Last week, federal prosecutors called Donald Trump a felon.
In their sentencing memo for Michael Cohen, Trump’s long-time lawyer, the prosecutors noted that Cohen paid off two women who claim to have had extramarital affairs with Trump. Since the payments were intended to influence the Presidential campaign, they violated campaign finance law when they were not reported. Prosecutors added that “Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” Since “Individual-1” is Trump, that in essence makes Trump an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal felony.
That, of course, is just the current status. The Mueller report is still outstanding and could result in charges related to conspiracy and obstruction of justice. I’ll contend that there is already sufficient proof in the public domain to meet a civil court’s “preponderance of evidence” standard for these additional charges. I suspect a criminal court’s “reasonable doubt” standard will also be met in the near future and related impeachment proceedings are still a possibility.
And yet, Republicans are already lining up to defend the President.
I was particularly struck by the on-camera dismissal of the charges by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), saying:
You can make anything a crime under the current laws if you want to. …
I don’t care. All I can say is he’s doing a good job as President.
My interest in this particular rant was piqued when I remembered that Hatch was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during President Clinton’s impeachment trial. I suspected that Hatch might have weighed in somewhere with respect to that President’s legal battles during a time when a large portion of the country thought Clinton was doing a “good job” as well.
Of course, Hatch did indeed have something to say.
On Feb. 23, 1999, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) entered a 14,000 word treatise into the Congressional Record. Since it serves as an uncannily direct rebuttal to the position that he and his colleagues have taken two decades later, below are excerpts presented in order, in-context, and without commentary:
Our duty calls on us to answer a serious question — whether the President’s actions warrant his removal from office. …
The President’s Counsel has argued that the President can only be removed for constituting, what Oliver Wendell Holmes termed in free speech cases, a ‘‘clear and present danger.’’ It was contended that a President can only be removed if he is a danger to the Constitution. … But such a standard establishes an impossibly high bar as to render impotent the impeachment clauses of the Constitution. … Committing crimes of moral turpitude, such as perjury and obstruction of justice, go to the very heart of qualification for public office. … The fact that the underlying behavior was private in its genesis is irrelevant. Such private acts demean the Office of the President, and betray public trust. Those acts therefore are impeachable. …
A President of the United States is not simply a political leader. A President is a head of state and a role model for Americans, particularly our children. What kind of message will we send to our posterity if [his] conduct is not considered worthy of removal? What amount of cynicism and disrespect for our governmental institutions will we engender if we impose one set of rules for the common man … and another for the President of the United States — who receives a pass from removal because he is powerful or has done a ‘‘good job’’ in some eyes? … Whether [he] has done a ‘‘good job’’ is a matter of partisan debate. In fact, adopting a ‘‘good job’’ exception — a term that is so flexible and vague as to be meaningless as a constitutional standard — merely exasperates the partisan tensions ever present in impeachment trials. …
Americans should be able to rely on him to honor those values that have built and sustained our country, the values we try to teach our children — honesty, integrity, being forthright. … Upholding our Constitution — a sacred document that Americans have fought and died for — is more important than any one person, including the President of the United States.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Hatch.