Pretty sure that was frosty dignity, like the Duke of Hamster towards an impertinent tradesman. Hard to imagine John “flouncing away”, any more than I can imagine a solemn elegy from “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Just a reminder of the issue that was being discussed. Contrary to the claim made by another poster, Starr did not decide to impeach Clinton. Of course, that decision is reserved for the House. However, it was indeed his job to inform Congress of what he thought were impeccable offenses. There was no precedent set by that action-- he was complying with the law.
Mueller is in a slightly different capacity, although much of what he is doing is the same. I have not seen the instructions he was given, and I’m not up on what the current law is, so he may or may not be required to address the issue of impeachable offenses. If someone has seen his instructions or knows what the current law is, that would be of interest in so much as the matter of impeachment will be considered. If the House flips next year, that is a distinct possibility.
To put a more technical slant on it: Some folks are in deep doo-doo, and it might even be Trump himself.
The original Crazification Factor was actually 54%. You only get 27% if you assume that all of the crazies voted for Keyes, but it’s much more reasonable to assume that they split evenly between the two. Yes, there were plenty of good reasons to vote for Obama over Keyes, but not everyone who did so did it for a good reason.
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3726408-Rosenstein-letter-appointing-Mueller-special.html
600.4 C could be read to allow him to make recommendations of impeachment. I don’t know if it does, reasonably.
There is no document that makes it his sole or even primary duty. A prosecutor’s job is to investigate and prosecute where appropriate. I don’t think even John would argue that it’s appropriate to recommend (which is what Starr did, come on) that the House impeach for something that he couldn’t even charge - why, that would make it look like the whole point was to find something to get the target for, wouldn’t it?
The way I read that is that such recommendation would have to made to and only to the AG, not Congress. And then the AG would decide whether to include impeachment recommendations within the scope or not. I doubt Sessions would be open to that except in very extraordinary circumstances. And if Congress is receptive to impeachment, they don’t need no stinkin’ recommendation from Mueller anyway.
Paul Manafort is literally colluding with Russians while out on bail.
H’m. If I’m reading matters correctly, it’s not completely settled whether or not a sitting President can be indicted. Reading this article, here’s a summary of the arguments:
I recall reading elsewhere that the Watergate-era prosecutors considered indicting Nixon, but chose to go with the political solution. Sorry, no cite handy.
An interesting question. Anyone care to comment?
AFAIK, it’s never been done or even tried, so it’s uncharted waters. I’m sure some prosecutor somewhere would LOVE to be the first person to do it, but there are just so many impediments in the way that I think it’s practically impossible. If there was anything serious enough to indict the president over, Congress would probably impeach first and the Senate would remove from office. Then, he’s just a citizen.
{emphasis mine}
It’d end up in the Supreme Court, to be sure. A partial argument may be made, however. It has been adjudicated in Clinton v. Jones that a sitting President may be sued for actions before or completely unrelated to his/her office. It seems to me that it would be a short step to arguing that a sitting President may be indicted, under the same theory that no one is above the law.
On the bolded part, normally I’d agree, but I’m not so sanguine about the chances that this Congress would agree.
THIS Congress? Come on. Trump has been in the ass-pocket of a foreign government even before he was elected. Right NOW, Paul Manafort, his campaign manager, is colluding with a Russian spy, WHILE UNDER INDICTMENT FOR COLLUDING WITH RUSSIANS.
There is nothing, literally NOTHING Trump could do that would induce the GOP to impeach or convict him.
NOTHING.
Not true. He could veto the tax cut.
Nitpick: Because Sessions recused himself, Rosenstein is the “AG” for the purposes of Mueller’s investigation.
Once he puts his John Henry on that tax cut gift to the wealthy, they don’t need his sorry ass anymore. Or even now, Pence could sign it just as well as he could. Privately, they all admit that he’s as nutty as a fruitcake. If Mueller gives them enough reason, they will impeach and convict.
The authors of the Constitution did not want presidents going through criminal trials during their presidency. Clearly, the constitutionally valid way of dealing with a rogue president is impeachment, then criminal trial once removed from office, if that’s deemed necessary.
This type of thing makes “colluding with Russians” lose all meaning.
I’m not a legal scholar or anything, but this is the type of legal thinking that I object to as a general principle. I don’t think the law should be based on speculation about what the authors of the Constitution wanted or didn’t want. Unless there’s something in the Constitution which specifically protects the president from criminal prosecution, then he should be subject to the law like anyone else, IMHO.
A cite would be welcome.
Impeachable offenses, however, aren’t the same as criminal offenses. Trump could quite conceivably have committed one or more high crimes and misdemeanors that are not criminal offenses, or may be but are not practically indictable.
The set of things that constitute impeachable offenses is a vague one, and isn’t laid out in statute. Consequently it is not really Mueller’s area of expertise.
But if he’s charged with doing so, then he hires someone on his staff who is an “expert” in the area. He’s the director of the investigation, not a worker bee. Let’s be realistic, though-- with only 2 impeachments under our belts as a nation, it’s not like there’s a whole lot of precedents out there.
Anyway, it looks the new law governing the Independent Council’s authority has throttled it back quite a bit. Maybe the idea was to try and keep it out of the political realm as much as possible. Because let’s face it, impeachment is a political act.
Article II, section 4 of the Constitution.