Tag: nevertrump
White House Threats Are Mobilizing Citizen Forces Behind Mueller

White House Threats Are Mobilizing Citizen Forces Behind Mueller

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

The sound you hear is the fingers of Robert Mueller drumming on his desk. The special prosecutor wants to talk to President Trump. He has some questions. He’s had these questions for months, and now, as his investigation winds up, he needs to speak with one more witness: the man in the Oval Office.

The president, meanwhile, is stalling. He can’t make up his mind about who he wants to defend him (hello, Rudy, see ya, Joe), much less whether he should answer Mueller’s questions. When John Dowd, Trump’s lawyer from Wall Street, advised his client to cooperate, he was eased off the team. (Bye, John.)

Now someone—perhaps in the White House—has leaked 40 of Mueller’s questions for Trump. The questions illuminate the president’s perilous predicament. Answer honestly and incriminate himself in all manner of shady deals, or stick with his factually challenged denials and confirm charges of obstruction of justice.

With the legal pressure rising, Trump has to be contemplating what he mused about privately last June and again in December: Fire Mueller and admit nothing.

Last year, Trump avoided mentioning Mueller’s name. Now he sounds like a man with an itchy trigger finger. When asked last month if he was going to fire Mueller and or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump replied, “They’ve been saying I’m going to get rid of them for the last 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, and they’re still here,” he complained.

The elimination of Mueller—unthinkable according to Washington conventional wisdom last summer—is now possible, if not likely.

In response, the anti-Trump resistance of the left and the #NeverTrump movement of the right, and a lot of people in between, are quietly mobilizing to defend the special counsel.

While strategies vary according to politics, the common denominator of Mueller’s defenders is to claim the legal high ground. One leftist critic insists that Mueller is “no hero,” to which a law professor adds he is “no superhero” either. But activists say they are defending the rule of law, not the man.

MoveOn.org is leading the national mobilization for Mueller with its “Trump is not above the law” website.

“Our response in the hours following a potential power grab will dictate what happens next—whether Congress will stand up to Trump or allow him to move our democracy toward authoritarianism,” says MoveOn in its appeal.

“Organizing people for something you don’t want to happen” is a difficult “ask” for activists, notes David Sievers, campaign manager for MoveOn. Yet when speculation about Mueller’s firing flared last month, Sievers says 10,000 people a day were signing up to defend the former FBI director.

MoveOn claims that if Trump fires Mueller, protesters will mount more than “Nobody Is Above the Law” rallies in 900 cities and town around the country within 24 hours.

The organization’s “rapid response” formula is strictly by the numbers. “If actions are triggered before 2 p.m. local time,” the group’s instructions say, “events will begin at 5 p.m. local time. If actions are triggered after 2 p.m. local time, events will begin at noon local time the following day.”

MoveOn’s map shows pro-Mueller rallies are planned from Fairbanks, Alaska to Key West. More than 14,000 people are pledged to protest at the White House. More than 16,000 say they will gather in New York’s Times Square.

Cindy McGrane, an Indivisible activist in Asheville, North Carolina, says she has signed up more than 1,000 people to protest in Pack Square, home of the city’s courthouse.

“I heard from a guy in a nursing home, who said, ‘I’m an invalid. I don’t have resources. I can’t get out. But I’m with you,’” McGrane said.

While the liberal-left anti-Trump resistance wants to put bodies in the streets, the conservative opposition wants to win the hearts and minds of quiet Republicans.

Last month, the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank in Washington, issued a statement saying Mueller’s dismissal or preemptive pardons of Trump’s entourage would constitute “a grave abuse of power that justifies initiation of impeachment proceedings.”

“It is morally imperative that the Republican Party and the conservative movement stand as bulwarks of the rule of law, not enablers of its erosion and violation. Now is the time for choosing,” said a statement signed by 29 leading conservatives including Iraq war cheerleader William Kristol and gay marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan.

Republicans for Rule of Law, established last month by five GOP operatives, is funding television ads designed in select states to buck up Republicans who don’t like Trump’s contempt for the law but fear alienating his supporters.

“The goal is to help Republicans find a voice,” said spokesperson Sarah Longwell. “This is a very clear-cut issue for people who believe in the rule of law. It doesn’t mean that you think the president has done something that wrong.”

Asked what the group would do if Trump acts on his stated desire to fire Mueller, Longwell demurred. “We’re not focused on the day after,” she said.

A bipartisan group of senators wants to fortify Mueller’s position with legislation empowering him to appeal any dismissal to federal judges.

