Trump impeachment continues. Melania indignant for a joke about her son Barron
Heard some constitutionalists on the proceedings against the president. The First Lady attacks prof. Karlan making a joke about his son: "He should be ashamed of using a minor to support his thesis"
"Donald Trump must be indicted": the three authoritative constitutionalists called to testify by the Democrats in the first, fiery hearing of the House Justice Committee, charged with continuing the impeachment investigation and drafting the articles, have no doubts. contest after the first yes of the Intelligence commission, also controlled by the dem: the report accusing the president of obstruction of justice and abuse of power for having "solicited the interference of a foreign government, that of Ukraine, to take advantage in his re-election ”, thus putting“ his political and personal interests above those of the United States ”. This is the pressure on Kiev to investigate rival in the race for the White House Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma when his father was managing US policy in that country. Pressures fueled by the blockade of US military aid.
To disagree is only the prof. Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington University Law School, the only witness cited by the Republicans: but not so much for the facts, in his opinion worthy of being investigated, as for the brevity of a "rickety" trial and the incompleteness of the evidence , with the risk of creating a dangerous precedent for future presidents.
One passage of the session was harshly criticized by the White House and by Melania Trump. For the first time, the First Lady breaks into the impeachment affair to defend her son Barron. "She should be ashamed," she tweeted, referring to Pamela Karlan, one of the legal experts who cited the presidential couple's son in the course of her testimony. The first lady accuses the constitutionalist of "using a minor" to publicly strengthen her "very angry and obviously biased" position. Karlan, a lawyer at Stanford University, had mentioned Barron's name in criticizing his father's conduct, to make a joke: “Trump is not a king who can do what he wants. The Constitution says that there can be no title of nobility. So the president can call him his son Barron but he can't make him a baron ”.
The hearing inflicts a new image blow on Trump on the world stage of the NATO summit, which the tycoon decides to abandon without a final press conference, irritated by the video in which other leaders seem to make fun of him, but perhaps also - some malign - to avoid embarrassing questions about impeachment. However, the president does not renounce to speak about him: the investigation is a "joke" and "has no basis".
The words of the constitutionalists are like boulders. Noah Feldman (Harvard Law School), Pamela Karlan (Stanford Law School) and Michael Gerhardt (University of North Carolina School of Law) rigorously explain that the president's actions clearly rank, historically and legally, among those worthy of impeachment. His conduct, Gerhardt accuses, "is worse than that of any previous president", starting with Nixon. "Trump has attacked the safeguards against the creation of a monarchy in this country", he adds, referring to the obstruction of Congress, which in the division of powers rests with the control of the executive. "He has committed serious crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the Bureau," echoed Feldman.
"A president must oppose foreign interference in our elections, not solicit it," said Karlan, who said she was "insulted" by the Republicans' accusation of not having read all the documents. But it was only the first of the sparks in a commission where the battle tends to escalate, with objections, interruptions and motions of the republican opposition.
"This is a Democrat-led coup," accused Congressman Doug Collins, the highest-ranking Republican on the panel. But the dems accelerate and aim for a vote in the House by Christmas. Then, in January, the Senate will judge, where the Grand Old Party has the majority and at the moment there are not two thirds of the votes to reach a sentence.
