Get ye to the water gate
by Tom Sullivan
Aerial view of Watergate Hotel complex via Wikimedia Commons [Public domain].
One of the oddities memory recalls from the Watergate scandal is some evangelical preacher claiming the Bible predicted it. Perhaps he cited this verse:
Nehemiah 8:1 And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel.
Upon hearing a reading of the law, there was much rejoicing, etc., etc.
A little reverence for the law would be bracing about now, what with the sitting president in open defiance of it. Mr. Trump is shredding the Constitution, warns Will Bunch, "and promoting a crisis that will leave Americans angry and, at least psychologically, poised for a civil war." Trump's plan for surviving a congressional probe into what Robert Mueller's investigation found just might work, too. If not for the country, then for Trump, "which in Trumpland is the only outcome that matters."
In ordering subordinates to ignore congressional subpoenas, denying Congress' document requests, and filing lawsuits to block and delay the release of bank and accounting records as well as his taxes, Bunch suggests, Trump is giving the United States of America the full Roy Cohn treatment. It did not work for Richard Nixon. But all Trump's efforts might have to accomplish is delaying impeachment for a year.
James Reston Jr., author of “The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews,” reminds New York Times readers that Article III of the Nixon impeachment charged the president with refusing to comply with eight Watergate subpoenas. The House of Representatives approved that article in addition to one charging obstruction of justice and another for abuse of power.
That was then, of course. This is Trump. Like Nixon before him, Trump argues Congress does not need to see any more. He has declared himself exonerated, absolved, and that should be the end of it.
"President Trump’s assertion that there is nothing left to learn from congressional hearings — which, unlike the Mueller investigation, would be televised — may be correct," Reston argues. "But that is beside the point; it is up to Congress, not him, to decide."
Someone should send Trump a memo on that written in short words for aides to read aloud.
Televised hearings are what Trump fears more than subpoenas. The reality show veteran knows the power of television. He knows drama and suspense. Rather than allow the usual rolling colloquy by members (including “right-wing exuberants” Jim Jordan of Ohio, Louis Gohmert of Texas, and Florida's Matt Gaetz), committee chair Jerry Nadler may bring in a skilled prosecutor to handle questioning. Such hearings will be ratings gold, Donald Trump knows and cannot allow. Whatever he might have said days ago.
The left wants to see impeachment hearings for the branding if for no other reason. Progressives want the emotional satisfaction of reading impeachment hearing on a C-Span chyron. But with Trump clearly trying to run out the clock, getting hearings started without delay is more important than taking the time to build consensus around the branding. Like diverting "all power to the shields," all activism should focus on getting those hearings started promptly. It's not its emotional satisfaction the left should worry about, but about denying Trump his. The sitting president will go to the mat if not to war to stop House Democrats from seeing what he is clearly desperate to conceal. Exposing Nixon's tapes undid his presidency. Trump must not succeed in concealing his "tapes."
