The Trump administration is preventing a number of key witnesses from testifying in the House impeachment inquiry, ignoring congressional subpoenas.
Obvious question, since we’re talking about congressional subpoenas: OK, so, they still have to testify, right?
Um, actually, no.
Because, see, who will make them?
That’s the problem we have right now.
As a country.
For the better part of 230 years, people just followed the rule of law.
There were those four years in the 1860s when a section of the country decided to take up arms against the state, but you know how that one worked out.
Aside from that …
Presidents lost elections, parties lost congressional majorities, there were scandals, investigations into said scandals, fights over policy.
Not all pretty, not even close, but at the end of the day, everybody played by the rules.
Until now.
The short answer to our first question here was, no.
The longer answer: who will make them?
Still longer: what, you expect the House to send its sergeant-at-arms to arrest administration officials and haul them before Congress?
That’s where we are with this.
The president violated federal law by using federal taxpayer dollars, duly appropriated by Congress, to leverage the announcement of an investigation into a political rival from a foreign country.
He’s further violating federal law by instructing people with direct knowledge of those illegal acts to ignore congressional subpoenas related to the investigation into what transpired.
Top Republicans in Congress are toeing the obstruction of justice line in enabling the administration’s efforts to impede the investigation.
And because of the way our founders set up our system, they will all ultimately be successful in their efforts to avoid any meting out of justice for their actions.
Knowing this doesn’t absolve congressional Democrats from the responsibility of taking the proceedings to the inevitable endgame.
The next big question comes next November, or more to the point, in January 2021.
It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump winning re-election in 2020, not without more help from Russia, which of course is likely on its way, but even so.
He’s going to lose, but … what happens when he just up and decides that, you know what, I’m still president?
Who makes him move out of the White House?
The Electoral College doesn’t have a sergeant-at-arms. The president is the commander-in-chief of our armed forces, our Justice Department.
You think we’re in a constitutional crisis now?
Fourteen months from now. Book it.
Column by Chris Graham
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