Biblical and Constitutional Politics
Warning! Coup in Process
(Yes, Right Here in America)
Coup. Noun: The definition of a coup is a political uprising in which power changes hands or a successful strategic move. An example of a coup is when rebels overthrow the government (Your Dictionary).
Parties Involved in the Coup
When you hear the word “coup” you usually think of a third world country, where a dictator is overthrown by rebels who install a new dictator. It generally does not apply to countries with representative, democratically elected governments. In such countries, normally, if people out of power do not like those in power, they simply wait for the next election and try to have the people they do not like voted out of office and their candidates voted into office. But that is not what is happening today in the USA. Here, there is a concerted effect to remove President Donald J. Trump from office without waiting for the next election.
This coup is being orchestrated by five parties. The first is the “Deep State.” This term refers to: “a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy” (Google). In this case, the term Deep State is referring to the bureaucrats in Washington DC. Most of these are Obama appointees. It is difficult to fire them due to civil jobs legislation. But they are part of the “swamp” that Trump promised to drain. And they are probably the source for the many illegal leaks that have been coming out of the White House.
These leaks are being fed to the second party involved in the attempted coup—the mainstream media. The mainstream media has had it out for Donald Trump since he first announced his candidacy back in the spring of 2015. And they have really been in a tizzy since November 8, 2016 when he was elected President. That night, it was like a funeral on most news networks. That reaction showed how very much they were all in the tank for Hillary and expected her to win. The media simply has not gotten over the shock of the Trump victory, and they have been working ever since to overturn the results of the election. This was proven by a recent study out of Harvard showing the degree of negative reporting about Trump by the mainstream media.
The Harvard scholars analyzed the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the main newscasts (not talk shows) of CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC during Trump’s initial time in office. They found, to no one’s surprise, that Trump absolutely dominated news coverage in the first 100 days. And then they found that news coverage was solidly negative — 80 percent negative among those outlets studied, versus 20 percent positive.
The numbers for previous presidents: Barack Obama, 41 percent negative, 59 percent positive; George W. Bush, 57 percent negative, 43 percent positive; and Bill Clinton, 60 percent negative, 40 percent positive….
That said, the coverage of some news organizations was so negative, according to the Harvard study, that it seems hard to argue that the coverage was anywhere near a neutral presentation of facts. Assessing the tone of news coverage, the Harvard researchers found that CNN's Trump coverage was 93 percent negative, and seven percent positive. The researchers found the same numbers for NBC.
Others were slightly less negative. The Harvard team found that CBS coverage was 91 percent negative and 9 percent positive. New York Times coverage was 87 percent negative and 13 percent positive. Washington Post coverage was 83 percent negative and 17 percent positive. Wall Street Journal coverage was 70 percent negative and 30 percent positive. And Fox News coverage also leaned to the negative, but only slightly: 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive (Washington Examiner).
The third party in the coup are the Democrats. They were dumbfounded when Trump won the election, and his victory set them off into an outrage. They will now say and do anything to get rid of Trump, that is other than to look at Hillary and themselves and do an honest evaluation as to why they lost the election.
The fourth party is the establishment Republicans. They were opposed to Trump from the moment he announced his candidacy. “How dare an outsider intrude on our territory?” That was and still is their attitude. Their main concerns are staying in power rather than the good of the American people.
And that leads to the fifth and final party—the Never-Trumpers. These are “ordinary” Americans who labeled Trump a “racist” the day he announced his candidacy and proposed the building of the wall. Since then, their hatred for Trump has only grown. It has done so by listening exclusively to the mainstream media and its non-stop negative coverage of Trump, with never hearing about any of the many good things he has done since he took office. For that, you need to watch Fox News or Fox Business Channel, listen to conservative talk radio shows, like those of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Rose Tennant (Rose Unplugged), or read conservative political websites like CBN News, Briebart, or of course this Biblical and Constitutional Politics website and its articles like 100 Days of Productive Leadership.
However, Never-Trumpers would never do any of this, as they are too much of snowflakes to be able to handle exposing themselves to anything that might challenge their beliefs. But I would encourage them to overcome their misgivings, as it is always wise to pursue both sides of an issue before making a decision, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbor comes and examines him” (Prov 18:17; NKJV).
In any case, I will refer to these five groups collectively as “Oust-Trumpers.” How do Oust-Trumpers think they can get rid of the President? There are three possibilities.
Ways to Oust a President
The first way to oust a President out of office is through impeachment and conviction. It should be noted, this is a two-stage process. The President must first be impeached by the House of Representatives. This is analogous to a grand jury indicting a suspect in a crime. The Constitution of the United States indicates, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” (Article I. Section 2.).
