ended regulatory portfolios (“the secretary shall . . . ”),
- the prominence of emergency “special sessions” in the state legislatures,
- the absence of regular order in the legislative and appropriations process —
all are part of the same destructive tendency. Procedural maximalism in effect turns the legislative system against itself, substituting the exception for the rule and treating every ordinary item of business as a potential emergency item.
.. at the time, their numbers in the Senate were enough to secure their victory without a filibuster. But the course they set in those hearings — one of maximal confrontation, of reaching for whatever procedural cudgel is close at hand — led directly to our current state of governmental dysfunction.
.. at the time, their numbers in the Senate were enough to secure their victory without a filibuster. But the course they set in those hearings — one of maximal confrontation, of reaching for whatever procedural cudgel is close at hand — led directly to our current state of governmental dysfunction.
.. The recently proffered Republican health-care bill instantiates much of what is wrong with our politics:
The bill was constructed through an extraordinary process in which there were
- no hearings,
- no review from the Congressional Budget Office, and
- no final text of the legislation until shortly before the vote.
- The process is erratic and covert rather than regular and transparent.
- It was put together in a purposeful way to avoid substantive debate and meaningful public discourse,
making the most of the majority’s procedural advantages for purely political ends.
.. As Rod Dreher recently put it, Republicans will have to choose whether they love the rule of law more than they hate the Left.
.. Republican populists who argue that the GOP must play by the same rules in the name of “winning” have very little understanding of what already has been lost and of what we as a nation stand to lose.
The United States will not thrive, economically or otherwise, in a state of permanent emergency.
.. What’s truly remarkable about our current constant national state of emergency is that no one can say exactly what the emergency is. But we all seem to be very sure that something has to be done about it right now, that we must rouse ourselves to excitement about it, and that the ordinary rules of lawmaking and governance no longer apply.
There is not much political mileage to be had from arguing for regular order, transparency, and procedural predictability — but that’s part of what makes those things so valuable. Order in the little things is a necessary precondition of order in the big things. Orderly government cannot be built on a foundation of procedural chaos.
Washington’s Leak Mob
Trying to topple Trump, current and ex-officials damage national security.
The first 126 days of the Trump administration featured 125 stories that leaked harmful information. Just under one a day. The committee staff judged the stories against a 2009 Barack Obama executive order that laid out what counted as information likely to damage national security. And as it chose to not include borderline leaks or “palace intrigue” stories, that number is an understatement.
For reference, the first 126 days of the Obama term featured 18 stories that met the criteria. Ten of those were actually leaks about George W. Bush’s “torture memo,” which Mr. Obama released.
.. What’s been disclosed? The contents of wiretapped information. The names of individuals the U.S. monitors, and where they are located. The communications channels used to monitor targets. Which agencies are monitoring. Intelligence intercepts. FBI interviews. Grand jury subpoenas. Secret surveillance-court details. Internal discussions. Military operations intelligence. The contents of the president’s calls with foreign leaders... One clear example is the May stories hyperventilating that Mr. Trump shared classified intelligence with the Russians. Subsequent leaks suggested Israel provided the intelligence, about Islamic State. This revelation caused a diplomatic incident, and reportedly a change in the way Israel shares with the U.S. Even former Obama CIA Director John Brennan called the leak “appalling.”.. This is lawbreaking, in the aid of a political hit job. The leaking syndicate can’t claim whistleblower status, since it has yet to leak a piece of evidence showing Trump wrongdoing. This is about taking out a president. And with a role model like James Comey —who wrote secret memos with the express purpose of leaking and launching a special counsel—that’s no surprise... But as Mr. Mueller surely knows, the Espionage Act doesn’t trifle with intentions. As even the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has noted, leaks enjoy “no First Amendment protection, regardless of the motives,” and no accused leaker “has ever been acquitted based on a finding that the public interest was so great” that it justified unlawful disclosure... Mr. Mueller is sitting astride a leak crime wave, run by a bureaucratic underworld that is happy to harm U.S. interests if it maims a president.
Yes, Trump May Face Credible Obstruction-of-Justice Claims
at present, I do not believe that sufficient evidence exists to credibly claim that the president has obstructed justice.
I agree with my colleague Andrew McCarthy’s assessment that it is entirely plausible (maybe even probable) that Trump fired James Comey not to stop or obstruct any investigation, but rather because Comey wouldn’t say in public what he’d admittedly said behind closed doors — that Trump wasn’t being personally investigated for colluding with Russia.
.. it’s common for investigators to indict or convict the targets of their investigations for misconduct committed during the investigation, rather than for the alleged crimes that sparked the initial inquiries.
.. There is already enough evidence to justify rigorous further inquiry.
.. There now exists sworn testimony that Trump asked Comey for personal loyalty and asked Comey to drop a criminal investigation of Michael Flynn. After Comey didn’t comply with any of these requests, Trump fired him and then misled the public as to the reason for the termination. These requests are far more problematic than the request to publicly state that Trump wasn’t under personal investigation. Both of them — when combined with the termination and shifting explanations — raise alarms for anyone concerned about the rule of law.
.. Trump’s primary firewall is political, not legal. Impeachment is a political process, though heavily influenced by legal arguments.
.. The more he undermines himself politically, and the more he lashes out, the more danger he’s in. For example, Trump’s vow to testify under oath to refute Comey’s key claims was reckless. More than one person has walked into an FBI interview or deposition confident in his ability to explain his actions. More than one has walked out legally ruined.