Posted on 06/08/2017 5:52:41 AM PDT by blam
Constitutional expert and famed Harvard law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, took on Jeffrey Toobin to discuss the ongoing Trump-Comey saga, saying in no uncertain terms that “this is not obstruction of justice.”
He explains, “That is his constitutional power. He has the right to say, ‘You will not investigate Flynn.’ The best proof of that is he could have simply said to Comey, ‘Stop the investigation, I’ve just pardoned Flynn.’”
To back up his assertions, Dershowitz reminded viewers of when Bush I pardoned Casper Weinberger the night before trial. After doing so, no one cried ‘obstruction’ because it was within the rights of the President of the United States to do so.
“That’s what President Bush did,” Dershowitz said, citing the case of Caspar Weinberger. “You cannot have obstruction of justice when the president exercises his constitutional authority to pardon, his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI, or his constitutional authority to tell the director of the FBI who to prosecute and who not to prosecute.”
He made the point that impeachment and obstruction are two entirely different things, which reduced Jeffrey Toobin to look like an 11th grade history student learning the constitution for the first time. The President can be impeached for all manners of things, but not for firing Comey and/or asking him to stop investigating Flynn — because it is his right to do so.
“You can impeach him if you don’t like what he did,” he said. “But you cannot say it’s a crime. It’s simply not a crime for the president to exercise his constitutional authority to pardon or to direct the FBI.”
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at ibankcoin.com ...
Well said and bears repeating. SoI did .
Comey doesn't want a president to exercise his constitutional authority by directing the FBI. Comey wants the FBI to be independent of the president.
So then who would the FBI director answer to? Comey admitted today that that he based his decisions about the Hillary "matter" on how the (foreign controlled) press would react. That's the answer, and it's how DC works.
I’ve asked a few libs, what high crimes were committed and what evidence to you have to prove it when they talk impeachment. I usually get called a bigot and they storm off.
They don’t know one thing about the real constitution and don’t care what it says. They think anything of which they don’t approve is unconstitutional and anything they like is well within the limits of the constitution. In other words they don’t really think at all, they only “feeeel”.
You can impeach for anything. It’s a political act.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Legislators understand what that means. Trying to apply "did not like what he did" to that litmus is a slippery slope even the Democrats are shying away from.
High misdemeanors could mean farting in public. There is literally no threshold beyond the political for the act of impeachment.
“30 or 40 years from now, one or two liberals might entertain the thought that Donald Trump was actually a legitimate President of the United States.”
What if all of the surviving liberals are in their Mother’s basements or in Canada, will anyone pay attention to their muttering?
No, no it couldn't.
There is literally no threshold beyond the political for the act of impeachment.
There is, it was established roughly 1388.
That 1388 carries no legal weight. The constitution does not define high crimes and misdemeanors. They may look to England circa 1388 and common law, but it carries no legal weight at all. Anything that a simple majority of the house and 2/3 of the Senate agrees was wrong... works fine.
And it is not subject to Supreme court review.
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