Ralph Nader's Blog, page 39

The Vengeful, Lawless, Corporate Toady Trump Explodes

By Ralph Nader

February 7, 2020

The day after his acquittal by the Republican Party in a trial that banned witnesses, the unhinged Donald Trump gloated for over an hour on all the television networks. Trump flattered his courtiers, one by one, and fulminated against his Congressional adversaries, Hillary Clinton and ex-FBI chief James Comey.

Donald Trump’s speech degraded his office for the ages. Trump lied about himself and others and received applause from the assembled sycophants. The morning of his speech, Trump attended a prayer breakfast. Trump never goes to church to atone for his habitual, career-long violations of seven of the Ten Commandments. His hypocrisy has no bounds.

Tightening his dictatorial grip on the U.S. government,  Trump pledged to destroy his opponents— from Nancy Pelosi to Adam Schiff to the “radical, socialist Democrats.” These shameful threats cannot be taken lightly. Never forget Trump saying “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.”

The egomaniacal Trump is inebriated with his disgraceful acquittal, convinced of his own innocence, despite the clear evidence of his guilt. No apologies, no remorse, since he never does “anything wrong.” Trump’s petulant actions could make him an object of abject pity were he not in a position to start wars, shred the Constitution, repeal life-saving regulations, and turn the U.S. government over to avaricious giant corporations.

In politics, the tactical question between the contestants is who is on the offensive and who is on the defensive. Trump knows this in his gut. How do the Democrats regroup? Nancy Pelosi did not send a broad array of impeachable offenses to the Senate – some with clear ‘kitchen table’ appeal. Sending just the articles dealing with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress stemming from the Ukraine extortion assured a Republican kangaroo court acquittal. Early polls don’t indicate the imperfect trial diminishing his public support. What Democrats have going for them is the certainty that Trump will continue to commit daily impeachable offenses, including defying Congressional subpoenas. Despite these daily offenses, Trump continues to mock the Democrats. He is practically begging them to pursue a second round of impeachment charges. They should do so just to defend the critical checks and balances required by the Constitution.

Trump’s actions are a departure from those of Bill Clinton. After his Senate acquittal, Clinton spoke for only two minutes on television and he used his time to express regret and apologize. Trump exploded with rage, vindictiveness, and plans for revenge. His unseemly outburst at the annual National Prayer Breakfast smashed all precedent.

After acquittal, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote: “He described his political opponents as ‘bad,’ ‘dirty,’ ‘horrible,’ ‘evil,’ ‘sick,’ ‘corrupt,’ ‘scum,’ ‘leakers,’ ‘liars,’ ‘vicious,’ ‘mean,’ ‘lowlife,’ ‘non-people,’ ‘stone-cold crazy,’ and ‘The crookedest, most dishonest, dirtiest people I’ve ever seen.’” Mostly, the exact description of the person he sees in the mirror. Conservative columnist Michael Gerson warned further: “…we are reaching a very dangerous moment in our national life. The president is seized by rage and resentment…for all to see and hear. He now feels unchecked and uncheckable. And he has a position of tremendous power. That is what happens when a sociopath gets away with something.”

Another columnist, Catherine Rampell, lists past vengeful uses of his power to twist procurement contracts and antitrust enforcement decision against his enemies. She calls it “weaponizing the presidency.”

For example, Trump doesn’t like CNN so he ordered the Justice Department to challenge the AT&T merger with Time Warner in court (unsuccessfully).

The White House has refused to give Congress documents that could reveal whether Trump intervened for personal political advantage. Congress is the only institution that has the authority given to it by the Founders to thwart a fast-emerging monarch.

Defying Congressional subpoenas is a slam dunk impeachable offense.  No resort to the courts is required. Congress has plenary power to enforce its subpoenas. When Trump ignores Congress’s constitutional authority, all other powers of Congress are debilitated. These include the powers to spend, tax, declare war, confirm nominees and, of course, to check a runaway executive branch under a dictatorial, seriously unstable, chronically lying President.

Under “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, the Senate has been shut down. The only time the Senate takes any action is when it acts like Trump’s lapdog. Senator McConnell is sitting on over 300 bills passed by the House, including legislation that would protect our elections from foreign interference. (For more information see, https://ditchmitchfund.com/).

That leaves the House of Representatives, which Trump promises to punish. What Speaker Nancy Pelosi must now do is to assemble her more than willing Committee Chairs and collect all the existing disregarded House subpoenas and continue their existing investigations which, stonewalled by Trump, will require more subpoenas.

Before he resigned, Nixon was about to be impeached, in part, for defying one subpoena. Trump’s holds the presidential record tearing up subpoenas for witnesses and documents.

He has raised the stakes as to whether the Congress as the central institution of our government will survive his executive branch shredding of the Constitution.

Given what they said, wrote, and placed into the Constitution, the number one concern of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, was to prevent another King George III – a monarch in practice if not in name. They implemented this priority by placing the most powerful authorities by far in the Congress.

Trump is daring the House of Representatives to challenge his outlawry and abdicate the constitutional obligation to impose “checks and balances” on the Executive branch. An article of impeachment regarding mass subpoena defiance needs no witnesses, is clear-cut, and can be approved in less than a day and sent to the Senate. Then the people can see whether McConnell will say that the people need volumes of information about Trump corruptly destroying their health, safety and economic protections and turning our government over to Wall Street.

