Posted: 08 Jun 2017 Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG
Many were anticipating that #ComeyDay would be the most monumental congressional hearing in decades, but the truth is that it turned out to be quite a dud. During two and a half hours of testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, former FBI Director James Comey didn’t tell us anything that we don’t already know.
Of course liberal news outlets such as CNN are breathlessly proclaiming that we are now “in Nixon territory”, but that isn’t accurate at all. There is absolutely no evidence that President Trump committed any crime, and there is absolutely nothing that warrants impeachment. And I am far from alone in that assessment. For example, an analysis published by CNBC says that nothing in Comey’s testimony was “powerful enough to end the Trump presidency literally or figuratively”… “Former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony Thursday will indeed have a big political impact in Washington. It will foster more partisan bitterness and more bad feelings about our political process and news media. But none of his testimony rises to the level of anything legally powerful enough to end the Trump presidency literally or figuratively.When Comey accused Trump of being a liar, that certainly made a lot of headlines, but unless you are under oath it is not a crime to lie. Perhaps we should make it a crime for our politicians to lie, because if we did we would clean out the toilet that Washington D.C. has become rather quickly. But as it stands, even if Trump is a low-down dirty liar as Comey is claiming, that would simply put Trump on the same level as most of the current members of Congress. The much more important question is whether or not Trump committed obstruction of justice. Fortunately for Trump, there is a very clear answer to that question. First of all, we must remember that Trump was Comey’s boss. As chief executive, Trump has constitutional power to direct the activities of his subordinates, and he is free to fire them whenever he chooses. So, as Alan Dershowitz just pointed out on CNN, Trump cannot be impeached for simply exercising his constitutional authority… Renowned Harvard professor and legal mind Alan Dershowitz sparked quite a reaction during a CNN segment on Wednesday night after he proclaimed that former FBI director James Comey’s prepared testimony indicates that President Donald Trump didn’t commit any crimes.Traditionally, the FBI has operated in a highly independent manner, but there is nothing in the law that gives the FBI independent status. If Congress wants to pass a law to remove the FBI from being under the president’s authority they can certainly do that, but as it stands what Trump did was fully within the law. But even if Trump didn’t have the authority, there would still be no obstruction of justice. The two most important federal statutes that cover obstruction of justice are 18 U.S.C. § 1503 and 18 U.S.C. § 1505. In both cases, it would be exceedingly difficult for prosecutors to prove that Trump acted “corruptly” in this case. Not only that, there was no “proceeding” that Trump was trying to influence. For a more extended analysis, please see the article that I posted yesterday entitled “Even If Everything James Comey Is Claiming Is True, There Is Still No Evidence That Trump Is Guilty Of Any Crime”. If Comey is being straight with us, and at this point his credibility is pretty much shot, but if he is being straight with us there is still nothing that is going to end Trump’s presidency. What Trump did may have been “inappropriate”, but you don’t impeach a president for being “inappropriate”. In the aftermath of Comey’s testimony, Trump’s attorney said that the president feels “completely and totally vindicated”… President Donald Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, on Wednesday said his client felt “completely and totally vindicated” by James Comey’s prepared opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee.Personally, I hope that this whole “scandal” will go away now. There never was anything to it in the first place, and the American people want a government that is going to focus on solving problems instead of focusing on investigations that were doomed to go absolutely nowhere from the start. But even if this Comey angle doesn’t work out, the Democrats will just keep on trying. In fact, the Huffington Post is already starting to promote the theory that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is an impeachable offense. In the end, the Democrats are never going to give up until they find something that they can use against Trump. What I am hearing is that they are going to make an all-out push to take back the House and the Senate in 2018, and if they can do that they plan to use their congressional majorities to get rid of Trump one way or another. This is just another reason why the 2018 mid-term elections are going to be the most important mid-term elections in modern American history, because if the Democrats have their way Trump will never even make it to 2020. |
To be the child of Holocaust survivors is to grow up in the company of ghosts. By the time I was born, our large German-Jewish family was reduced to an inverted pyramid. My father didn't remember his grandparents and never knew half of his aunts and uncles, but the lost generations were palpable in their absence. You could smell Grandpa's sorrow in his cigar, taste Grandma's grief in the chicken soup. They missed their parents and grandparents, whose ashes lay in the dust of Buchenwald; their brown-eyed sisters and brothers, finished off by the SS; their many cousins; and all the children and grandchildren they would never have.
At our family's Passover Seders, in addition to the four children scripted to ask symbolic questions, there was always a fifth child at the table, the child who did not survive the Holocaust.
I struggled for decades with what to say to this fifth child, my emotional Siamese twin, a child whose voracious hunger for a life unlived I could never sate. Long ago I realized that I could never laugh loud enough, study hard enough, run fast enough or sing beautifully enough to make up for the joy she will never experience, the lessons she will never learn, the races she will never run and the songs she will never sing.
There were days when this martyred child wouldn't let me have a moment's peace; she was my personal Anne Frank who followed me everywhere. At Wrigley Field, while everyone else was guessing the crowd count, she'd pinch my arm and whisper: "Do you know how many stadiums-full it takes to reach 6 million dead relatives?" When I was stopped at a train crossing, she'd sit in the back, kicking my seat, daring me to imagine a one-way ride in a cattle car. She clung to my legs whenever I heard a German accent.
She brought out the worst and the best I had to give, and she was my constant companion -- until I had a child of my own.
One day, I had a vision of my own daughter intercepting the little girl and taking her by the hand to go outside to play. For the first time, I imagined the sound of the little girl's laughter. And then the burden that had sat on my chest since I have had memory began to melt away.
I began to feel my great-grandmother stand behind me and nod approvingly as I made chicken soup. I sensed my great-grandfather putting his hand on my shoulder when I took a job in the Jewish community. I pictured my brown-eyed grand-aunt smiling as I sang my daughter a Hebrew lullaby.
On the day of my daughter's Bat Mitzvah, the little girl and I watched as a new generation assumed the mantle of our Jewish tradition. Finally, I was able to promise her that Hitler didn't win.
I never saw her again.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, I still light a memorial candle for her, and pray that she is at peace.
A version of this post originally appeared on jufnews.org.
