Trump Attacks Constitution and Congress
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | September 19, 2019
“If Trump’s brazen, irresponsible effort to broadly thwart congressional oversight prevails, it will create a dangerous precedent for neutering a fundamental constitutional responsibility of Congress.”
President Trump, aided and abetted by his politicized, rogue Attorney General William Barr, is in the process of creating a major constitutional crisis.
Trump has taken the unprecedented position of having individuals and agencies across his Administration refuse to comply with subpoenas from House Committees, and of having current and former Administration officials refuse to testify before House Committees.
Yesterday Trump took his actions even further by having Corey Lewandowski instructed on what he could and could not testify about before the House Judiciary Committee, even though Lewandowski had never worked for Trump’s Administration.
Trump is ordering his Administration to obstruct the constitutionally-based right of Congress to oversee the Executive Branch, hold it accountable, and prevent its abuses. Trump is using arguments invented by Barr’s Justice Department to assert authority he doesn’t have to block Congress from doing its job.
The latest example of Executive Branch defiance of congressional oversight involves a potentially explosive whistleblower complaint by an intelligence officer that was reportedly filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who found it to be of “urgent concern.”
The whistleblower complaint reportedly dealt with a troubling promise which President Trump made to a foreign leader in a phone conversation. The Director of National Intelligence has refused to provide the complaint to the House Intelligence Committee, apparently at the direction of Barr’s Justice Department.
Congress is the first branch of government established by the Founders in the Constitution’s three co-equal branches of government. Its core Article 1 powers include the power of the purse, the power to declare war, and, as noted earlier, the power to oversee the Executive Branch.
If Trump’s brazen, irresponsible effort to broadly thwart congressional oversight prevails, it will create a dangerous precedent for neutering a fundamental constitutional responsibility of Congress.
Trump’s attack on the Constitution and the Congress cannot be allowed to stand.
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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections. See previous Notes from Fred here.
