Bernstein: Congress should hold hearings on Trump's fitness for office

The Hill ^ | 09/06/18 | Justin Wise

[yesthatjallen]

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein on Thursday called for Congress to hold hearings on President Trump's fitness for office.

"What we need here are, finally, I think, some hearings in which an executive session or open session, those around the president of the United States are questioned about the fitness of Trump to be the president of the United States," Bernstein, a CNN political analyst, said on the network.

Bernstein justified his call by citing excerpts from former reporting partner Bob Woodward's new book and an op-ed from an anonymous senior Trump administration official who argued that the president's actions are "detrimental" to the health of the nation.

Both the book and the op-ed have painted a portrait of an administration that is increasingly at odds with the president's impulses.

"What's really going on here is that Woodward's book, and the contents of what is in the anonymous piece in The New York Times is that those closest to the president of the United States are saying we must save the country from the president," Berstein said.

On Wednesday, a senior Trump administration official wrote an anonymous op-ed in the Times in which they blasted the president's "amorality" and criticized him as anti-trade and anti-democracy.

"The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making," the official wrote, adding that aides work around Trump to make sure his desires are not enforced.

Similarly, Woodward's book, “Fear: Trump in the White House," reported that the White House was having a “nervous breakdown” under Trump, offering various anecdotes of aides trying to blunt decisions by Trump.

Among the anecdotes, former top economic adviser Gary Cohn is reported to have removed paperwork, unnoticed, from Trump’s desk that the president intended to sign to withdraw the U.S. from trade agreements.

Trump and the White House have responded by blasting both Woodward and The New York Times. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called on the anonymous official to resign.

"I’m draining the Swamp, and the Swamp is trying to fight back," Trump tweeted Wednesday night. "Don’t worry, we will win!"

Bernstein's call has been echoed by others, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

"If senior administration officials think the president of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment," Warren told CNN.

[minnesota_bound]

Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bernstein
His parents were communist party members.
He wrote a glowing book about Hillary Clinton.
Cheated on his wife when she was pregnant. She gave birth prematurely as a result.

Book sale story was a lie then and I bet any of the Clintons book sales are a lie now.

Snip: Bernstein’s biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, was published by Alfred A. Knopf on June 5, 2007. Knopf had a first printing of 275,000 copies. It appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks.[12] A CBS News end-of-year survey of publishing “hits and misses” included A Woman in Charge in the “miss” category and implied that its total sales were somewhere in the range of perhaps 55,000–65,000 copies

Snip: In 2012, Carl Bernstein spoke at a rally of People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an opposition Iranian organization that had previously been listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States, reportedly receiving a payment for his speech