The rule of law is failing by @BloggersRUs

The rule of law is failing

by Tom Sullivan

Still image from White House Down (2013)

The White House resists document releases to House investigations on the premise Congress has no “legitimate legislative purpose” in requesting them. So far, the administration's court battles have the primary effect of delaying rather than stopping the release of records requested by half a dozen House committees investigating the sitting president's financial history for foreign influence, etc. The administration's failures this week in court to block release Trump financial records suggest Speaker Nancy Pelosi's go-slow approach to opening impeachment hearings will eventually pry loose information necessary to move House inquiries forward.

Eventually. Or perhaps, eventually?

One of the principle arguments against the go-slow approach is impeachment hearings give the House additional leverage for prying loose documents it does not have now. Experts disagree on that. Lawfare explains, "Historically, the initiation of impeachment proceedings has had implications for the way the judiciary committee obtains relevant material. But broader changes in congressional rules and procedures in recent years mean that today’s judiciary committee may not need the same kind of special powers it was granted as part of previous impeachment inquiries."

Rules that existed during the Nixon and Clinton impeachments have "evolved," allowing committees investigative leeway now they did not have then, Lawfare argues.

Brian Beutler writes at Crooked Media:

By Thursday night, all the dangerous shortcomings of the slow-going approach had reasserted themselves. And they suggest not that the normal oversight process will be sufficient to protect the rule of law, but that the institutional guardrails surrounding the rule of law are faltering all at once, and more aggressively than at any time since Trump won the presidency.

“In a corrupt act of political retribution, our president has ordered his utterly compliant attorney general to root out Deep State demons that exist only in the unhinged mind of our nation's leader,” Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor, told Newsweek.

As @brianbeutler argues, an impeachment inquiry would give @RepJerryNadler "a forceful legal argument" to get "all the testimony and documentation he needs":https://t.co/S6RbOYB6X2

Also see this new piece from @mollyereynolds: https://t.co/cUYKLaoQu7

More in this thread: https://t.co/Jk8wJp8oCx

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) May 25, 2019

The first rule of bullies is that they are drawn to perceived weakness. No bully wants to try to pick on someone bigger and stronger than they are — they want to terrorize weak and helpless people who won't fight back. The point is the psychological satisfaction of easy domination, not brawling for its own sake. Indeed, most bullies are not actually very good at fighting, and will fold immediately if faced with a real physical confrontation.