I Did Not. Have. Improper. Relations. With That Man, Mr. Comey
We have recent precedent on what Republicans think 'obstruction of justice' means.
James Comey
Would Republicans be acting differently if news came out that Donald Trump asked James Comey for a blow job? If the New York Times reported that James Comey had kept a blue suit, with the president’s semen on it, would that be the “smoking gun” Republicans needed to investigate this president?
Everybody is up this morning with stories on what “obstruction of justice” means. Seriously: Here’s the NYT, CNN, and Politico. Obstruction of justice isn’t an inscrutable term of art. Impede an official investigation, you obstruct justice.
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It’s a pretty broad term, so it’s less important what we can technically call “obstruction of justice.” Technically: firing the guy who may be investigating you, could be obstruction of justice (last week’s story). Telling the guy in charge of investigating the national security advisor you fired to stop, could be obstruction of justice (this week’s story). And hiring a guy on the condition that he will stop investigating your connections to Russia, could also be obstruction of justice (next week’s story).
If we broaden the category from “obstruction of justice” to “high crimes and misdemeanors,” you could probably bring in a whole other slew of Trump stuff with which to build a case around.
The question is not “has Trump committed impeachable offenses.” We’re pretty much at the point where only Trump supporters, enablers, and LGBTQ white people who are more afraid of Mike Pence think that’s still an open question. The question is simply: do Republicans in Congress have the will to impeach a president.
Which is why I go back to Bill Clinton. The last time Republicans found the will to impeach a sitting president, they rose up against Bill Clinton and hung a perjury charge and an obstruction of justice charge on him. Two other impeachment charges failed the House vote — a second perjury charge related to his testimony in the Paula Jones case, and a charge of “abuse of power.” So we have precedent. We have precedent for what Republicans think are impeachable offenses.
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The only relevant question is a political one, not a legal one. Do Republicans think that the president lying about sexual relations is better or worse than the president trying to cajole the F.B.I. director into dropping an investigation, and firing him when he didn’t? Is James Comey more or less credible than Linda Tripp?
You’re not going to find answers to those questions in a statute, you find them in your soul. I’ve long argued that Congressional Republicans don’t have those, but they are free to prove me wrong.
What do you think? Take our reader poll below.
Which is an impeachable offense?
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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.
