Today I am going to begin what I believe will be the first in a long series of posts, within each of which I will take note of the commission of impeachable offenses by the person who is going to get the most votes when the electoral college next month, as opposed to the person who got the most votes by far from the American people. I am morally certain that I’ll miss a lot of impeachable offenses, but I’ll try my best. As Krugman has pointed out, this administration bids fair to be the most corrupt in American history, and it should be noted that, for the most part, in previously corrupt administrations, it has been the underlings, and not the top man who have been corrupt. Not so with our soon to be Grifter in Chief.
I am going to define impeachable offenses in two ways. The first is any offense which does in fact constitute a high crime or misdemeanor. The second is any offense which, by the Clinton rules, would be perceived by Republicans as grounds to launch an endless investigation. A caveat here is that I will count in the second category only those examples in which wrongdoing is actually clear or proven and which are analogous to an actual Clinton “scandal”.
For the moment, I will assume that a person can be impeached for crimes committed before taking the oath of office, since otherwise I’d have to wait until January 21st to start this series.
So, it happens that the first offense (of which I’ve become aware) is impeachable both as a matter of law and under the Clinton rules:
About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.
The event for the diplomatic community, held one week after the election, was in the Lincoln Library, a junior ballroom with 16-foot ceilings and velvet drapes that is also available for rent.
…
In interviews with a dozen diplomats, many of whom declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak about anything related to the next U.S. president, some said spending money at Trump’s hotel is an easy, friendly gesture to the new president.
“Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’?” said one Asian diplomat.
First, let’s take a look at the Clinton rules. There never was any evidence of a “pay to play” arrangement so far as the Clinton Foundation went. The best the AP’s in depth investigation could do is allege that Hillary met with a Nobel Peace Prize winner who had also donated to the foundation. Here, we have Trump soliciting members of the diplomatic community to line his pockets, and isn’t it clear from what the unnamed Asian diplomat has to say that they’ve gotten the message loud and clear. This would be good for at least a five year investigation were the Clintons involved. It will be forgotten tomorrow.
I call it soliciting a bribe. The Supreme Court might not, having recently legalized bribery, so long as the person being bribed is a Republican, but I still call it that. So there’s your high crime.
I should say, parenthetically, that if this administration was merely corrupt, I would be much more sanguine about the future. Democracies can bounce back from corruption.
We’ve done it before. Once autocracies are entrenched, they’re very hard to uproot.
