Heading for constitutional convulsions

We seem to be edging toward a constitutional collapse, if not a crisis. President Donald Trump is ordering Cabinet officials and an ex-aide, over whom he has no legal control, not to appear before Congress and not to provide documents, in a blatant effort to thwart Congress’s power of oversight.

If the House starts voting out contempt citations for Attorney General William Barr, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former White House counsel Donald McGahn, but the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia refuses to enforce them in court, the House can roll over - or it can pursue several options. (House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler sent a sharply worded letter to McGahn and his lawyer demolishing the executive privilege excuse and warning McGahn that he'd be held in contempt if he did not comply with the subpoena.)

Before we get to those options, some of them severe, let's take stock of the responsible parties.

Let's not forget that Barr, Mnuchin and McGahn are every bit as responsible for Trump's brazen lawlessness as the president himself. Barr chose to misrepresent the Mueller report, to accuse the Justice Department and/or FBI officials of "spying" on Trump, to insert himself into a process by which Mueller (following the logical dictates of the Office of Legal Counsel memo) handed the matter back to Congress, to disregard ample evidence of obstruction, and to defy a House subpoena. (While Congress struggles to preserve our constitutional system, one would hope, at the very least, a professional ethics complaint has been filed against Barr with his state bar. No lawyer, let alone the attorney general, should be permitted to misrepresent facts under oath and defy a legal subpoena.)

Mnuchin can read the law that states he "shall" produce the president's tax returns. He chooses to ignore the law, he chooses to remain in his post, and he chooses to ignore an entirely proper oversight request.

Republicans in the House and Senate share responsibility for the Constitution's debasement, the decline of their institution and Trump's increasingly autocratic behavior. They, too, could stop the Trump circus by voting on a citation of contempt and making clear that they, too, would vote to impeach Barr and/or Mnuchin. They choose not to, sticking with their pattern of putting party above country. This includes all those so-called responsible Republicans such as Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Mitt Romney of Utah. There are no Republican heroes - or even mild-mannered, honest defenders of the Constitution.

It is because all of these people - members of the administration, GOP lawmakers and the entire conservative industrial media complex - collectively have protected, enabled and encouraged Trump that we find ourselves searching frantically for ways to force the president to comply with the bare minimum requirements of his job.

Former Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., suggests in an op-ed an alternative to a fruitless effort to get this administration to enforce contempt citations:

"One [option] is Congress's inherent contempt power, last used in 1935. This allows Congress to use its constitutional authority to detain and imprison a person found in contempt until that individual complies with a congressional demand or that particular Congress comes to an end.

"It may be rusty, and it's not something anyone welcomes, but President Trump's extreme responses to legitimate congressional requests may very well demand strong measures by Congress. To protect its constitutional authority and carry out its constitutional responsibility to the American people, it should not hesitate to use its inherent contempt power if needed."

One can imagine the chaos that might ensue from an effort to put two Cabinet officials behind bars, but it does seem time for the House to take some measure(s) at least as dramatic as Trump and his Republican sycophants' blatant, repeated violations of the rule of law.

Pursue crushing civil fines against recalcitrant witnesses, impeach Mnuchin and Barr, seek sanctions to punish lawyers for ethics violations and, yes, if need be, try to lock them up. Perhaps if Democrats start wielding their power, some Republicans (just a few) will recognize the gravity of the situation they have created and head off the administration before a true constitutional calamity ensues.

Ultimately, however, it will be for the voters to throw out Trump and dislodge the Republican Senate majority. Republicans richly deserve an electoral thrashing.

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