Kitchen table issues are everywhere behind those subpoenas by ongoing House Committee investigations. The spreading “Ditch Mitch” movement in Kentucky will be watching Senator McConnell.

Misleading Categories and Trump’s Swamps

By Ralph Nader

January 31, 2020

It is remarkable how the Democratic Presidential candidates allow themselves to be pigeon-holed by the media as “moderate,” “centrist,” “extreme,” “left-wing,” and other abstract fact-deprived nomenclature.

It is also astonishing that the Democratic operatives have made something called “electability” a yardstick for deciding who to vote for in the primaries. This is particularly ironic considering the winner of the primary will be running against “crooked” self-enriching Donald and his brazen wrecking crew. Remember, Donald Trump was once considered unelectable.

Let’s start with the labels. Why are overdue and overwhelmingly popular proposals put forward by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren labeled “extreme?” What is extreme is the greed and power of the plutocrats and Wall Street, not advocates cracking down on corporate crime and ending corporate welfare. There is nothing extreme about supporting a living wage, universal health insurance, or big infrastructure investments funded by reforming the tax system.

There is nothing radical about preventing the super-rich and giant corporations from using tax havens and other tax escapes. The proposals to close the tax loopholes and properly enforce the tax laws would collect trillions of dollars over a decade and fund necessary government spending for the benefit of the American people.

Look at the Warren and Sanders proposals and see how they poll. Almost all have majority or overwhelming left/right support. What’s so radical about tuition-free higher education? From New York’s CCNY to University of California, after World War II, there was virtually no tuition. The same is true for many western European countries to this day.

What’s so “radical” about de-bloating the vast waste and redundancy of the military budget that now takes over half of the operating federal budget? Or opposing endless criminal wars of aggression like destroying Iraq?

On the other hand, what is so “moderate” about not taking these positions, or taking campaign money from fat cats and super-PACs or maintaining military contractor’s mega waste and crony capitalist handouts?

Why does Joe Biden’s history of coddling banks and credit card companies rather than protecting consumers make him a “moderate” or “centrist?” It is time to poll those retrograde, corporatist positions. What about Biden’s support of the Iraq war and other costly, brutal adventures of Empire? What about Biden’s defense of the “Delaware” corporation laws that rig the power of corporate bosses against shareholders, whether they be individual, pension, or mutual funds?

As to the issue of “electability,” that is just another name for the self-compromised Democratic Party’s defeatism and cowardliness. How can Democrats question someone’s “electability” when the opponent is the hateful lawbreaker Donald Trump?

Who wouldn’t be as electable as a Democratic presidential nominee this year? The Democrats have the money and even now the advantage in the polls.

How hard should it be up against Trump’s record of abuses, any one of which would have disqualified a person from even running for President a few years ago?

Shouldn’t it be easy to run against a brazen, serial sexual predator, whose lawyers are keeping him from being deposed under oath in numerous tort law suits by his victims? This is a time when powerful corporate chieftains, legislators, and other influential people have been forced immediately out of their jobs once exposed for doing a fraction of what the “sexual predator in chief” has done. A late November 2019 CNN poll had 61% of women wanting Trump both impeached and removed from office.

Shouldn’t it be easy to run against Trump’s actions reflecting his bigotry, racism, and daily stream of lies and fabrications about situations that matter? Shouldn’t Trump be held accountable for open incitement to violence, should he be convicted of flouting the Constitution and the rule of law?

What about Trump’s deadly undermining of life-saving government agencies? Trump and his cronies shredded health and safety laws that kept poisons from the air, water, and food. American families don’t want to breathe dirtier air and drink dirtier water. Trump is making America dread again.

What about the paltry, frozen federal minimum wage, stuck at $7.25 per hour? Workers make a pittance while Trump enriches himself and his cronies through tax cuts for the super-rich that he championed. Don’t forget the money the Trump family has made from its own hotels attracting courtiers for favors. Recall that in 2016, Trump said that American workers were overpaid. Under Trump, manufacturing jobs have declined and his regime’s attacks on worker rights have increased.

Both conservative and liberal voters get ripped off alike and bleed alike when Trump takes federal sheriffs off the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse beats. How hard is it to make a big issue of Trump’s abandoning ‘law and order’ when it comes to the corporate crime wave and letting the big boys get away with so much that seems very unfair to voters.

Most voters do not want a megalomaniac who courts foreign dictators and offends allies. Last year, Trump pontificated: “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” The American Revolution rejected King George III and his “King can do no wrong” doctrine. The conservative Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) ought to be worried about that Trumpian power grab.

Trump should be the most defeatable president in history. He is openly destroying the moral fiber of our society. In his business and political career Trump has regularly violated seven out of the Ten Commandments. Evangelicals take note!

Trump has continued the endless, illegal, brutal wars in several countries – wars that he pledged to end. He defies all Congressional subpoenas for witnesses and documents from committees that are investigating corruption, including his administration’s regulatory responsibilities to America. His actions are harmful to all Americans and threaten the health insurance of over 20 million people. As documented in earlier columns, a billion dollars of taxpayer and consumer health care dollars are being stolen every day. Trump does nothing to stop this commercial robbery. He doesn’t even give a “tweet” about this pillage.

