Archive for category: emptywheel

Here is my presentation from the Take Back American panel on "Curbing the Imperial Presidency." I’m sure it didn’t come out this way. But it might be close.

One year after the publication of his book The ImperialPresidency, Arthur Schlesinger wrote the following for a column in Harpers:

We hear a great deal today aboutthe presumably grim consequences of the impeachment of the President—an endlesspublic trial, a people divided, a government paralyzed, a nation disgracedbefore the world. But suppose the House of Representatives should decide notto impeach Mr. Nixon. That would have its consequences, too—consequencesthat deserve at least as careful an examination.

For the refusal to impeach wouldbe a decision as momentous as impeachment itself. It would and could beinterpreted only as meaning that Congress does not think Mr. Nixon has doneanything to warrant impeachment. It would alter the historic relationship ofPresidential power to the constitutional system of accountability for the useof that power. The message our generationwould send to posterity would be that Mr. Nixon, whatever his other disasters,had conceived and established a new conception of Presidential accountability,and that his successors, so long as they take care to avoid the crudities of aWatergate burglary, can expect to inherit Mr. Nixon’s conception of inherentPresidential authority and to wield the unshared power with which he will haveendowed the Presidency. Failure to impeach would be a vindication of arevolutionary theory of Presidential accountability.

Now, I agree with Schlesinger. The fear of an endless publictrial, of government paralyzed, of international disgrace—those are notsufficient reasons to avoid impeaching a President (or Vice President orAttorney General) who has overstepped his constitutional authority.

Oh, this is getting good. As part of his interim report on RNC emails, Waxman released Susan Ralston’s testimony before the committee. Reading the deposition, it becomes pretty clear why Tom Davis was trying to warn Rove of the danger of Ralston’s testimony. Because even what she was willing to testify to makes it clear that Rove is in some deep legal trouble. And then when you look at the areas where she carves out immunity for herself, you realize that if she were ever to testify under immunity, Rove would be in deeper trouble.

The carved out areas, as already reported, pertain primarily to the Abramoff scandal and the use of RNC emails–both area where Ralston’s position as Karl’s gatekeeper would implicate her in the larger workings of the WH. For example, here is Brad Berenson, the GOP’s  designated firewall defense attorney,  explaining the limites of Ralston’s testimony on RNC emails.

Berenson. Yes. We have decided this morning to allow her to talk aboutsome of the mechanics of Mr. Rove’s use of e-mail accounts, but when itcomes to the reasons of why he vvas using political e-mail accounts,there ìs a reasonable, well-founded concern that a discussion of thereasoning behind the use of those accounts may sweep more broadly thanMr. Rove himself , and may go part of the way toward explaining apattern of usage among other officials, potentially including Ralston,and so that’s why vve are goìng to decline to answer that question thismornìng.

At one point, Berenson reveals something more specific they’re trying to hide.

Q Do you know if anybody received briefings about how to use the different e-maiI accounts?

Mr . Berenson. I ‘m goìng to interpose our previous objection there for the same reasons stated at the outset.

Anyone want to guess a) that there was a briefing and b) that they made it very clear that they should dump anything illegal into RNC emails? Well, Ralston knows, but she won’t tell until you give her a stay out of jail free card.