Is It Fair To Point Out That Pelosi Is An Accessory To Trump's Crimes?

Thursday evening, Washington Post reporter's Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey wrote that the Trumpist Regime is "considering a plan to again divert billions of dollars in military funding to pay for border barrier construction next year, a way to circumvent congressional opposition to putting more taxpayer money toward the president’s signature project." The criminal fake "president" needs $18.4 billion to finish 500 miles of photogenic wall before the 2020 election.

Planning documents obtained by the Washington Post show the cost of building 509 miles of barriers averages out to more than $36 million per mile. The documents also show that the government would need to obtain-- either by eminent-domain claims or purchases-- land that lies under nearly 200 miles of proposed barrier.

At a Sept. 11 meeting at the White House led by adviser Jared Kushner, senior officials discussed a plan that would press lawmakers to backfill-- or reimburse-- $3.6 billion of Pentagon funds that the administration diverted this year to pay for fence construction, the officials said.

Trump is forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to bypass regular contracting processes in order to steer all work to North Dakota-based Fisher Industries, a company whose top executive, Tommy Fisher, is a GOP donor and frequent guest on Fox News. North Dakota's crooked senator, Kevin Cramer-- who has received over $10,000 in bribes from the Fisher family-- is the bag-man on the project and has been "deputized" by Trumpanzee to make sure Fisher builds the wall and Republicans and the Trump campaign get appropriate kicks backs.

In short, Trump forces the Pentagon to hand over money appropriated by Congress for specific projects so he can build his vanity project expressly prohibited by Congress, and then the Pentagon goes crying to Congress that they have to have the money for those projects or it will be a disaster.

House on Fire

Apparently, Pelosi finds this aberrant behavior less distasteful than impeaching Trump, making her an accessory to his crimes, from concentration camp funding to the building of this useless monument to his disgusting xenophobia. Yesterday, in his Bloomberg column, Jonathan Bernstein let Pelosi off easy, claiming there's only so much Democrats can do about Señor Trumpanzee's increasingly bold misconduct, by asking How Long Will Republicans Tolerate Trump’s Lawlessness?. The answer is obvious: for as long as their constituents allow them to. He claims it isn't Pelosi, but the Republicans "who have the real decision to make." Bernstein's bullshit line in 3 short sentences: "Because the truth at this point is pretty obvious: If they could be assured of even a smattering of Republican votes, Democrats would almost certainly impeach the president. If they had enough votes to ensure his removal in the Senate, you could remove that 'almost'-- Trump would be gone very rapidly. It’s all up to the Republicans."

What utter bullshit. Pelosi-- who has given up all pretense of governing on behalf of the people rather than on behalf of a tiny, electorally vulnerable Blue Dog fringe within her caucus-- could easily pass David Cicilline's assault weapons sales ban. There are 210 Democratic co-sponors to the bill, one Republican co-sponsor (to give her bipartisan cover if she wants it-- which she doesn't) and at least a dozen members on both sides of the aisle who say they will vote for it on the floor but not co-sponsor it. Pelosi needs 218 to pass it. She has at least 225 votes now. She's full of shit-- and so is Bernstein. He wants to dwell on Trump's criminal behavior-- which is fine-- but excuse Pelosi for allowing it.

We still have only limited information about the emerging whistleblower scandal. But we do know (from what Rudy Giuliani has bragged about) that the president’s lawyer has pressed another country to investigate a Democratic candidate for alleged corruption. That’s on top of the original Trump campaign’s dozens of contacts with a nation attacking U.S. democracy; several documented instances of the president obstructing the investigation of that attack; violations of the emoluments clauses of the Constitution and regular use of government resources to enrich the president’s businesses; and assertions of invented presidential privileges to prevent congressional oversight.

Republicans have been okay with all this, presumably because they’re getting what they want on policy. Or perhaps out of pure partisanship. Or maybe because they’re so deep in the conservative information-feedback loop that they’ve convinced themselves none of it is real. But they should be taking stock now of just how much lawlessness they’re willing to tolerate. At this point, it looks like the whistleblower’s story involves Trump attempting to offer U.S. policy favors to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

I’ve said all along that there’s a middle ground where the evidence may justify impeachment and removal of the president, but not demand it. Well, the evidence has long since established that impeachment is justified. Now we’re tiptoeing up to the line where it demands removal. At some point, we may wind up clearly over that line by any reasonable definition. If Republicans choose to stick with Trump then, he’ll correctly conclude that he’s above the law.

Democrats can’t do much about this by themselves. Sure, they can attempt to convince the public that Trump’s actions demonstrate that he’s unfit for office, and it’s reasonable to consider every method of doing so, including a partisan impeachment ending in a party-line acquittal in the Senate. They should also continue their investigations, even though much of the case against Trump has been public from the beginning.

But we know how public opinion works. As long as Republicans choose to stay relatively united, either in denying evidence of Trump’s malfeasance or claiming that there’s nothing wrong with it, then Democrats will be unable to generate enough constituent pressure to change their minds. Whatever evidence is turned up, Republicans probably can brazen it out if that’s what they really want, regardless of the damage it does to U.S. democracy. So that leaves one question for them: Is this really what you want?  

"A president is sitting in the Oval Office, right now, who continues to commit crimes. He continues because he knows his Justice Department won’t act and believes Congress won’t either. Today’s news confirmed he thinks he’s above the law. If we do nothing, he’ll be right."- Elizabeth Warren