Unfortunately, the entrenched corporate Democrats in Washington are just using the “electability” excuse to block the rising progressive presidential candidates who intend to upset the plutocratic applecarts and cushy fat-cat sinecures. The leadership of establishment Democrats has led to the loss of too many national and state elections to the worst Republican Party in the GOP’s history. It is time for these Democrats to shape up or ship out.

Pelosi’s Choice: Enough for Trump’s Impeachment but not going All Out for Removal

By Ralph Nader

January 23, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has her reasons for limiting her impeachment articles to offenses stemming from the abuses and violations related to Ukraine. Unfortunately, she declined to pursue a broader impeachment approach that recognizes multiple provable, serious violations of the Constitution. Speaker Pelosi overruled Chairs of Committees, including the Judiciary Committee, and other senior lawmakers who wanted to forward to the Senate a broader array of impeachable offenses.

Having lost four of the last five House elections to the worst Republican Party in history, Speaker Pelosi remains cautious. She is overly worried about the conservative Democrats who won congressional seats in 2018 in Republican, pro-Trump districts. Endangering their seats might, Pelosi fears, lead to the loss of the House in 2020 and, more immediately, risk not having the votes in the House to pass additional impeachable offenses.

Other knowledgeable House members think she is too reticent and guarded. They think Trump has huge downsides. It is no secret that Pelosi has called Trump “a crook, a thief, a liar,” and that “he should be in prison”— just for starters.

In addition, there is her well-known general distaste for the impeachment power, because she believes it divides the country. In 2007, Pelosi took off the table impeachment of the war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Regardless of her feelings on impeachment, Trump has been a belligerent, monarchical President with a history of constitutional violations and inciting violence. To our Republic’s founders, Trump’s dictatorial, flagrant behavior would only strengthen the necessity of impeachment and conviction.

Speaker Pelosi also believes turbulence of further impeachment proceedings in the House would spill over into the presidential primary elections, embroiling the Democratic candidates and distracting them from their chosen agendas and campaigns. The Speaker is very attentive to the polls, telling people that the Democrats went against Nixon when the polls were 60% against him – A CNN poll recently found that 51% of respondents want Trump removed from office. By contrast, in 1998 the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton with only 24% support in the polls.

Unfortunately for the country, the House sending the Senate narrow charges instead of ‘throwing the book’ at Trump assures, barring some “black swan” event, that the ditto-headed Republican Senators under “Moscow Mitch” McConnell will vote to acquit him. This is likely even if witnesses are called to make an airtight case even stronger. Trump has cleverly tethered the political future of the GOP to his re-election telling anyone straying to be ready for massive public intimidation.

Trump is lucky  that he avoided being charged both with “bribery” and across the board defiance of Congressional subpoenas of witnesses and documents by other House Committees. Donald will gloat that those two additional articles, which are Nancy’s publicly expressed beliefs, were not presented and passed because they’re all “lies, fake,” and that he didn’t do “anything wrong.” Before large crowds of Trumpsters he will say the same about other serious, continuing impeachable offenses that are stripping Congress of its major, exclusive authorities under the Constitution.   See the  statement submitted by me and constitutional law experts Bruce Fein and Louis Fisher in the Congressional Record (December 18, 2019, page H 12197).

You can’t get more basic, lawless behavior than an imperial president who flouts the Congressional “power of the purse” by spending money not authorized by Congress and threatening and making war as if he is a King. Trump is defiantly and corruptly refusing to faithfully execute the laws, and is abusing “the public trust.” As Alexander Hamilton said, this is the very definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Trump is violating criminal statutes such as the Antideficiency Act, the campaign finance laws, and the anti-snooping law requiring judicial approvals.

By sending earlier a broad array of impeachable offenses to the Senate, including articles of impeachment that address Trump’s corrupt repeal of health, safety, and consumer protections of the American people, Pelosi could give the public a stake in impeachment.   A broader number of articles or counts of impeachment would also give citizens an informed sense of what Trump has done to harm people and would increase public support for impeachment. Important constituencies—women, patients, workers, minorities, environmental advocates, and protectors of defenseless children will understand why impeachment affects them directly. Despite the importance of the Ukraine extortion/bribery scandal, most people do not perceive themselves as having a personal stake there.

Speaker Pelosi missed known opportunities to throw the Republicans on the defensive in the Senate and tie them up in knots. Let Mitch McConnell’s gang try to defend, before tens of millions of television viewers, the crooked serial sexual predator, bigot/racist, chronic liar, and inciter of lawlessness. The raging, foul-mouthed, egomaniacal outlaw in the White House will only make it harder for the Republicans with his daily torrent of terrorizing tweets.

It looks like, as has been the case from his long, bankrupt-ridden business career to the Presidency, Donald Trump will again escape the rule of law.

Nancy Pelosi did just the minimum to impeach Trump in the House, but nowhere near enough for enlarging the public demand to remove him from office by the Senate. Maybe that was the limit of her expectation from the get go.

Surely, Speaker Pelosi at least wants to diminish Trump’s gloating that additional articles of impeachment were not presented to the Senate because these charges against him were “fake and lies.” There is still time for Pelosi to instruct her colleagues to immediately publicize the other ways Trump has shattered our Constitution and warn him that a second round of impeachments could be around the corner. For certain, Trump, showing no remorse or apologies, will continue to commit more constitutional outlawry to fuel a second coming of overdue Constitutional justice.