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill cosponsored by Democrats Chris Coons (D-DE) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Republicans Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) to do just that. Although the 14-7 vote on the measure split Republicans, the message to Trump was clear. Firing Mueller will alienate some previously loyal supporters such as committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Perhaps the most novel pro-Mueller strategy comes from Washington attorneys John Tye and Mark Zaid. In a New York Times column, they argue that if Mueller is fired he should deliver all of his now-classified evidence to Congress with the hope that it would immediately leak.

“The moment he was dismissed, Mr. Mueller could lawfully take all the evidence he had collected—even the most highly classified materials—straight to Congress,” they write. “If he personally lost access to the evidence, a remaining member of the Office of Special Counsel could do the same.”

“Such a move would require speedy execution, so his office should already have a contingency plan,” said Tye and Zaid, founders of a non-profit called Whistleblowers Aid. “…Someone with proper security clearance would probably need to manually transport the evidence—hard copy pages or encrypted hard drives—from the special counsel’s facility to Capitol Hill, less than a mile away.”

The situation is volatile, they note, straight out of a Washington thriller. “Trump might order federal marshals to arrest Mueller’s courier en route, alleging national security information was being mishandled.”

“But if the evidence safely reached Congress, the president probably could not contain it,” they went on. “The 37 members of Congress on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as well as their staffs, are authorized to receive the most sensitive of classified information. Committee members from both parties would get access.”

Mueller’s investigation might be killed, but the evidence he has gathered would come into public view.

Trump and his Republican loyalists are running out of time to fend off Mueller encroachments. While speculation about Mueller’s firing has abated since last month, the leak of Mueller’s questions triggered another irate tweet from Trump on Tuesday complaining about “a made up, phony crime, collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information.”

Recently, the news cycle has gravitated more to Trump’s female antagonists, Stormy Daniels and Michelle Wolf, than to Mueller. But the final showdown over the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election seems closer than ever.

Last month, McConnell said he will not bring the Coons-Booker-Graham-Tillis bill to the floor. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Senate is no firewall protecting Mueller.

Last Monday, a group of House Republicans drafted a resolution to impeach Rosenstein, Mueller’s boss and the only government official with the power to actually fire him. Whether the #NeverTrump right can persuade any significant number of Republican officeholders to defend Rosenstein and Mueller is unknown. As columnist Eric Alterman notes, so far they have totally failed.

That leaves street protest and media leaks as the last line of defense for the special counsel. The opposition to Trump spans the political spectrum but its power to enforce the rule of law on a mendacious chief executive is unproven. The support for Trump is much narrower but perhaps firmer in its unquestioning fervor.

By any measure, the independence of the American legal system is in danger. The Niskanen Center had it right: “Now is the time for choosing.”

 

Could Gary Johnson And Bill Kristol Keep Trump Out Of The White House?

Could Gary Johnson And Bill Kristol Keep Trump Out Of The White House?

Donald Trump might have some trouble on his hands.

On Sunday, the Libertarian Party chose its presidential nominee, former Republican Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson. Also on Sunday, Bill Kristol — the neoconservative editor of The Weekly Standard and the most vocal proponent of the #NeverTrump movement — posted the following tweet: “Just a heads up over this holiday weekend: There will be an independent candidate–an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.”

Good to know, even if the tweet rings like a hollow threat: For months Kristol has been organizing a conspiracy against Trump, seeking out candidates to run against him, ostensibly to protect the integrity of the conservative movement and to give #NeverTrump conservatives a reason to vote for down-ballot races. Kristol wants Trump to pay for defying the conservative order, even if it means losing the White House. No third-party candidate has ever won the presidency.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said, “A third party run by any candidate is a complete disaster.”

Lewdanowski said such a run would be “handing the White House over to the Democrats,” which in turn would mean “four or five potential U.S. Supreme Court Justices that Hillary Clinton would have a chance to appoint, if she does that you can say goodbye to the 2nd Amendment amongst other things; you can say goodbye to your rights.”

Kristol, apparently, is content in losing this battle for the White House, though his ranks are dwindling. After all, the #NeverTrump movement has dissipated from the once thundering echo chamber of condemnations that included denouncements from multiple Bushes and nearly every elected Republican politician on the national stage. Even one time rising star Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who called Trump a dangerous con man, has gotten behind the billionaire-candidate.

Either way, Kristol isn’t backing down. When contacted for comment Monday morning, Kristol told CNN there are still “lots of I’s to dot and T’s to cross.”

Earlier in May, the Washington Post reported that Kristol had already begun strategizing with a team of appalled Republicans — including former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, talk-radio host Erick Erickson, and strategists Mike Murphy, Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson — to keep Trump out of the White House. Kristol, Romney & co. have been commissioning private polling and courting possible candidates while organizing funding to launch a desperate #NeverTrump candidacy.

