We welcome back our resident Constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, who gives us his take on the January 6th hearings, how they compare to the Watergate, and Iran Contra, why the Democrats seem to be holding back, and what the Department of Justice needs to do to live up to its name with regard to the crimes of Donald Trump.
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Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.
So where’s this idea they let Pat Cipollone get away with not responding and not explaining, “Well what did Mr. Trump say?” …There is certainly no executive privilege with regard to attorney/client privilege… The client of a government attorney, especially a White House (attorney)…is the United States Constitution. It is not any individual. We do not “Dear Fuhrer” salute the occupant of the White House. That is not your client… Anything that subverts the Constitution is a danger, and you have a duty to disclose what that is.
Bruce Fein
If the smoking gun is in the White House, how can you give the White House the privilege to cover it up? That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you going to say that a criminal suspect can decide, “Well, I’m not going to surrender the murder weapon”? No, you can subpoena the murder weapon here.
Bruce Fein
The Democrats are soft because they have skeletons in the closet that they know they’ve done the same or similar things — maybe not on quite the same magnitude— and they worry, “Well, if we lose the elections to the Republicans in the fall, they’re going to turn these precedents, and they’re coming after us. And we’ve got a lot of skeletons that we want to conceal. So: we go soft on them, they’ll go soft on us.”
Bruce Fein
The press always said, “Hey, criminally prosecuting a former President? That’s never been done before…” What are they talking about? If nobody’s above the law, it’s even more important to go after the top dogs.
Ralph Nader
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8 Comments
The question I would of asked (is to me most obvious)- Why is the congress select committee contain 13 members who believe that Trump is 100% guilty. This is a biased committe that breaks every norm from Watergate to Benghazi.?
I’ll give you my answer, Donald, which is not an expert one. But as I recall, the Republicans rejected an independent commission, leaving the House with no choice but to do their own investigation. And then McCarthy tried to stack the House panel with people who were actually implicated in the insurrection, support the Big Lie, and voted to decertify the election i.e. Jordan and Banks, then withdrew all Republican names from the committee once Pelosi rejected those two, leaving only Cheney and Kinzinger, who were willing to defy McCarthy and serve on the committee. As a result, this plays out more like a Grand Jury proceeding where the prosecutors are presenting a case to illustrate to the American public (the grand jury) that a crime has been committed. It’s up to the DOJ to take action after that. Every single second of testimony has come from close Trump supporters and long-time Republicans. All the Trump associates who one might think would present exculpatory testimony or spin a different story i.e. Eastman and Flynn have pleaded the Fifth or like Bannon and Meadows have defied the subpoenas. Bruce and Ralph (both around and participants in the Watergate saga: Bruce as a young deputy in the DOJ and Ralph as one who sued over the Saturday Night Massacre) argue that the committee hasn’t been tough enough in subpoenaing Pence and Trump and for allowing Cipollone to claim an attorney/client privilege he doesn’t actually have as a White House lawyer.
Thanks Steve. Your facts makes sense and it would of been nice if Pelosi followed through with a Supeona for Trump. Peter Navarro who was arrested for claiming executive previllege said the committe needs to speak to Trump befoe he will testify. The dept of justice needs to call Trump or the entire Jan 6th hearing will be a waste of time and a win for Trumps 2024 presidential campaign.
HIPPOCRITES!!
So the Dems don’t want to “set a precedent” of investigating, and prosecuting to the fullest, as needed, crimes against the constitution? I’m hardly surprised! They need to invoke section 3 of Amendment 14 against THEMSELVES.
Why don’t we have a class action lawsuit joined by ALL concerned and damaged Americans who recognize that the powerful elite in Congress are colluding to keep us out of our democracy and away from economic parity? I for one will join any lawsuit which calls into question the integrity of a two party only system that sets it’s own rules for elections. They will never reform from within when the current corruption benefits them all.
There’s no way a security breach of the magnitude of 1/6 could have happened without both parties being in on it. You can be certain that every member of congress has secure channels of communication to some law enforcement agency. Therefore, if there were even one honest member of congress, the whole thing would have been shut down in a heartbeat.
What we saw on 1/6 was a choreographed spectacle. Why they did it is unclear.
Shut down buy whom?
The capital police were unable to do it.
Who else was close enough to shut down that mob?
Therefore, your assertion that both parties were “in on it” doesn’t hold water.