After all, he operates daily under his own self-impeachable declaration that, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.”

An Open Letter to Donald Re: “Quickly Spreading Virus Raises Fears Across China,” Washington Post, 1/21/2020

January 22, 2020

President Donald J. Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW

Washington D.C. 20500

Dear President Trump:

This is a short letter with a serious message about national security and safety.

It has now been established that the Coronavirus spreading in China can be communicated from human to human. That includes you and everyone else. Already the first case has been diagnosed in Washington State. The patient had just returned from the city of Wuhan where the afflictions originated. China is in a near panic trying to curtail the spread of this lethal virus during a period of massive movements of people in China on the occasion of the Spring Festival holiday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta is tasked with detecting, alerting, containing and preventing deadly pandemics worldwide. You know about the CDC because in your first budget you wanted to cut its $7.2 billion budget by $1.2 billion. Before, that is, cooler heads prevailed. Cooler heads failed to persuade you not to give an additional $80 billion to the military budget and its large wasteful contractors that year.

The CDC needs more resources, more scientists, more training programs, and more field personnel in key areas of the world to do its life-saving job.

So stop the golf games, drop your “fake news” fulminations and GET TO WORK. Bear in mind, all your techniques of intimidations, and your guided missiles and armed drones, don’t faze deadly viruses and bacteria at all. You are a well-known germophobe. Act like one! NOW!

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

PO Box 19312

Washington, D.C. 20036

Trump: Making America Dread Again!

January 14, 2019

President Donald Trump

White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Trump:

The disabling and dismantling of the federal health and safety agencies under your cruel command has been leaving a trail of American fatalities, injuries, and property destruction without precedent even among past Republican Administrations. Your criminal negligence toward federal agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is an impeachable offense. You are obsessed with corporate profits, obeisant to the corporate CEOs funding your campaigns. You deliberately selected corrupt henchmen to run these lifesaving agencies into the ground, under the guise of “deregulation.”

Constitutional law scholars declare that refusing to “faithfully execute laws” was seen by our Founders to be a major impeachable violation, sufficient for removal from office by the Senate. Your failure to appoint capable leaders, for required Senate confirmation, to head life-saving federal agencies is abhorrent and violates the appointments clause of the Constitution, Article II: Section 2, Clause 2.

Nonetheless, the media has not caught up with the full scope of your lawless commercial drive to “Make America Dread Again.”

Consider a recent address at Used Car Week 2019 in Las Vegas last November by Jerry Cox, a consultant to many businesses in trouble. Here is an excerpt from his remarks, elaborated in greater details in his forthcoming book, Killer Airbags:

Your government will do almost anything to protect the industry and nothing to protect you. At the start of 2020 – the final year of the first Trump Administration – NHTSA still had no Administrator. Instead, President Trump installed Takata’s lawyer [Steven Bradbury] as general counsel of the Transportation Department in 2017 and as Acting Deputy Secretary in 2019. Unbelievably, the guy who negotiated the sweetheart deals that allowed Takata executives to keep selling defective airbags and avoid criminal prosecution was put in charge of every government employee responsible for enforcing auto safety laws.

Shame and guilt on you, Donald Trump! You were willing to start an undeclared war with Iran last week, had their missile attack taken one American soldier’s life, but when American lives are threatened by crony capitalism, you do nothing. It is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s duty to save American lives on the highways from vehicle design and construction defects, yet under you the agency becomes even more toothless. You are leaving tens of millions of American motorists defenseless. Some will lose their lives if more Takata airbags disintegrate and hurl lethal shrapnel into their bodies. American drivers and passengers must receive protection by your Administration.

Will you stop your time-wasting 24/7 tweeting, and your prevaricatory assaults on the truth and reputations of innocent Americans? Will you pay attention to the Takata horrors and name a safety advocate to reinvigorate the enfeebled NHTSA?  Will you start doing your job?

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Full Impeachments for Trump will Shake Senate Republicans from Kangaroo Court

January 9, 2020

By Ralph Nader

Many Americans have forecasted that the outlaw Donald Trump will commit even more illegal acts to increasing his support in the 2020 presidential year. Remember Wag the Dog, a film about using a fabricated war to draw attention away from presidential misdeeds. Those Americans have been proven right by Donald Trump’s attempt to provoke an unlawful war with Iran. Likewise, Trump has illegally ordered his staff or ex-staff to ignore Congressional subpoenas to testify and provide documents.

As the most impeachable president in American history, Trump continues to shred our Constitution and its critical separation of powers. Trump has repeatedly, brazenly seized Congressional authority in an attempt to turn the presidency into a monarchy.  Trump once went so far as to say, “I am the chosen one.”

Unlike Nixon, who slinked away because of the Watergate scandal, every day Trump is providing more evidence to the Congress about his impeachability. He never stops. He never expresses remorse or apologizes for violating the Constitution or federal criminal statutes, such as the Antideficiency Act. Likewise, Trump has shown no respect for international treaties to which the U.S. is a solemn signatory.

