Jonathan Chait
For most of Donald Trump’s presidency, the specter of a coming constitutional crisis has loomed over the Russia investigation. The newly leaked memo by Trump’s lawyers, obtained by the New York Times, suggests that such a crisis is not merely a likelihood, but that it has already begun.
The memo proposes several tendentious interpretations of the publicly available facts of Trump’s behavior, along with some legally questionable and amateurish citations of precedent. But the most important passage is its sweeping assertion of presidential authority.Ruth Marcus
Of course the president oversees the executive branch, including the Justice Department. Of course he gets to set broad contours of policy. But there is a long and wise tradition of presidential reticence to interfere in individual criminal matters — no less in a criminal matter that affects himself. And the notion that the president could peremptorily call off any prosecution for any reason whatsoever — no matter how corrupt — would be laughable if it weren’t so scary.
As Daniel Hemer and Eric Posner write in the California Law Review, “No one thinks that . . . the president should be able to commit a crime and then call off the investigation of it. What if he murdered his valet?”Steve Schmidt (Republican strategist)
A clear line has been drawn with the release of Trumps legal memo. Make no mistake, it is a direct attack on the rule of law and a declaration of absolute power on the part of the President. It’s thesis must be attacked relentlessly. The American Republic is worth fighting for.— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 2, 2018
Tom Sullivan on the incompetence of Rump's legal eagles
The Trump legal team cites an obsolete obstruction statute in making their case, proving he got what he paid for (if indeed he has), just as Trump voters got the vain amateur for which they yearned. Congress broadened the obstruction statute in 2002, the Times reports. Even under the obsolete one, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, then senator from Alabama, and over 40 of his peers in Congress voted to remove Bill Clinton from office for obstructing justice in an investigation Clinton never asserted the power to end...Matthew Yglesias
Consider that if the memo is correct, there would be nothing wrong with Trump setting up a booth somewhere in Washington, DC where wealthy individuals could hand checks to Trump, and in exchange Trump would make whatever federal legal trouble they are in go it away. You could call it “The Trump Hotel” or maybe bundle a room to stay in along with the legal impunity.
Having cut your check, you’d then have carte blanche to commit bank fraud or dump toxic waste in violation of the Clean Water Act or whatever else you want to do. Tony Soprano could get the feds off his case, and so could the perpetrators of the next Enron fraud or whatever else.We're dealing with a criminal organization, from the Rump family to its associates in the Republican Party. Their aim is to run the rule of law and every norm of a democratic society into the ground after they've pilfered from the till. While we wait for further moves from the Special Counsel, our hope (as distant as it seems) is the ballot in November.
BONUS: Infidel points us to another good read on the Opus Dopus.
BONUS II:
Short analysis of Trump lawyers’ ultimate defense: So what if he is guilty of obstruction, collusion, kleptocracy, money laundering. The president can do anything he wants, and he can pardon himself for anything he did before he was president.— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) June 2, 2018
