A stonewall looks like obstruction -- Oct. 10, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Echoes of Watergate -- now he’s building a stonewall.

You’d think the border wall with Mexico would be wall enough for President Donald Trump, whose promises to build it helped him get elected.

But now Trump has erected a metaphorical wall against impeachment which, perversely, may help him get re-elected. Trumpian defiance plays well with his base, if not with most Americans.

Even a Fox News poll reported Wednesday support for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office has reached a new high of 51 percent of voters.

“One of the main things Americans are now considering is the fact that the White House is trying to stonewall and not provide adequate information,” former President Jimmy Carter, still sharp at 95, said Tuesday on MSNBC.

The New York Times summed the situation Wednesday: “The White House intends to formally stonewall Congress, setting up a constitutional clash.”

Carter and the newspaper were referring to the political screed in the form of a letter the top White House lawyer sent Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and three Democratic committee chairmen. 

The White House will not cooperate with the congressional impeachment inquiry, the letter said, claiming it’s an attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

Trump refuses to comply with subpoenas from Congress for documents and testimony from government officials about the July 25 call with the president of Ukraine.

That’s stonewalling -- “a policy based on resistance to revelation” – a word popularized during the Watergate investigation, according to “Safire’s New Political Dictionary.”

“As transcribed from the Nixon tapes, White House counsel John Dean assured the president on Feb. 28, 1973: `We are stonewalling totally,’” William Safire writes.

A few weeks later, President Nixon directed: “I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else . . . ”

Thus Trump has latched onto a tactic that worked so well for Nixon that he was forced to resign to avoid the shame of impeachment. One of the three articles of impeachment the House Judiciary Committee had drawn involved stonewalling Congress.  

Safire traces the word’s roots to the First Battle of Bull Run War when Confederate Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson held his position, and a Southern officer was said to have cried, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall . . .”

Hurling verbal grenades and threatening his adversaries are classic Trumpian business tactics, but he’s not calling the shots from Trump Tower anymore.

The president doesn’t get to decide if he will be impeached. The Constitution gives Congress impeachment power.

”Despite the White House’s stonewalling, we see a growing body of evidence that shows President Trump abused his office and violated his oath to `preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution,” Pelosi said in a statement responding to the letter.

And, in case Trump didn’t get it, Pelosi warned: “Mr. President, you are not above the law. You will be held accountable.”

Democrats continued pushing for documents and testimony in their evidence-gathering phase. If Trump continues his defiance, it could lead to an article of impeachment charging Trump with obstructing Congress.

Chinks appeared in Trump’s stonewall almost immediately. Just a day after the letter, Trump said he would cooperate under certain conditions, including the full House taking a vote on beginning the impeachment inquiry and allowing his legal team access to documents and the ability to call and cross examine witnesses.

It’s worth remembering no vote is required under the Constitution. Trump wants a vote so Republicans can use Democrats’ votes for the inquiry against them in their campaigns for re-election.

Unlike the impeachment inquiries for Nixon and President Bill Clinton, the current hearings are behind closed doors so that classified material could be discussed.

Nixon’s stonewalling ended in July 1974 with the Supreme Court’s 8-0 ruling to  turn over the White House audio tapes. Three were Nixon’s nominees to the court -- Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Justice Harry Blackmun and Justice Lewis Powell. Justice William Rehnquist recused himself.

One wonders whether Trump nominees Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would rule similarly and how Trump would react.  

But we can be sure even if the House accedes to Trump’s current demands, he will make others. No one expects Trump to live up to his word. Nor, to his peril, is he likely to listen to sage advice from a former president.

Jimmy Carter advised Trump: “Tell the truth . . . for a change.”

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

A gracious loser? We can hope -- Nov 3, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A ritual of American politics will unfold Tuesday night.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will hold victory parties but, before the night is over, one will concede defeat. If we’re lucky.

We can take nothing for granted. To the end, Trump remains a question mark. In his last debate with Clinton, he refused to say whether he would accept the results of the election.

“I will keep you in suspense,” he said. It was outrageous, provocative and pure Trump. He still appears likely to come up short in the Electoral College, although polls have tightened in the last week.

One thing is certain, though. The American people have suffered enough disappointment during this dispiriting campaign. Barring an election disaster, the loser needs to accept the will of the voters with grace and urge his or her followers to do the same.

The winner also must move immediately to begin repairing the breach that has riven the country.

This presidential contest has always been more about the candidates’ deficiencies than their policies. When the votes are finally counted, it’s time for all of us to put the country first.

Our admirable American tradition holds that defeated presidential candidates rise to the occasion for the sake of the greater good. It’s reassuring to see failed candidates muster grace – and even humor -- at a time of personal misery.

In 1908, after his third failed campaign for the White House, Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan said: “I am reminded of the drunk who, when he had been thrown down the stairs of the club for the third time, gathered himself up, and said, `I am on to those people. They don’t want me in there,’” William Safire wrote in “Safire’s New Political Dictionary.”

Going into the 1948 election, Thomas Dewey was confident he’d beat Harry Truman – as were some newspaper editors. We’ve all seen the screaming banner headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”

All night the votes came in. When Dewey awoke the next morning to learn he’d lost, he sent a gracious telegram to Truman.

“My heartiest congratulations to you on your election and every good wish for a successful administration. I urge all Americans to unite behind you in support of every effort to keep our nation strong and free and establish peace in the world,” he wrote.

Asked by reporters what had happened, Dewey replied, “I was just as surprised as you are . . . It has been grand fun, boys and girls. I enjoyed it immensely.”

Four years later, when he lost to Dwight Eisenhower, Democrat Adlai Stevenson said he was reminded of the story about Abraham Lincoln after an election defeat. Lincoln said he felt like the boy who stubbed his foot in the dark -- “too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”

After the bitter 1960 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon offered a quasi-concession statement to John F. Kennedy.

“If the present trend continues, Mister Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, will be the next president of the United States,” Nixon told his supporters in California about midnight Pacific time. 

“I want Senator Kennedy to know . . . that certainly if this trend does continue, and he does become our next president, that he will have my wholehearted support and yours too,” Nixon said.

Nixon was convinced voter fraud cost him the election but he did not demand a recount despite JFK’s razor-thin margin of victory -- just over 100,000 votes out of 68 million votes cast. 

Kennedy won 303 electoral votes and Nixon 219. Fifteen unpledged electors in Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma voted for segregationist Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia.

To preserve his viability for future elections, Nixon would not look like a sore loser.

Nobody ever warms to defeat. Mitt Romney was so sure he was going to win four years ago that he’d written only a victory speech.

“It’s about 1,118 words long,” he told reporters traveling with him on Election Day. His staff hadn’t written a concession speech either.

A few hours later, Romney called President Barack Obama to congratulate him. Then Romney went to what was supposed to be his victory party.

After wishing the president and his family well, Romney told supporters, “This is a time of great challenges for America and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.”

We can dream that whoever loses on Tuesday is as classy.

(c) 2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30