Trump’s mantra of usurpation is clear. He declared that because of Article II of the Constitution, “I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” Trump seems to have neglected Article I, which gives Congress the exclusive authority to declare war, to appropriate funds, and to conduct investigations of the Executive branch with the plenary authority, i.e. issue and enforce subpoenas. Congress is the primary branch of government, not a co-equal branch.

Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns, unlike previous presidents who released them every year. Trump has much to hide in terms of entanglements with foreign entities. He is a walking violation of the Emoluments Clause (Article I, section 9, paragraph 8), which prohibits any president from profiting from foreign interests. Trump profits when foreign dignitaries patronize his hotels and other properties.

The Constitution requires Trump to faithfully execute the law. Instead he is destroying health, safety, workplace, and environmental laws through his corrupt henchman. The Trump regime is dismantling congressionally mandated federal agency law enforcement programs and, in so doing, is removing lifesaving protections. At the same time, Trump is corruptly raising money from the corporate interests that want to dismantle these agencies, from Wall Street to Houston’s oil barons.

The most morally distinguishing impeachable offenses come under the heading of what Alexander Hamilton called “abuse of the public trust.”

Consider these abuses of the public trust:

Trump’s chronic, obsessive, pathological lying and falsifications (he has made over 15,000 false or misleading claims since January 21, 2017);
Trump’s history of being a serial sexual predator working to delay numerous court cases and escape demands for depositions under oath by many victims;
Trump’s endless racism and bigotry in words and deeds. Since becoming president, Trump has backed voter suppression aimed at minorities; and
Trump’s incitement of violence on more than one occasion.

Trump should be impeached and convicted. If the supine Republican-controlled Senate fails to convict Trump, the voters should landslide him in November.

It is almost as if Trump looks to setting records in how many parts of the Constitution he can violate. He interceded with the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent two members of Congress visas to Israel. Trump’s actions prevented these members of Congress from exercising their oversight responsibilities under the Speech and Debate Clause (Article I, section 6, clause 1). No president has ever dared such an intervention.

For the elaboration of twelve impeachable counts under one major Article, see the letter by me, constitutional law experts Bruce Fein, and Louis Fisher in the Congressional Record (December 18, 2019, page H 12197).

Speaker Pelosi must add some of these impeachable offenses, backed by constitutional law specialists, or Trump will trumpet that though she had the votes to do so, she didn’t because they are “fake, lies.” Exonerating him will prove to be a devastating precedent for future presidents behaving similarly, as the standards for presidential behavior keep dropping lower and lower into lawless immunity and impunity.

Conservative Fox News commentator, constitutional law scholar, and former Judge Andrew Napolitano has said if he were the Democrats, he would reopen the impeachment case “on the basis of new evidence. That would justify holding onto the articles of impeachment [from the Senate] the articles of impeachment [abuse of power and contempt of Congress] because there’s new evidence and perhaps new articles.”

Pelosi can strengthen her hand constitutionally by enlarging the impeachment case against Trump. This move would give millions of Americans a stake in impeachment because it would directly relate to protections and services they lost because of lawless Trump.  In addition, more articles of impeachment would make the Senate Republicans led by “Moscow Mitch” McConnell far less able to hold a hasty kangaroo court trial without witnesses.

Fein, Fisher, and I have written Speaker Pelosi and Senator McConnell urging that the trial’s procedures should be established by Chief Justice John Roberts, subject to Senate majority repeal, to assure not only fairness, but the perception of fairness (See the letter here). Right now in the Senate there is too much bias, prejudgment, and conflict to avoid a farce.

Moreover, when will the American Bar Association, with over 194,000 lawyer-members, insist on constitutional observance and the rule of law? When will all those original members of Trump’s cabinet, whom he fired in favor of “yes men,” stand up patriotically for America? When will Colin Powell, George Shultz, and other leading figures from past administrations stand tall and speak out? When will former President Barack Obama stand up to Donald Trump? All of these people are privately worried sick over what Trump is doing and will do to our country.

These are very dangerous times for our Republic, its democratic processes, and our freedoms. Trump is going to “wave the flag” and try to intimidate and bully his opponents and the citizenry. Don’t fall for it America!

Ralph Nader Letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi I, together with Constitutional Law scholars Louis Fisher and Bruce Fein, proposed that the Senate allow Chief Justice John Roberts to prescribe impeachment trial procedures—subject to veto by a Senate majority. In doing so, the Senate would avoid some degree of political infighting and blatant partisan bias. While this approach is not perfect, it would create a more impartial and legitimate impeachment process.

Date: December 27, 2019

TO: Honorable Mitch McConnell

Majority Leader United States Senate

317 Russell Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

TO: Honorable Nancy Pelosi

The Speaker of the House of Representatives

United State Capitol

Washington, D.C. 20515

FROM: Ralph Nader, Louis Fisher, Bruce Fein

Dear Majority Leader McConnell and Madame Speaker Pelosi:

We, the undersigned, encourage a bipartisan resolution of the current impasse over procedures for the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. The trial is too important to the Republic to be left to partisan political ambitions.

We propose that the Senate endow the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, who will preside, with authority to prescribe trial procedures, subject to veto by a Senate majority.

Among other things, the procedures would govern the admissibility of evidence, claims of privilege, subpoenas to compel testimony, the burden of proof, direct and cross-examination of witnesses, and, jury instructions as to the elements of an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor.

