The Case Against Impeaching Trump by Alan Dershowitz

Author:Alan Dershowitz [Dershowitz, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 21st Century, Commentary & Opinion, Law, Political Science, Politics & Government, United States
ISBN: 9781510742284
Google: ldBitwEACAAJ
Amazon: 151074228X
Publisher: Hot Books
Published: 2018-07-09T03:00:00+00:00

Mueller and the Need for a Nonpartisan Commission

The drafters of our Fifth Amendment intended grand juries to serve as protection against overaggressive prosecutors. Instead, grand juries today empower prosecutors against criminal defendants. I explore why Special Counsel Robert Mueller impaneled a second grand jury in the District of Columbia when one already exists in Virginia. What advantage would a prosecutor have? I then turn attention to retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, and ask why he would have lied to the FBI, and why Mueller only charged him with lying, when in fact there was nothing criminal about Flynn’s request to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to delay or oppose a UN Security Council vote on an anti-Israel resolution that the outgoing Obama administration refused to veto.

Concern whether the Trump team was seeking to fire Mueller was widespread. And at the time, I wrote that the action taken by the team to challenge Mueller and his investigation on the legal grounds was a more viable and practical tactic. On the other hand, I ask civil libertarians who are unwilling to give President Trump the benefit of law and civil liberties to consider the issue of legitimately criticizing Mueller rather than seeing any skepticism regarding his history as a desire to help Trump.

President Trump is criticized for demanding loyalty from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, yet I point out that every previous president has expected the same. The blame should not solely go to the president, but should be shared by our system that merges the role of attorney general as both political adviser to the president and head law enforcement officer and chief prosecutor of the United States. I indicate that these conflicting loyalties and obligations are the very reason our country appoints special counsel and independent prosecutors. I have long proposed that the Justice Department be broken up into two separate agencies, with separate heads: one a loyal political adviser to the president and a member of the cabinet, the other completely independent and not a member of the cabinet.

In the same vein, I argue that the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election was misguided and, instead, Congress should have created a nonpartisan commission of objective experts to conduct the investigation. I point out that the public has lost faith in the leadership of the Justice Department and the FBI and does not trust congressional investigative committees. A remedy to regain public trust is to let Congress appoint a nonpartisan commission to conduct a transparent investigation, and let the Special Counsel suspend his investigation until the nonpartisan commission issues its report.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.