Last week I wrote about the response I got from Senator Pat Toomey to a very specific question, which (surprise!) he made no effort to answer. This week I show you two responses from my Republican Congressman, Mike Kelly, with regard to the Ukraine scandal.
Mike Kelly is not a household name. He’s not one of the more attention-getting movers and shakers of the GOP, though he’s not entirely a back-bencher either. As background, Kelly was first elected to Congress from western Pennsylvania in 2010, defeating freshman Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper, a pro-life blue dog who was accused of promoting abortion (by Susan B. Anthony List) by voting for the Affordable Care Act.
Kelly had (and continues to have) a business selling cars in Butler County, PA. Just like his idol, Donald Trump, he openly self-deals, supporting and passing legislation that’s good for car dealers, and not so good for everyone else. The dust-up he had with Congresswoman Maxine Waters was about his proposal to lift Obama-era regulations preventing racial discrimination in car loans. Ultimately, Kelly got what he wanted. Then there was the time he declared that there didn’t need to be regulations preventing dealers from selling cars that have been recalled because no dealership would ever do such a thing—and then an intrepid reporter found a dozen such cars for sale on Kelly’s lot. So you get the idea. There’s much more embarrassing and shameful behavior where that came from.
Yet despite being one of Trump’s favorite Congressmen, Kelly is not a member of the more rabid conservative caucuses: the Freedom Caucus or the Tea Party Caucus. Maybe he’s not a joiner?
Frankly, I’ve pretty much given up on this turd. On policy, there’s virtually nothing we agree on, and there is no chance that anything I might communicate to him in the hope of changing his mind would actually have any influence. Reading his responses to my previous messages to him tend to drive to dry heaves. However, Daily Kos (and Credo, my mobile phone company) make it easy to send communications to your Congressman, and because it’s so effortless to do, I actually did it a couple of times recently. The first time was an effort to contact GOP Congressional Representatives to get them to take impeachment of Trump seriously. This was perhaps two weeks after word of the whistleblower’s report came out, and after Trump had released the readout of his phone conversation with Ukraine President Zelensky. The second time was an effort to get support from Congress to impeach AG William Barr. While I would never accuse Kelly to be capable of nuance, I found an interesting clue in the responses to these no-effort messages.
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So here’s the response to the first message, which was something like: “The president violated the Constitution in his phone conversation with Zelensky! The readout proves it! Support impeachment!”
The short version: The whistleblower’s report was based on second-hand evidence, and we don’t know who this person is. I’ve seen the report and the transcript (sic) provided by the White House. I see no evidence that Trump did anything wrong.
More or less what I was expecting. Kelly and Trump are two of a kind, and I expect Kelly will stick by Trump oil the bitter end.
So then came the response, receive on October 18, to the second message, which was a request to impeach AG William Barr:
Dear XXXXXXX,
Thank you for contacting me regarding Attorney General William Barr. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.
As you may know, impeachment is the constitutionally prescribed means by which an official of the executive or judicial branch may be removed from office by the legislative branch. Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution states, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” A majority vote of the House of Representatives is required to bring impeachment charges, which are then tried before the Senate. Two thirds of the Senate must vote to convict the official in question in order for him or her to be removed from office.
Although there has been considerable controversy in the legal community over exactly what constitutes an impeachable offense, scholars generally agree that impeachment is warranted only by the most extreme cases. The concept of impeachment was taken very seriously by the framers of the Constitution and was heavily debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is important to note that impeachment is not a political device by which an opponent can be removed from power; rather, it is a constitutional remedy for the removal of officials who have committed the “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” specified by the Constitution. As your federal representative I regard the oath I took to support and defend the Constitution with the utmost seriousness.
Again, thank you for expressing your thoughts on this important issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me or my staff if I can be of assistance in the future. It is an honor and a privilege to represent Western Pennsylvania in the United States Congress.
If you would like to hear more from me on this issue and others, please subscribe to my newsletter at www.kelly.house.gov .
Sincerely,
Mike Kelly
Member of Congress
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In light of the previous message, with it’s dismissal of any evidence of an impeachable offense, this one is kind of interesting, because it says ...nothing. It says absolutely nothing about Barr, much less condemning or defending him. All it does is review how impeachment is defined and when it should be applied (though he nonetheless displays a certain amount of ignorance about the process).
So, in the period of a couple weeks, Kelly has gone from “No impeachment! Trump did nothing wrong!” to “What Impeachment Means to Me, by Mike Kelly.” Maybe he’s less familiar with what Barr is up to and doesn’t want to say anything in support of him? Maybe he’s got a whiff of just how bad the scandal is, and he’s trying now as best he can to distance himself? Maybe I’m reading too much into these messages, and Kelly will remain an ignorant and mindless conservative until the end of his days in office and beyond?
Yeah, that’s probably it.
And so on to the comments!
Top Comments (October 30, 2019):
From CwV:
Brubs boils it down to basics here. From Jen Hayden’s front page post on GOP attempts to Smear Lt. Col. Vindman.
Top Mojo (October 29, 2019):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
Top Photos (October 29, 2019):
Thanks to jotter!