We are convinced that only the Chief Justice can rescue the impeachment trial from the taint of partisanship that would destroy the legitimacy of the outcome. Justice requires the appearance of justice. But both Republican and Democratic Members of Congress have openly proclaimed biases in favor or against President Trump. And citizens generally do not trust Members to be fair. Public confidence in Congress hovers around 10 percent, as opposed to 42 percent for the United States Supreme Court. Many Members of Congress place party loyalty above loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths of office. They crave power, not justice.

Article I, section 3 of the Constitution provides that when sitting as jurors in impeachment trial Senators “shall be on oath or affirmation.” And according to the standing rules of Senate impeachment trials, Senators must swear as follows: “I solemnly swear that in all things pertaining to the trial of the impeachment of ( Donald J. Trump], now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.”

But both Republican and Democratic Senators have made statements inconsistent with impartial justice. In an ordinary courtroom, these Senator-jurors would be disqualified for cause.

Moreover, most if not all Senator-jurors confront conflicts of political interest that would ordinarily justify disqualification. Republicans incline towards acquittal of Mr. Trump to retain control of the White House in 2020, whereas Democrats incline towards conviction to boost their 2020 presidential prospects.

Impeachment procedures ordained by the Republican majority in the Senate or pressured by the Democratic majority in the House will be perceived by an alarming portion of citizens as illegitimate, i.e., calculated to make justice subservient to party ambitions. In contrast, Chief Justice Roberts has earned respect with judicial temperament and robust defense of the impartiality of federal judiciary: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges or Bush judges or Clinton judges.”

The Chief Justice, of course, has critics. Many Republicans assail his decisions sustaining President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Many Democrats assail his opinion upholding President Trump’s travel ban and invalidating the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. A plurality of voters, however, belong to neither party. Chief Justice Roberts, in contrast to the Senate Republican majority or House Democratic majority, is the optimal choice to establish independent and credible procedures for the impeachment trial of President Trump to strengthen public confidence in the outcome.

In the impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton, the Senate unanimously determined trial procedures. Such unanimity cannot be expected today with the appalling spike in partisanship. It seems politically plausible with your support, however, that Senate Republicans and Democrats might agree to hand off responsibility for procedures governing Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial to Chief Justice Roberts.

The delegation to the Chief Justice passes constitutional muster. His procedures could be vetoed by a simple Senate majority. Ultimate authority is thus retained by the upper chamber. And the Constitution itself makes the Chief Justice the presiding officer, which contemplates power to prescribe procedures. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for instance, are promulgated by the United States Supreme Court under the Rules Enabling Act subject to overruling by Congress.

Making the Chief Justice the impresario of the impeachment trial is innovative and imperfect, but markedly less imperfect than every other imaginable option.

We would welcome the opportunity to assist in drafting the proposed rulemaking delegation.

Ralph Nader, Louis Fisher, Bruce Fein

Please call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to support this modest, but important proposal.

Louis Fisher is a Constitutional Law Scholar who worked for four decades at the Library of Congress as Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers (Congressional Research Service, from 1970 to 2006) and Specialist in Constitutional Law (the Law Library, from 2006 to 2010).

Bruce Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan. He served on the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements from 2005-2006 and has advised numerous countries on constitutional reform.

“Then, I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” – “King” Donald Trump

By Ralph Nader

December 27, 2019

Against Donald J. Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted narrow impeachment charges, despite key House Committee Chairs’ arguments for broadening the impeachment charges. These veteran lawmakers, led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, urged Speaker Pelosi to include the ten obstructions of justice documented in the Mueller Report. These House Committee Chairs also wanted to add a count of bribery regarding Ukraine – a stance Pelosi took herself in a November 14, 2019 press conference. She then overruled her chairs and rejected the bribery count.

Speaker Pelosi told reporters on November 14:

“The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival – a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election.”

“Bribery” is explicitly listed as an impeachable offense in the Constitution in Article II, Section 4 and resonates with the public. No matter, Pelosi dropped this crucial charge.

Since the two articles of impeachment – abuse of power and obstruction of justice (limited to the Ukraine matter) – passed the House on December 18, 2019, the Republicans may have given Pelosi reason to accept some of her colleagues’ pleas to broaden the impeachment charges.

First, Senator Mitch McConnell indicated that he was going to follow Trump’s White House in establishing the rules of the trial. What about the oath to “do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God?” The Senatorial jurors are going to let the defendant, Donald Trump, have a say on the rules in his own impeachment? That bad faith action prompted Pelosi to hold back sending the two approved impeachment articles to the Senate. Currently the stage is being set for the Senate to be a kangaroo court.

Second, more incriminating e-mails have emerged, linking Trump and his cronies to the Ukraine extortion/bribe. On January 3, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is set to review two cases that will weigh heavily on Trump’s legal team. In one case, the district judge ruled that the White House had to obey a Congressional subpoena for the testimony of Trump’s lawyer, Donald McGahn, as the “most important” witness regarding Trump’s obstruction of justice in Robert S. Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The second case involves the House Judiciary Committee’s access to grand jury testimony in the Mueller investigation to determine if Trump lied. The lower court judge said the White House must turn them over.

