Former Reagan Solicitor General (1985-89) Charles Fried writes in today's Washington Post:
All the rights that Mr. Cipollone claims for the president are fully available in a trial before the Senate, just as they would be available in the trial of an indictment in a trial court.
The implications of the White (Supremacist) House's action are clear to us, and Leonard Pitts, Jr.:Charles Fried, Cambridge, Mass.
... Cipollone declares the administration’s intent to stonewall the House of Representatives in its impeachment investigation. Subpoenas will be ignored, documents withheld. The White House, writes Cipollone, “cannot participate” in the probe. Given that he writes on behalf of a president who calls himself “the chosen one,” brags of his “great and unmatched wisdom” and muses about staying in office beyond two terms, this letter, essentially placing that president above the law and beyond the Constitution, is cause for grave concern.
One need not be a legal scholar to know Cipollone has written constitutional gobbledygook. For instance, he complains the House has denied the president “the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses, to receive transcripts of testimony.” Given that the impeachment is only at the investigatory phase, that’s like a murder suspect complaining that he doesn’t get to tag along with detectives building the case against him. And since when can a president just decline to “participate” in an investigation?
Take it as a reminder of how fragile freedom is. The power of a democracy, you see, lies less in the force of its laws and customs than in mutual, unspoken agreement to be bound by those laws and customs. The First Amendment has power because we agree it does. The courts have the final say because we agree they do. And you obey subpoenas because you obey subpoenas.Dana Milbank sees the clear pattern of autocratic behavior expressed in the refusals to cooperate with Congressional oversight:
...White House counsel Pat Cipollone said current and former White House officials are “absolutely immune” from testifying before Congress. As others have noted, Trump has repeatedly said the Constitution’s Article II empowers him “to do whatever I want” and bestows on him “all of these rights at a level nobody has ever seen before.” [snip]
He responded to the resulting impeachment inquiry in the House with a bizarre letter from Cipollone asserting, essentially, that Trump is exempt from all congressional oversight and won’t participate in this “unconstitutional inquiry” — even though the Constitution expressly gives the House “the sole Power of Impeachment.”This is a regime of lawless, American protofascism operating in plain view, making up prerogatives that don't exist, claiming "absolute" powers that are contrary to the Constitution and liberal democracy, and blustering about locking up those investigating their crimes. We've been watching this unfold ever since the Toddler Tyrant came down his golden escalator. What comes next should be no more of a surprise than what has already transpired, because the autocrat has long ago told us who he is.