Potential third-party contenders include freshman Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and billionaire businessman and “Shark Tank” reality television show host Mark Cuban.

The three Republicans don’t want Trump, but they also say they don’t want the job.

Cuban told the Post he doesn’t see it happening. “[Trump] could come after me all he wanted, and he knows I would put him in his place,” said Cuban. “All that said, again, I don’t see it happening. There isn’t enough time.”

Kasich’s advisors said the governor will not run as an independent. His chief strategist, John Weaver, said the Never Trump’ers “had plenty of time and opportunity to influence the [GOP] nomination battle in a constructive way, and they didn’t for whatever reason. The idea of running someone as a third party, particularly the way they’re going about it, is not going to be effective and is not practical.”

Sasse, 44, is popular among conservative leadership and is considered to have potential for being a national candidate in the future — but he also said no to the prospective run, despite having previously voiced desire for “some third candidate — a conservative option, a Constitutionalist.”

Other ruled-out prospects include former Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and retired Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis. Consideration has also been given to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and retired Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

McChrystal told the Post he isn’t “entertaining any candidacy,” and Mattis rejected the offer after meeting with Kristol and his team in the middle of April. Kristol then turned to Romney for help.

Romney, who unsuccessfully ran against President Obama in 2012, met with Kristol at the beginning of May to strategize.

Kristol told CNN he isn’t actively trying to get Romney to run, but did suggest the former Massachusetts governor should consider it. Romney has previously stated that he wasn’t interested in an independent bid, though at the beginning of 2015 he did ponder a third presidential run before removing his name as a possible contender for the GOP nomination. A vocal Never Trump’er, in March Romney called the presumptive nominee a “phony” and a “fraud” who is “playing the American public for suckers.”

Romney might be right, but would throwing another hat into the ring help conservatives?

Pat Buchanan, who ran for president in 2000 on the Reform Party ticket, doesn’t think so. Buchanan told the Washington Post that Kristol, Romney, and the rest are “mice trying to bell the cat — only they can’t get one mouse to go out and do it.”

Buchanan offered a bleak prediction for the future of any “mouse” with the guts to take that chance: “The career of the individual would come to an end, and he would have a difficult spot in history for being responsible for putting Hillary Clinton in the White House.”

Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson would apparently be happy to play that role, and recent polling indicates he may just get the part.

FiveThirtyEight reports a Morning Consult survey published last week showed Clinton getting 38 percent of the vote, Trump 35 percent and Johnson 10, with 17 percent undecided; a Fox News poll conducted between May 14-17 put Trump ahead of Clinton, 42 to 39 percent, with Johnson again at 10 percent; and in a Monmouth University survey conducted during mid-March, Clinton got 42 percent, Trump 34 percent and Johnson 11 percent.

Considering Johnson’s Republican history and the right-wing tendencies of the Libertarian Party at large, if Johnson siphons votes from anyone, it will be from Trump. However, Johnson’s running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, thinks the Libertarian ticket could succeed in this race on its own terms.

“Someone doesn’t have to be disaffected with Ms. Clinton to think that we have a good story,” Weld told CNN. “One doesn’t have to be Never Trump to see that we were two of the most fiscally conservative governors in the United States.”

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

More Conservatives Backing Away From Trump Nomination

More Conservatives Backing Away From Trump Nomination

As conservatives all over the country come to terms with Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, a cohort of conservative political figures and media personalities are actively fighting against him. Here’s what they have said about the racist billionaire’s ascension to the party nomination:

Steve Deace, host of conservative talk show The Steve Deace Show, in USA Today.

“But it’s not Donald Trump’s fault any more than it’s the fault of your pet scorpion when it stings you. After all, it takes a special kind of stupid to allow an animal with a poisonous stinger close enough to do that to you in the first place. The scorpion is simply being a scorpion. You, on the other hand, are supposed to know better.”

David Limbaugh, brother of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, in Townhall:

“If Trump wants our support (and sometimes he implies he doesn’t), he should have to convince us that he will not move toward authoritarianism; that he will honor the Constitution; that he will not take steps to use the Republican Party (or any other party) to permanently undermine constitutional conservatism; and that he won’t cater to those in his movement who want to cast constitutional conservatism into the burning dumpster.”

“I am not ‘NeverTrump’ — I recognize how bad Clinton is — but I think conservatives should now use what leverage they have to hold Trump’s feet to the fire so that we don’t lose either way.”

Former Republican Dallas County party chairman Jonathan Neerman, quoted in TIME

“That would leave me with leaving the top of the ticket blank,” [he said.] “I will fill out the rest of my ballot for every other Republican candidate. I just won’t vote for Donald Trump, and I certainly won’t vote for Hillary Clinton.”

