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First consider these questions:
• In a functioning Constitutional Democracy, should anyone be “above the Law”?
• What about the top Attorney General? What about his “boss” the President?
• Does the Constitution require accountability from the top Law Enforcer and the Chief Executive of a land?
• Or is it true as Trump lawyers flatly state: the “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer ...”?
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Here is how Political Science Professor and Constitutional expert David Adler, analyses the matter:
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The Trump-Nixon theory that the president is above the law, has historical antecedents, but none in the United States. That model finds inspiration in the mid-17th century when, in England and France, absolutist pretensions to power were at their peak. In the English Civil Wars, King Charles asserted executive prerogatives that gravely assaulted the constitution, offenses that stirred the Brits to remove his head. In France, King Louis XIV told his countrymen: “The State? I am the State.” That reasoning led his successor, Louis XVI, to the guillotine.
The founders of the American republic laid an ax to those roots, as they dramatically rejected the English and French tradition of executive power. In fact, at the time of the American Revolution, the precise meaning of the rule of law implied executive subordination to the law.
So in other words, when the Constitution was written, the Framers were explicitly trying to break away from, depots who shielded their actions, by claims of absolute executive powers.
And the Framers considered “law breaking” by the Chief Executive, an impeachable offense ...
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Obstruction of justice, the founders determined, was an indictable offense. It was, they concluded, also an impeachable offense. As the Framers discussed and debated a laundry list of offenses that warranted impeachment, “subversion of the laws and the Constitution” was always at the top. In a context in which the president was subordinate to the law, he could hardly be exempt from charges of obstruction, for that would place him in the fantasy world of executive immunity from the law imagined by Nixon and Trump.
It has been argued on behalf of Trump that the Framers could not have contemplated prosecution of the president, given that they conferred upon him complete authority over the execution of the laws, which includes power to control prosecutions. When Nixon acted on this theory in October of 1973, and fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox to thwart his investigation of the president’s role in the Watergate cover up and other criminal offenses, the nation responded with outrage. A federal court held Nixon’s dismissal of Cox illegal. It is absurd to infer that the Framers vested in the president the authority to shield himself from criminal indictment by the control granted to him over prosecutions. Certainly there is nothing in our constitutional architecture or history to suggest, let alone demonstrate, that the Framers would have undercut their own scheme to subordinate the president to the law.
So in other words, if a president could shield himself/herself from the “criminal indictment” — that presumed power would fly in the face of the Framers intent, that presidents be held accountable. Presidents must be accountable to the Law and the Constitution — and NOT act like Kings, by obstructing the pursuit of any such legal accountability.
So, in a functioning Constitutional Democracy, NO ONE should be “above the Law” — not the president, not his Attorney General. Not the Congressional representatives who cynically enable them — and refuse to take up their Constructional responsibility, to hold them accountable.
It is patently obvious what the Framers of the Constitution, explicitly intended Congress to enforce:
Article 2, Section 4
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.
That’s a wide net. That standard demands exemplary behavior, from the Executive branch.
The nascent idea of America was to end the rule of Kings and Depots. It is Congress’ charged responsibility to ensure that Age of Absolute Rule never returns. No matter what shrouds of incompetent and outrageous claims, that the current Executive Power may try to “shield itself” with, on a near daily basis.
The Constitution was designed that way. ... To hold Chief Executives accountable.
The Constitutional remedy for a fearful, weak-willed, and complicit Congress — is to Vote the bums out. Assuming the Republic lasts that long … and assuming the very constructs of our Democracy, are NOT permanently damaged by foreign and hostile cyber-forces, in the meantime.
Congress has a very solemn charge, one which up to this point, they have failed to take seriously. Our own Intelligence Agencies have told us — our Election process is at risk — and the urgency and impact of those warnings, barely phase the current ‘scoffing’ Administration. Nor apparently, those charged to maintain their watchdog role over them.
Have they learned nothing from 9/11? Stuff happens. Sometimes very serious stuff. We’ve been warned. Yet even now, they insist on playing … a cynical game of “blame the messenger”. Not smart, as the current CEO is fond of saying.
Primary reference:
Trump presidency provides urgent need for civics lessons
by David Adler, idahostatejournal.com — Dec 17, 2017
Secondary reference:
The Founder’s Constitution — Impeachment Clauses
press-pubs.uchicago.edu