(Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Last night, Buzzfeed ended the legal speculation about whether President Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors. He did. Buzzfeed claims Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timing of Trump’s dealings to erect a Trump Tower in Moscow. Buzzfeed has sources claiming special counsel Robert Mueller has proof. If the Buzzfeed report is accurate, and there is literally no reason to believe that it is not, Mueller has proof that Trump should be impeached and removed from office by Congress.
The Constitution requires nothing less. Suborning perjury is a “high crime and misdemeanor,” that’s precedent. The Constitution says that it is Congress’s job to move against a President who has credibly been accused of committing these offenses.
The only thing that obscures the seriousness of the Buzzfeed report is that we have been buffeted by serious allegations and evidence of Trump’s illegalities for two years now. Nothing before has seemed to matter, why would this? The internet is full of politicians, pundits, and legal analysts saying this thing or the other is the “end” of Trump, and yet Trump remains, like a zit on America’s face that can’t be obscured until you cut off your own head.
What’s different this time is that we now know that Robert Mueller will furnish Mitch McConnell with all the legal ammunition they need to impeach the president, should Mitch McConnell choose to exercise the Constitutional responsibilities of his office. The other crimes and misdeeds Donald Trump has been accused of require McConnell and the Republicans to accept, if not a “Democratic” theory of the case against Trump, then at the very least a theory based in fundamental presidential decency. But Republicans do not accept that their presidents must behave decently, and they do not hold their presidents to the same standards they hold African-American presidents to.
The usual Republican excuses of Donald Trump’s behavior simply don’t apply in this case. Most of the hedging around the Buzzfeed report takes the form of the “big if true” caveat. It’s true. Everybody, aside from those trapped in the alt-right’s thrall, knows it to be true. The presumption of innocence does not require one to be a chump.
The news that should make Republicans break out in flop sweats in the Buzzfeed report is not that Trump suborned perjury, it’s that Mueller can prove it. This is the key paragraph from Buzzfeed:
The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.
This suggests that Mueller came to the knowledge that Cohen was instructed to lie independently of Michael Cohen, and that Cohen later confirmed. The Trump team can call Michael Cohen a liar all they want, but the suggestion here is that Cohen’s story is (wait for it) CORROBORATED by other witnesses, emails, and documents.
If Trump suborned perjury, McConnell need only hold Trump to the standard of well established legal precedent. He need only acknowledge the Mueller’s evidence against Trump as evidence, instead of some kind of plot orchestrated by George Soros. He need only say, “the President cannot commit a felony.” Suborning perjury, to Congress, is not a close case. As Lawfare puts it:
This story is the first direct allegation of a crime by Trump involving L’Affaire Russe for which the president cannot claim that his actions were authorized by the Article II powers of the presidency. There is an active debate about the degree to which the obstruction statutes can or cannot be applied to facially valid exercises of presidential authority—like, for example, firing the FBI director or directing the conduct of an investigation. There is no debate, by contrast, about whether the president can obstruct justice in his conduct outside of his authorities as president.
There is no possible argument that Trump was acting “within his executive authority” when he suborned perjury.
Of course, there’s no reason to believe McConnell will faithfully execute the responsibilities of his office. He didn’t give Merrick Garland a hearing, he’s currently letting 800,000 federal workers face food uncertainty because he doesn’t want to let the Senate operate as a democratic institution. Mitch McConnell DGAF. There’s nothing in the Buzzfeed report that changes that.
But the key here is that this report gives McConnell the unquestioned power to end Trump whenever he sees fit. McConnell hoards power like a dung beetle hoards poop, if it’s there he’s willing to get dirty to get some. We’ve talked a lot about the dangers of having a President who is susceptible to blackmail by a foreign power. But now we’re living in a world where the President is susceptible to blackmail by the Senate Majority Leader.
Senate Republicans might still live in fear of Trump’s base of voters (who likely do not care about Buzzfeed’s report), and Senate Republicans have become comfortable in their scraping cowardice in front of the great and powerful Oz. But if Mitch McConnell snaps his fingers and tells them it’s Pence time, they’ll have to fall in line. Mueller’s evidence is going to give them Constitutional cover for their actions in a way that Stormy Daniels’s panties never could.
We essentially no longer have a President, we have a Prime Minister who rules a divided government. McConnell can have Trump removed from office within a month of Mueller’s report, if Trump displeases him. The problem of upholding the integrity of the United States of America now rests solely on his desk.
McConnell, arguably, knows that after reading the Buzzfeed report. What he does with that information is anyone’s guess.
I wonder when somebody will tell Donald Trump.
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
Donald Trump’s Presidency Is Legally Over, Pending Mitch McConnell’s Acknowledgement Of His Constitutional Duties curated from Above the Law
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