Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, May 20, 2017

B3 

OPINION: LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 

 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 20, 2017 

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DICK POLMAN 

MAKING SENSE by 

MICHAEL REAGAN 


YET ANOTHER IMPEACHABLE 
OFFENSE 

Forgive my frequent references to Richard Nixon. It’s just eerie how 
his impeachable behavior is being replicated by the current con man. 
As Yogi Berra reputedly said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” 

 For instance: When Nixon decided to thwart the FBI’s probe 
of Watergate, he farmed out the job to his top henchman, H.R. 
Haldeman. On June 23, 1972 - forever memorialized on an Oval Office tape - Nixon decreed 
that the CIA should tell the FBI to lay off. He told Haldeman to set up a CIA meeting, and he 
said: “They should call the FBI in and say that ‘We wish for the country, don’t go any further 
into this case, period.’” 

 That was obstruction of justice. The only difference today is that Donald Trump didn’t 
farm out his obstruction job to anybody. He did it all by himself. In accordance with his 
motto, as articulated during his 2016 Republican convention speech: “I alone.” 

 During a meeting on Feb. 14 - according to James Comey’s contemporaneous memo 
-Trump ordered Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions to leave the room so that he could speak to 
the FBI director alone. As Comey later wrote, in a memo shared with associates at the time, 
Trump asked Comey to drop the FBI probe of paid Russian propagandist Michael Flynn: “I 
hope you can see your way clear of letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope 
you can let this go.” 

 After this bombshell exploded, the Trump team predictably insisted that the memo wasn’t 
“truthful or accurate.” Decide for yourself who to believe: Comey (who has been writing 
detailed contemporaneous memos for years), or the sociopathic liar who apparently cleared 
the room because he didn’t want any witnesses. 

 If you believe Comey - whose memo will inevitably go public - then you’ll surely be 
interested in 18 U.S. Code Section 1505, which deals with “Obstruction of proceeding before 
departments, agencies, and committees.” The key passage: 

 “Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter of communication, 
influences, obstructs, impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and 
proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before 
any department or agency of the United States” is guilty of obstructing justice. (Emphasis 
mine.) 

 After the Comey memo hit, virtually all the Republicans went AWOL. Fox News was so 
devoid of Trump defenders that it felt compelled to ignore the story entirely - opting instead 
to run giant headlines about the Clinton Foundation (I kid you not) and the breathtaking 
news that Tim Allen’s TV show had been cancelled. 

 Perhaps the Republicans are beginning to realize that they’ve lashed themselves to a 
sinking ship. One Republican lawmaker privately told a CNN reporter on Tuesday night that 
the reaction among his colleagues to the Comey news is “Wide-eyed and WTF.” 

 Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor, former assistant attorney general under 
George H.W. Bush, and an ex-Treasury undersecretary for enforcement under George W. 
Bush, says, “If the [Comey] allegations are true, President Trump has committed a serious 
federal crime.” Myra Adams, a McCain campaign aide in ‘08 and a Bush aide in ‘04, says, 
“Grounds for impeachment are defined by whatever the political market will bear. At this 
writing, one wonders just how much more the political market will bear after only four 
months of President Trump, and I say this after voting for him!” 

 And commentator David Gergen, who advised three Republican presidents (including 
Nixon), connected the dots on CNN, saying, “I think we’re in impeachment territory now for 
the first time ... It looks like [Trump] was trying to impede the investigation. He was using his 
power to do that, and when James Comey didn’t go along with him, when he wasn’t his boy, 
he fired him.” 

 The GOP’s current fig-leaf defense is basically, “We don’t yet know if this Comey memo 
is real.” Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is threatening to 
subpoena it. (Chaffetz, in his “request” letter to the FBI: “If true, these memoranda raise 
questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede the investigation.”) 
But the big question is what the Republicans will do if or when they actually see the memo. 
Will they finally stand up for America and fulfill the oath they took to defend it? 

 “This is no longer about Trump. We know what he is,” said former Bush speechwriter 
David Frum. “It’s about Congress and specifically Republicans in Congress. Who are they?” 

——- 

Copyright 2017 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. 

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia 
(newsworks.org/polman) and a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania. 
Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. 

CHANGING THE CHANNEL 
ON CONGRESS 

 I give up. 

 Ten minutes after I started watching the Senate intelligence committee hearings 
Thursday morning, I got so frustrated I started looking for a good cartoon show. 

 What’s so aggravating about these staged Congressional hearings is that you know 
what the Republicans and the Democrats are going to say before you even turn on the 
TV. 

If it’s healthcare reform, the right side says it’s going to replace Obamacare with 
something that works -- but then they can’t sell their conservative ideas to the public 
and they don’t have the courage to really try. 

 Meanwhile, the left side says the right is going to let poor people die or throw 
grandma off a cliff and that only more socialism will save us – and of course the Big 
Liberal Media always agrees. 

 If the hearing is about what ex-FBI Director James Comey did or did not say to 
President Trump before he was fired, as Thursday’s was in part, we get the usual 
predictable partisan BS. 

 Was anyone rally surprised that Democrats were against Director Comey and 
wanted his scalp for, they claim, causing their heroine Hillary to lose the election — 
right up until the minute President Trump actually fired him? 

 Now Schumer and the gang are defending Comey, making phony comparisons 
to Watergate and calling Trump’s quick decision to fire his FBI director somewhere 
between Nixonian and Hilterian. 

 The Democrats serving in Congress hate Trump, still can’t believe he was freely 
elected and want to see him impeached, jailed or worse. 

 At the same time, it’s become obvious that most members of the Republican 
majority have no spines and no genuine conservative principles. 

 Republicans and Democrats in Washington don’t know how to solve anything. 
They don’t know how to work together toward a common goal for us Americans. 

They only know how to work against us, because their only common bipartisan goal 
is to stay in office. 

 They’re politicians, first and foremost. They work much harder at self-preservation 
than they work at helping the rest of the country. 

 Is it any wonder that every time I sit and watch Congress in action, I say to myself, 
“Why the heck do I even go to the polls anymore?” 

 No matter how smart and sensible these people are when we vote for them, when 
they get to DC they turn into self-serving partisans. 

 It’s not a joke to say that if one party came up with the cure for cancer, the other 
party would be against it. 

 It’s already become clear to me that the only thing that can change in Washington 
is the White House. 

 Nothing important is going to be solved in the House and Senate with healthcare 
or taxes in the next four years unless Donald Trump stands up and says to Congress, 
“Get behind me, Satan.” 

 No one else has the political courage to take a stand on anything, except for Trump. 

I used to be bothered by the president not apologizing for his mistakes. Now I 
appreciate him better. 

 He’s far from perfect. But at least he has a pair of you-know-whats – which are 
surely lacking at other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. 

——- 

 

 Copyright ©2017 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald 
Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. 
Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of 
The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www. 
michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @ 
reaganworld on Twitter. 

 Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For 
info on using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com. 

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