Abuse of presidential authority was one of the Articles of Impeachment brought against Nixon. This president could be next.

ed note–the author of this piece, Michael Conway, was counsel for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in the impeachment inquiry of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, and while indeed possible, it is however unlikely that he just up and wrote this thing all by his lonesome without being prodded ahead of time to do so by the very same powerful interests of the non-Gentile persuasion who own the media, own Congress, and who are gunning full-bore to have Trump removed from office before he can get too far with his much-discussed ‘ultimate peace deal’ that will finally impose legally recognized/legally mandated borders upon a particular political entity in the Middle East that believes it has no borders.

It is also interesting to note the following–

Trump is CONSTANTLY being compared to Nixon. Now, on the surface, all the usual reasons why his enemies would do so is obvious–Nixon (like Hitler) has been subjected since the time of his resignation to a 24/7/365 character assassination operation and–as one former diplomat theorized–due to Nixon trying to forge/force a ‘peace deal’ between Izzy and the Palestinians.

But there is slightly more to this as well.

The central piece of lore surrounding Nixon and his infamous fall from grace features the infamous ‘break-in’ at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters located in the Watergate hotel complex and what was characterized by Nixon’s enemies as his attempts at circumventing or quashing entirely the subsequent investigations that followed in the wake of this infamous ‘break-in’ at the DNC.

Coincidentally (or not) a good portion of the lore surrounding Trump and the ‘Russian meddling’ vis the 2016 elections features an almost mirrored image of what is said to have taken place in 1972 with the illegal forced entry at the DNC by pro-Nixon operatives–the hacking of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s email account at–drumrole please–the DNC headquarters, which led to the acquisition of a treasure trove of embarrassing dirty laundry that is said to have given Trump a ‘leg-up’ when voting time arrived and which led to Clinton–the Neo-Con/AIPAC favorite between the 2–being defeated.

It is also interesting to note the following relevant historical tidbit–In 1974, Hillary Rodham played a central behind-the-scenes role in helping the House Judiciary Committee move forward with its plans of Impeaching Nixon, as she was one for the legal councils–along with the author of this piece–who advised the committee on the procedural rules for removing Nixon.

Which is why there is more bite to Trump’s enemies’ assertions vis ‘Russian meddling’ than just bark. If even a rudimentary amount of the lore surrounding the shenanigans of the 2016 election are true vis a vis the role that Russia may have played in manipulating social media in helping Trump win the Presidency, than what it means is that–

1. AIPAC, the uncontested, undefeated king-maker/king-breaker that has not lost an election since it changed from being the American Zionist Council to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in order to avoid federal criminal charges for failing to register as an agent of a foreign power, was beaten in the last election with the help of a country long-viewed as an adversary and as an existential threat to the Jewish state–Russia. What it also intimates is that if this process succeeded once, it can succeed again, and not just in taking the presidency out of the hands of Israel, but 535 seats in Congress as well.

2. The forces arrayed against Trump are not there merely ‘for show’ as so many one-dimensional ‘experts’ claim in their various statements and positions. The antagonism on display 24/7 from the ENTIRE spectrum–left to right and everything in between–by those individuals and entities making up the ‘Deep State’ that have functioned as agents of a foreign power in controlling US foreign and domestic policy for decades is every bit as much the real deal as it appears, as well as all the talk of Impeachment and the implementation of the provisions of the 25th Amendment.

nbcnews.com

The Founding Fathers pointed to the impeachment power of Congress, through which a president could be removed from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” as the path to rein in a president encroaching on congressional power.

In 1788’s Federalist 66, for instance, Alexander Hamilton wrote that “the powers relating to impeachments are, as before intimated, an essential check in the hands of [Congress] upon the encroachments of the executive.”

In Federalist 65, Hamilton described as impeachable “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

Trump’s emergency declaration to build the wall will cost Americans more than money
No greater abuse of a public trust can be envisioned than the president usurping the power of Congress.

That, however, is precisely what President Donald Trump’s declaration Friday of a national emergency, in order to commandeer billions of dollars that Congress refused to appropriate to build a wall on the southern border, did. It is the constitutional role of Congress to appropriate (or, in this case, refuse to appropriate) public funds for a specific purpose. Congress voted not to fund $8 billion to build a wall, earmarking only $1.375 billion for that project; Trump’s announcement is an effort to usurp their constitutional authority.

As expected, the announcement promptly generated the first of several expected lawsuits challenging his declaration. But asking the judicial system to check Trump’s hijacking of the constitutional power of Congress is the wrong tactic and is likely to fail.

Trump’s national emergency at the border is fake. Here are some very real emergencies he should be addressing instead.

The dismal prospect for obtaining a permanent court-ordered ban on the president’s unilateral transfer of funds to “build the wall” is revealed by the deference the Supreme Court last year displayed in upholding Trump’s travel ban.

In approving the ban, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the challengers’ “request for a searching inquiry into the persuasiveness of the president’s justifications is inconsistent with the broad statutory text and the deference traditionally accorded the president” in matters of national security and international affairs.

The Supreme Court’s language then promises only a perfunctory review of the basis for a national emergency: Because the president has declared a national emergency to build a wall, the Supreme Court majority appears ready to accept that subjective label at face value even if no emergency objectively exists.

But federal courts have long indicated that they don’t feel it is their role to question certain presidential decisions. In a prescient warning more than four decades ago, a federal appeals court cautioned that the courts would not second-guess even the most outrageous presidential invocation of a national emergency.

After President Richard Nixon declared a national emergency in 1971 over America’s financial reserves and then imposed an extra 10 percent surcharge on certain imports, Yoshida International sued to declare the action invalid and won at the federal trial court level. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (now part of the federal Circuit Court in D.C.) reversed the trial court’s decision and issued this chilling prediction about the scope of presidential authority and its potential abuse by a future president.

“Though such a broad grant may be considered unwise, or even dangerous, should it come into the hands of an unscrupulous, rampant president, willing to declare an emergency when none exists, the wisdom of a congressional delegation is not for us to decide,” said the decision.

Quoting an earlier decision, Chief Judge Markey wrote: “We are not concerned with their wisdom. The question before the court is one of power, not of policy.”

That flagrant abuse of power now has come to pass: Trump has declared an immigration national emergency even though his own government’s data proves that none exists. But while the Supreme Court may find that Trump has the power to hijack those funds to fulfill a campaign promise, Congress can also find that this is an abuse of power warranting his impeachment. Indeed, the Founders envisioned the power of impeachment as the fit remedy if the executive branch usurped congressional power.

There is precedent for this.

President Nixon technically had the power to fire the special prosecutor investigating him, the power to pardon those involved and the power to oversee the FBI and CIA in connection with the Watergate investigation. The existence of his power was not questioned; the abuse of that power, however, was found to be an impeachable offense.

In July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee adopted three Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon; Article II, which passed 28-10, alleged an abuse of power by the president. In its final report, the committee stated: “For just such presidential misconduct the impeachment power was included in the Constitution.”

In a clarion call to the present, the committee declared that the abuse of power impeachment article was needed, lest a future president use his authority “for further usurpations of the power of other branches of our government. By adopting this article, the committee seeks to prevent the recurrence of any such abuse of presidential power.”

By defying Congress and unconstitutionally allocating federal monies for a project that Congress refused to fund, Trump has abused presidential power just as Judiciary Committee condemned almost 45 years ago.

Impeachment was the appropriate remedy then, as it is now.