Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Facts Matter


I stopped here.  Hugh Hewitt teaches Con Law?  Huh?  To whom?

Let me put this in context; at least, the context where I found it.
Behold the genius of Hugh Hewitt.  His Twitter "bio" states as follows:

Syndicated Radio Host 6-9 AM EST on Salem. NBC/MSNBC News Contributor. Washington Post contributing columnist. CEO, Nixon Foundation. Browns/Tribe/Cavs/Buckeyes
No mention of law school, a teaching position, even holding a law degree.  But he does; and he does, according to Wikipedia, hold a professorship at Chapman University School of Law, where he has taught Con Law for 25 years.  Proving that even professors can be idiots.  Art. II v. Art. I?

Does Hewitt mean this passage?

The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!

By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America's founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build. Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying pray for the President, when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!
(Frankly that second paragraph is bizarre by any standards, and if Hewitt wants to argue theology, I'll be happy to oblige him, although Chris Cuomo made a pretty fair analysis of what's wrong with Trump's complaint here.)

Or this one, which in one paragraph goes from the ridiculous to the absolutely preposterous?

Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me. His shameless lies and deceptions, dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the main reasons we are here today.

You and your party are desperate to distract from America's extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your party simply cannot compete with our record: 7 million new jobs; the lowest-ever unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans; a rebuilt military; a completely reformed VA with Choice and Accountability for our great veterans; more than 170 new federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices; historic tax and regulation cuts; the elimination of the individual mandate; the first decline in prescription drug prices in half a century; the first new branch of the United States Military since 1947, the Space Force; strong protection of the Second Amendment; criminal justice reform; a defeated ISIS caliphate and the killing of the world's number one terrorist leader, al-Baghdadi; the replacement of the disastrous NAFTA trade deal
with the wonderful USMCA (Mexico and Canada); a breakthrough Phase One trade deal with China; massive new trade deals with Japan and South Korea; withdrawal from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal; cancellation of the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord; becoming the world's top energy producer; recognition of Israel's capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a colossal reduction in illegal border crossings, the ending of Catch-and-Release, and the building of the Southern Border Wall, and that is just the beginning, there is so much more. You cannot defend your extreme policies: open borders, mass migration, high crime, crippling taxes, socialized healthcare, destruction of American energy, late-term taxpayer-funded abortion, elimination of the Second Amendment, radical far-left theories of law and justice, and constant partisan obstruction of both common sense and common good.
Except for the mention of the Second Amendment, I can't find anything in those paragraphs that is vaguely a constitutional analysis of the powers of the Congress and the Executive.

So maybe this one?

You are the ones interfering in America's elections. You are the ones subverting America's Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.
Projection is a Constitution-level legal analysis?  Where?  In Orange County?

Then maybe the constitutional analysis is in this one?

If you truly cared about freedom and liberty for our Nation, then you would be devoting your vast investigative resources to exposing the full truth concerning the horrifying abuses of power before, during, and after the 2016 election, including the use of spies against my campaign, the submission of false evidence to a FISA court, and the concealment of exculpatory evidence in order to frame the innocent. The FBI has great and honorable people, but the leadership was inept and corrupt. I would think that you would personally be appalled by these revelations, because in your press conference the day you announced impeachment, you tied the impeachment effort directly to the completely discredited Russia Hoax, declaring twice that "all roads lead to Putin," when you know that is an abject lie. I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.

Or surely in this calm and profound analysis:

This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth. You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party. But because of this colossal injustice, our party is more united than it has ever been before. History will judge you as you proceed with this impeachment Charade.  Your legacy will be that of turning the House of Representatives from a revered legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution.

Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of solemnity. You apparently have so little respect for the American People that you expect them to believe that you are approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and reluctantly. No intelligent person believes what you are saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever. There is no reticence. This is not a somber affair. You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans. The voters are wise, and they are seeing straight through this empty, hollow, and dangerous game you are playing.

Could it be the genius of this letter can be found in just one sentence?

Once I presented the transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters (they never thought that such evidence would be presented), the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, disappeared because they got caught, their report was a fraud, and they were no longer going to be made available to us.

The Washington Post fact check:
Pretty much takes care of the factual basis of this six page screed.  The tl;dr?  There are no facts here at all.

Lawyers know a very basic rule:  change the facts, change the outcome.  Anyone who knows anything about constructing an argument knows you cannot do it without a factual basis, unless you are engaging in sheer demagoguery.  Where is the profound analysis in this letter of the separation of powers, of the balance of authorities between the Legislative and Executive branches?  This is a screed more aptly described by Steve Schmidt than by Hugh Hewitt:
But I'll give Hewitt this much, this letter is historical:

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1 comment:

  1. The Thought Criminal9:19 AM

    It's right down there in the list of insanity by rulers, monarchs and despots, it's a road marker in America gone on the imperial road away from democracy. Anyone in the media, in academia, in "journalism" who isn't calling it insane confirms it as a symptom of an American culture that has been morally rotted.

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