To add to these developments, Trump mocked Pelosi, asserting that the various impeachment charges she did not allow her colleagues to include in the impeachment articles means the other impeachment offenses were, according to Trump, all “lies” and “fake.” This should bother Pelosi because Trump is trying to legitimize these numerous impeachable offenses due to Pelosi’s inaction. Trump has defiantly refused to “faithfully execute” the laws for health, safety, and economic protections – enriching himself and displaying contempt for Congress by installing cabinet and other high officials without Senate confirmation. Trump also obstructs Congress by blocking Congressional Committee access to testimonies and documents. Getting away with very serious impeachable offenses sets a terrible precedent for future presidential lawlessness. See a listing of twelve such counts by me, constitutional law experts Bruce Fein, and Louis Fisher in the Congressional Record (December 18, 2019, page H 12197).

Nothing in the Constitution or federal statutes bars second or third rounds of impeachments. Indeed, attorneys for the House Judiciary Committee told the Circuit Court that it “is continuing to conduct its inquiry into whether the President committed other impeachable offenses. The Committee’s investigations did not cease with the House’s recent impeachment vote.”

Moreover, Nancy Pelosi has encouraged five House Committees to continue their probe into the outlaw president, whom Pelosi has called “a crook, a thief, a liar” and said she wants to see “in prison.” The question is whether she wants only “oversight investigations” or she also wants “impeachment investigations.” The difference is critical to Trump’s tenure, to the rule of law, and to making the Senate conduct a fair trial with witnesses (the latter backed by 71 percent of the people).

Prosecuting Trump’s other grave constitutional violations would demonstrate the important personal stakes for Americans who have borne the brunt of the President’s monarchical, illegal defiance that takes away life preserving safeguards for the American people, which protects them from rampant corporate ravages.

With the coming of the New Year, Speaker Pelosi has a historic choice regarding constitutional order and compliance with the law by Donald J. Trump. Either she sends a boomerang to the White House or she delivers a solid, broad-based eviction notice that the Senate Republicans can try to defend in a public trial viewed by tens of millions of Americans.

Democrats Cave in Secret Budget Deal with Trump

By Ralph Nader

December 20, 2019

While attention was focused on the House of Representatives’ impeachment of Donald J. Trump, legislators from both parties were secretly huddling with White House aides to seal a $1.4 trillion budget deal to fund the government until next September. They were rushing to do this to avoid a partial government shutdown starting December 21, 2019.

Had the budget been deliberated in open Congressional hearings, the media would have reported on this backroom deal and the people of this country would have had a chance to weigh in during the proceedings. Instead, a degraded Congress pulled a fast one on the citizens. This obfuscation is especially unacceptable considering that these lawmakers work only three days a week at best— when they are not in recess altogether.

Astoundingly the Democrats also caved in on Trump’s wall! After blocking Trump’s funding demand for the wall for three years, the Democrats approved $1.4 billion for the wall and even allowed Trump to divert funds from the Pentagon to that porous, wasteful barrier. In so doing, the Democrats legitimized one of the egregious, impeachable offenses Trump committed earlier this year when he seized $3.6 billion from the Pentagon’s budget in money not approved for the wall. The Washington Post reported that former secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus tweeted “As hurricane heads for Camp Lejeune Trump takes $3.6b from military for needless wall. Same amt Marines say needed to fix Lejeune after last storm.”

Trump usurped the Congressional “power of the purse,” to use James Madison’s phrase, under our Constitution. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi declined to charge Trump with this and other similarly impeachable spending violations. Now we know one reason why—the ongoing secret budget deal.

Just as astonishing was that the  Democrats caved on the funding for Obamacare. Year after year, Democratic leaders defended Obamacare, rather than support more efficient  full Medicare for All (with free choice of doctor and hospital). See H.R. 1384 for the most recent version of Medicare for All.

With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just deciding against the individual mandate in Obamacare, what does the House Democratic leadership do? They go along with the Republicans’ demand to repeal the medical device and health insurance taxes that were helping to fund Obamacare’s expansion of health insurance coverage for twenty million people.

It gets worse. The House Democrats approved a huge increase of $22 billion to the already bloated, wasteful military budget in return for Trump approving paid family leave for federal government employees. The Democrats made this deal instead of just pushing for paid maternity leave,  a right provided in all other Western democracies and numerous dictatorships in the world!

“No problem,” say the feeble Democrats. It is just more of the terrible practice by the Democrats of giving equal increases for the military budget, demanded by the Republican illegal war hawks, as the price for social service funds for low income families and children. What a grotesque way to spend taxpayer money!

To what level has this Congress lowered itself? Allowing the Trump dump to contaminate Congress even extends to cruel bigotry. They allowed Trump to extend his racist discrimination against the American citizens of Puerto Rico by reducing the Medicaid funds from $12 billion over four years to up to $5.7 billion over two years. The higher sum and longer term already were endorsed by Republican and Democratic leaders on two Congressional Committees.

Robert Greenstein, director of the highly respected Center on Budget and policy priorities, declared that “with another funding cliff looming in two years under the new agreement, Puerto Rico may continue to lack the certainty it needs to commit to long-term increases of its very low payment rates to health care providers [vendors] to stem their alarming exodus to the mainland, to provide coverage for such key health treatments as drugs to treat Hepatitis C, and to cover more poor, uninsured residents.”

Over the years, Congress has weakened its exclusive constitutional “power of the purse” by giving presidents waivers. As with the war powers, Congress has delegated more of its constitutional authority to the Executive Branch.

