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Impeachable Offenses?

~ Examining the Case for Removal of the 45th President of the United States

Impeachable Offenses?

Tag Archives: lie

Mueller Denies BuzzFeed Report

19 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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buzzfeed, Collusion, Congress, deny, dishonest, donald, Frank Bowman, impeachable, Impeachment, lie, lying, Michael Cohen, moscow, president, report, Robert Mueller, russia, Russian, slate, trump, Trump Tower

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has issued a rare statement denying the veracity of the BuzzFeed article published yesterday. The article in question stated that Mueller’s office had a cache of documents which established that President Trump encouraged his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie about the extent of the Moscow Trump Tower negotiations. If that were true, the legal consequences would have been severe; Professor Frank Bowman provided an analysis which was published on Slate.com.

However, though BuzzFeed has dug in its heels, the rarity of such public statements from Mueller’s office and its direct nature seem to indicate that there is no truth to the story. That is to say, Mueller’s office does not have hard evidence of such directions exchanged between Trump and Cohen. There is some concern that this revelation will give the President new ammunition against the media; however, it should not be forgotten that the truth finder of most significance in this case is Robert Mueller. It should be heartening that he is staying the course.

UT5EXCA3QYI6TCATZOO6Y5Q6OM.jpgRichard Drew/AP

 

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Manafort Lied about Dealings with Kilimnik

09 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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Collusion, Conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud, conspire, donald trump, impeachable, Impeachment, konstantin kilimnik, lie, lying, madrid, paul manafort, polling data, president, Robert Mueller, russian collusion, russian intelligence, Special Counsel, ukraine, witness tampering

Special Counsel Robert Mueller believes that Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairmen, shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukranian translator and campaign adviser believed to have ties with Russian intelligence, and that he later lied about it. Apparently, Manafort’s lawyers have conceded that Manafort neglected certain details of his Ukrainian dealings, as they wrote in a court filing that “[i]t is not surprising at all that Mr. Manafort was unable to recall specific details prior to having his recollection refreshed.” The filing also notes that Manafort forgot  and later recalled that he had met with Kilimnik in Madrid in January or February of 2017, which was after Trump became President-elect, but also after Manafort’s tenure as campaign chairmen. Manafort and Kilimnik have previously been accused of witness tampering, for allegedly reaching out to members of the Hapsburg group, and asking them to lie about secret, pro-Ukrainian lobbying done at Manafort’s behest.

If it is to be believed that Kilimnik does have ties to Russian intelligence, then this information establishes, at least, a Russian interest in President Trump’s candidacy. Of course, that is not new information. At most, it could go to establishing communication between Trump and Russia post-election. That being said, it is only circumstantial evidence. The fact that foreign powers are interested in Trump’s nomination and presidency, does not mean he cooperated with foreign powers, and the fact that Manafort cooperated with foreign powers, does not mean that Trump participated. Still, this another straw on the camel’s back.

gettyimages-975251610_wide-a5b8c154718a06791ada3f9447c359251dd114b5.jpgAFP/Getty Images

 

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Pres. Trump Hiding his Health

03 Thursday May 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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25, amendment, articles of impeachment, dishonesty, doctor, fitness, hair loss, harold bornstien, impeach, lie, mental, pervasive, president, raid, removal, remove, trump, unfitness

Trump’s former doctor, Harold Bornstein, claims that a 2015 statement about the  President’s health, which was then attributed to Bornstein, was in fact written by Trump himself. For those who don’t recall, a passage from the “Doctor’s letter” which received special attention went as follows: “[h]is physical strength and stamina are extraordinary. If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Bornstein went on to say that, after he let it slip that Trump took a hair-loss medication, three men from Trump’s office, a group which included Alan Garten, a lawyer, and Keith Schiller, former director of Oval Office  operations, came to his office and took Trump’s medical records in a “raid”-like fashion.

Trump’s actions have been described as totalitarian, and one opinion summarizes his concern over the news as follows: “[d]oes he have a condition or problem that will shorten his life or impair his ability to do the job?” The problem with Trump’s attempts to hide his medical history can be divided into two issues: 1) his fitness to serve, and 2) a trend of dishonesty.

There has been some speculation about the use of the 25th amendment to remove Trump for mental or physical unfitness.  One might argue that if Trump is trying to hide some serious health issues, that might increase the likelihood of his removal; however, Trump is hardly the first president to have and hide health issues. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  concealed the true extent of his polio-caused paralysis throughout his political career, and kept his increasing heart problems carefully under wraps during his third and fourth terms. President Wilson suffered from a severe stroke while in office which his wife and doctor hid from the public, and President Kennedy, though “famous for having a bad back,” successfully hid “other illnesses, including persistent digestive problems and Addison’s disease, a life-threatening lack of adrenal function.”

What may distinguish Mr. Trump’s blatant falsification of his medical history from the concealment practiced by some of his predecessors is the degree to which this incident is part of a larger pattern of lying.

The topic of President Trump’s pervasive falsehoods has been explored thoroughly on this blog. Should congress choose to pursue impeachment on that basis, Trump’s efforts to hide his health may constitute another avenue of inquiry.

 

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Executive Lies and How to Handle Them

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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executive, houston law review, impeach, lie, lies, national, president, security, trump, tung yin

National Security Lies, written by Tung Yin, and published in the Spring 2018 edition of the Houston Law Review, is  an article which reviews the types of lies which have been told by officials of the Executive Branch, and explores what remedies are available in light of such lies. This article is especially relevant in light of what our current President views as ‘alternative facts.’ Below is the article’s abstract:

What legal consequences, if any, exist (or ought to exist) when the President or other Executive Branch officials mislead, dissemble, or outright lie and then, when exposed, justify the deceit in the name of national security? This is a complicated question to answer, because some lies (such as those by the Carter Administration to deny the existence of a rescue mission on the eve of the ill-fated Operation Eagle Claw) are so naturally understandable, while others (such as the false stories surrounding the capture of Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq and the killing of Sgt. Pat Tillman in Afghanistan) seem to have been issued for less defensible reasons.

This article categorizes a number of notable national security lies in American history, examines the seductive appeal of national security lies for executive branch officials to explain why such lies may seem like better options than saying nothing, explains the harms caused by national security lies, and analyzes the likely reasons that national security lies generally incur no sanctions (criminal or otherwise). Finally, the article proposes a model for regulating national security lies that draws from the statutes governing the related areas of covert actions, classification of information, and invocation of state secrets to block litigation.

Trump-SOTU-2018-rtr-img.jpgReuters / Win McNamee / Pool

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Frank O. Bowman, III


Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law
University of Missouri School of Law

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