Yesterday, Alan Dershowitz ,the attorney for the president***, stated:
“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
Reading this with the most benign interpretation, you might have a scintilla of reasonable argument. The president very well may do things that are in the public interest that also make him look better just because he’s did his job. Signing trade deals, for example.
But that’s not what we’re looking looking at here. And if you look at what Dershowitz claims in practical terms shows it for the insanity it is.
In short, anything the president*** does to be reelected is not illegal or impeachable so long as he believes his reelection is the best thing for the nation.
It’s a throwback to Richard Nixon‘s response in his David Frost interview when asked about the illegality of his actions: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
This argument places the power of the president above all law.
It also opens a Pandora’s Box for behaviors that could well push a nation into authoritarianism.
By Dershowitz’s logic, if the president*** believed (just believed with no evidence) that the election of the Democratic candidate for president would not be the best thing in the public interest, he could unleash all sorts of attacks with the full power of all the governmental agencies at his disposal.
Anything he did toward this end would be permissible. Anything.
And because of this current sham trial and the expected acquittal being gifted to the president*** by this craven and cowering group of GOP senators, there will be no oversight, no method of stopping him from crushing anyone who stood up to him. Even his cover ups and his refusal to provide documents or allow testimony become legal because, in his mind, it is in the public interest.
His interest becomes the public interest.
His grievances become the public’s grievances.
And he is a man with more grievances than any other man alive.
That’s scary territory, folks. Especially when you’re dealing with the kind of personality we know is possessed by this person.
We will have no guarantees of fair elections or of fair justice. There are so many scenarios– and all of them are awful– that wait for us if we throw open the lid of this Pandora’s Box.
And many of them will affect average citizens in a very real and negative fashion. It won’t just be high profile politicos.
There will be an acquittal. We all know that. Short of new new impeachment proceedings (he can be impeached again and again) brought about by even more overwhelming evidence, we will only have one chance to slam this lid shut.
And that is to Vote Blue in overwhelming numbers up and down the ballot in this year’s elections.
Don’t wait. Make sure you’re registered to vote now. Make sure your friends and families register and vote.
To do anything less is insanity.
Redtree Times 