Just days ago, the racist President Trump bragged before a large campaign rally that he has cut off “six hundred million dollars” in aid for Palestinian relief, including aid for suffering children. This was a long term assistance program, under past Republican and Democratic administrations, to help provide the barest necessities to displaced and impoverished Palestinians whose territories are blockaded or militarily occupied by the Israeli government.

Washington justified such expenditures for both humanitarian and security purposes. No more, says the imperial Trump, exercising his Congressionally-granted waiver.

Congress has also long abandoned its constitutional authority over tariffs to the imperial presidency. Constitutional litigator Alan Morrison has challenged the White House’s unilateral imposition of tariffs—now involving tens of billions of dollars—on imports from foreign countries. In January Morrison will argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the authority to impose tariffs belongs to Congress.

What is Trump doing with these tens of billions of dollars deposited in the U.S. Treasury? Congress has not approved spending them for any programs or objectives. When I asked a staffer with the House Budget Committee what is being done with loads of money, she replied that “we have it under study.”

Secret government has its direct consequences for the American people, and abdication of congressional checks on the Executive Branch is harmful and cowardly.

Boeing’s Perilous Bungling Requires New Leadership

By Ralph Nader

December 16, 2019

The Boeing executives and marketeers responsible for over-ruling Boeing engineers on the 737 MAX are still in charge of this very troubled aerospace company. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and the rubber-stamp Board of Directors, with two trophy ambassadors, are still running Boeing – thirteen months after the deadly 737 MAX crash in Indonesia and nine months after the deadly 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia that together took 346 lives. Boeing said in October that it would appoint a board member with deep air safety experience, but it has not happened yet. (Muilenburg is the only board member with an aeronautical engineering background)

Boeing has displayed an egregious pattern of mismanagement. The company is in trouble from contractors, the Department of Defense, and NASA. California Representative John Garamendi said Boeing had “serious quality issues” with the KC-46 aerial tanker used by the military and accused the company of “pushing profits over quality and safety.” According to NASA’s Inspector General Paul Martin, NASA “essentially paid Boeing higher prices to address a schedule slippage caused by Boeing’s 13-month delay.”

First-rate former Boeing engineers, including John Barnett and Ed Pierson, are exposing the reckless conditions at the Boeing 737 and 787 Dreamliner plants in Washington state and South Carolina.

Boeing managers and directors are still on the job and paying themselves handsomely.   These reckless marketeers are able to get away with this because Congress and the White House have disabled the FAA and turned it from a safety watchdog into an industry lapdog, leaving Boeing free to self-certify its planes.

With intensifying investigation by the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, under the chairmanship of Congressman Peter DeFazio, a stunning internal FAA risk assessment turned up. After the October 29, 2018 Lion Air Flight 610 was hijacked by powerful MCAS software which took control of the aircraft from its pilots. A December 2018 FAA memo concluded that there would be 15 catastrophic crashes globally over the life of the 737 MAX fleet – ranging 30 to 45 years. That would mean the deaths of at least 2900 human beings.

Dr. Alan Diehl, an aerospace engineer with extensive experience at the FAA, at the Department of Defense, and in private business, told the Wall Street Journal that this prediction “would be an unacceptable number in the modern aviation-safety world.” The FAA analysis, surfacing very late in the wake of the two planes going down due to Boeing’s criminal negligence, was conditioned on the 737 MAX not flying until there are design and software corrections.

Chairman DeFazio noted other design problems with the Boeing 737 MAX, including rudder vulnerabilities.  Boeing leadership has displayed all sorts of derelictions,  including refusing to adequately inform pilots about the problems with the 737 MAX, producing faulty training manuals, and refusing to insist on full simulator training. Not only that, but the 787 Dreamliner has been found to have inadequate protection in case of lightning strikes (another Boeing bosses over-ruling of their own engineer’s warnings). Boeing also laid off hundreds of quality control inspectors in its factories, preferring to rely on machines.

The FAA’s new chief, Stephen Dickson,  recently warned Boeing to stop announcing ungrounding times for the approximately 400 737 MAX already in the hands of the airlines. He indicated that the FAA is stiffening its backbone a little by saying that the ungrounding schedule will be decided by the FAA. Boeing has just announced it was suspending production of the 737 MAX for the time being.

The next step for Dickson would be to ask FAA Deputy Administrator Daniel Elwell and Associate Administrator for Safety Ali Bahrami to resign. Elwell and Bahrami turned their backs on airline passenger safety, let Boeing dictate its own safety decisions, and kept the public and Congress in the dark. There is no way the FAA can recover its responsibilities so long as Elwell and Ali Bahrami are still in positions of any responsibility.

Bahrami admitted he wasn’t even aware of his own agency’s risk assessment of the Boeing 737 MAX, noted above.

Meanwhile, the families of the deceased continue to advocate that the Boeing 737 MAX be required to undergo full certification with full pilot simulator training. In their grief, these wonderful family members are fighting daily for the future safety of tens of millions of airline passengers.

Please see flyersrights.org for updates and your participation. You can find their comprehensive report at the following link: https://flyersrights.org/737-max/white-paper/. And see a Democracy Now! Interview on Boeing’s misdeeds: https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/16/ralph_nader_boeing_737_max_jet