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, quoted in The Hill

“I also cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump because I do not believe he is a reliable Republican conservative nor has he displayed the judgment and temperament to serve as commander in chief.”

Former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, speaking on Fox Business:

“I don’t think he offers anything and hardly do I think Hillary offers anything,” said

Conservative commentator Linda Chavez, in Newsmax:

“I have said it often enough, but it bears repeating: I will not vote for Donald Trump for president. There are millions like me. We fully understand the consequences — another four years of a Democrat in the White House — even if we do not like them.”

Former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, at “a dinner in Washington,” according to The Washington Examiner

“I happen to think that the person who is leading the nation has an enormous and disproportionate impact on the course of the world, so I am dismayed at where we are now, I wish we had better choices, and I keep hoping that somehow things will get better, and I just don’t see an easy answer from where we are.”

Radio host and leading anti-Trump conservative Glenn Beck, speaking on his network, The Blaze:

“Because what’s going to happen is you are now going to have Hillary Clinton legalize as many voters as you can, the GOP is going to be completely racist – whether it’s true or not – because of Donald Trump. You will never have another Republican president ever again.”

Despite the widespread opposition to Trump, it’s uncertain whether so many conservative politicians and commentators will have any effect. Trump has picked up the endorsements of a growing number of Republican governors and congressmen who have insisted that the racist billionaire should be supported as a matter of duty to the party. Despite their exhortations, it will be hard to paper over the deep divisions that have emerged between the two sides of the Republican Party.

Photo: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at The Palladium at the Center for Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana May 2, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

Some #NeverTrumpers Have Already Committed To Voting For Hillary Clinton

Some #NeverTrumpers Have Already Committed To Voting For Hillary Clinton

Some of the most principled members of the conservative movement woke up Wednesday morning to an unrecognizable party — what had been an organization advocating fiscal and social conservatism has turned into something else entirely: a cult of personality. Populists. Know Nothings.

The new reality facing #NeverTrump Republicans became even more apparent following campaign suspension announcements of Ted Cruz and John Kasich. The Texas senator shut down his campaign before the votes had even been fully counted in Indiana. John Kasich waited until this afternoon. With no one left to lead the anti-Trump movement in the presidential nomination race, some Republicans have done the unthinkable — pledge to support Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

The social media statuses and official announcements came flooding in last night as soon as it became clear that Trump had won the Indiana primary, effectively guaranteeing that he would be the Republican nominee.

“If it’s a competitive election, I probably will be compelled to vote for Hillary,” said Leon Wolf, editor of Red State, a conservative digital news site, to The Daily Beast. ” I wouldn’t go to bed every night worrying about a mushroom cloud opening up somewhere in the world because of some insane thing Trump had done.”

Fellow Red State editor Ben Howe simply tweeted:

Former John McCain advisor Mark Salter also tweeted:

The Clinton campaign is already capitalizing on Trump’s victory, sending out a campaign email with an exhaustive list of conservatives and Republicans who have said they would never vote for Trump. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, one of the most prominent voices of the #NeverTrump movement, said in a Facebook post, “Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. … I can’t support Donald Trump.”

Trump’s victory in Indiana only solidified already existing conservative opposition to his candidacy. In March, former New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman said, “While I certainly don’t want four more years of another Clinton administration or more years of the Obama administration, I would take that over the kind of damage I think Donald Trump could do to this country, to its reputation, to the people of this country.”

David Bernstein, a professor at George Mason University, wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post, “I’d rather Hillary Clinton win. I’d rather (and I never thought I’d say this) Barack Obama serve a third term. I’d even rather Bernie Sanders win, though if it came down to Sanders vs. Trump it might be time to form a breakaway republic. If Trump wins the nomination, I will actively seek to prevent him from becoming president.”

Even in the realm of international affairs, Trump’s promise to commit war crimes and “bomb the shit out of” America’s enemies has turned away even the most ardent neocons. “She [Clinton] would be vastly preferable to Trump,” said Max Boot, a conservative foreign policy analyst, to Vox. Boot had previously advised the McCain, Romney and Rubio campaigns on foreign policy.

The list goes on. But the reality is that while Trump may have a mandate from the 10.6 million people who have voted for him in Republican primaries, he has earned a lot of powerful enemies in his usurping of establishment power in the party. In heralding the start of a new, post-Reagan Republican Party, Trump’s army has spurred an exodus of its old guard. And while these are the last people to support a Clinton presidency, their seeming willingness to cross party lines shows just how desperate a place Donald Trump’s America would be.

Photo: Donald Trump talks to supporters during a campaign rally at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa. REUTERS/Steve Nesius