Then after impeachment, the President must be tried and convicted by the Senate. This is analogous to a criminal trial.
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, there shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law (The United States Constitution. Article I. Section 3).
The basis of impeachment is, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (The United States Constitution. Article II. Section 4). I will discuss shortly how Oust-Trumpers are setting up bogus charges of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” against President Trump.
The second method for removing a President is through the 25th Amendment:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office (The United States Constitution. Amendment XXV. Section 4).
This amendment was passed in 1967, after the assassination of president John F, Kennedy. The concern was, what if President Kennedy had not died? What if he had been left physically and mentally incapacitated by being shot in head? The same could happen as a result of a stroke or other major health event. If such were to happen, there needed to be a way to remove the President from office due to being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
By 1963, Congress was debating an attempt to amend the Constitution to clear up all succession matters and add a procedure for dealing with a leader who became unable to perform the office’s duties temporarily or permanently (Constitution Daily)
However, the Oust-Trumpers are ignoring the original intent of this amendment just as liberals ignore the original intent of the Constitution in general. They are substituting the idea of “mental incompetence” or “mentally unbalanced” for physically and mentally incapacitated. That is why you have had many news media quote psychiatrists or have psychiatrists on their programs proclaiming that President Trump is psychotic, neurotic, a narcissist, or whatever negative-sounding physiological label they can place on him.
Most recently, I saw an article on my Google News page claiming President Trump is developing Alzheimer’s disease (AlterNet). Trump is in his 70s, and his dad died of Alzheimer’s, so that is possible. If he develops full-blown Alzheimer’s, that would be a cause to invoke the 25th Amendment. However, Alzheimer’s is hard to diagnose in its earliest stages even by a private physician who sees the patient personally and regularly. It most certainly cannot be diagnosed by someone who is not even a doctor and who has never examined the patient personally as articles like this one are doing.
The third method to get rid of President Trump would be by him resigning.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President (The United States Constitution. Amendment XXV. Section 3).
Such a resignation of the President has only occurred once, when President Nixon resigned in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal. He did so as it was becoming clear that he would be impeached. But it is hard to see Trump ever giving in to the Oust-Trumpers and resigning.
The Supposed “Treason, Bribery, or Other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”
But what crimes has President Trump committed that have so many Oust-Trumpers claiming he needs to be impeached? I will look at each one in turn.
Collusion with the Russians to Fix the 2016 Election:
Ever since November 9th, the day after the election, the media and the Democrats have been claiming Trump beat Hillary because the Russians somehow fixed the election. This conspiracy theory was invoked as both parties could not grasp how Trump could have beaten their favored candidate. As such, they had to come up with some excuse for the loss, as it just couldn’t have been because Hillary was a terrible candidate that that nobody trusted, because she was a proven liar and crook, who would continue or even expand the failed polices of Obama, had no new ideas of her own, and was totally unlikable.
Therefore, the media and the Democrats invented the Russian conspiracy idea and have been beating that drum ever since. Never mind that not a scrape of evidence has ever come out that any action by the Russians changed the election results or that Trump or his campaign staff were in collusion with the Russians. But despite the total lack of evidence, the Dems have convinced the new Deputy Director of the Justice Department, Rod Rosenstei, to appoint a Special Counselor, former FBI Director Robert Mueller. All that is going to do is to cost tax payers millions of dollars, drag out the Russian hoax for months or even years, all the while keeping this Russian collusion fake news story alive. And in the end, it will find there was no such collusion. Thus no “high crimes or misdemeanors” will be uncovered that would lead to the impeachment of President Trump.
But some good might come of it, and it will be by way of backfiring on the Oust-Trumpers. A Special Counselor has free reign to investigate anything that is remotely related to the initial case. As such, he might investigate the ties the Clinton Foundation had with Russia, exposing Hillary’s “pay to play” money-making scheme while Secretary of State. Or it might expose the Deep State Obama appointees who have been responsible for the illegal leaks to the press.
Firing of FBI Director James Comey:
On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey spent 12 minutes detailing all of the crimes committed by Hillary Clinton by having multiple private email severs and exposing classified information to American’s enemies while she was Secretary of State. But then in a surprise move that gave everyone in American a twisted neck, he declared, “No reasonable prosecutor would bring charges with this evidence.” I heard many “reasonable prosecutors” on Fox News afterwards declare they most certainly would bring charges with such evidence.
Then on October 28, 2016, Comey announced publicly that the FBI was reopening the Clinton case, as new emails had surface. Then a week later, he declared the new emails had not changed his mind, and charges would still not be brought against Hillary. Hillary now blames Comey for her loss, and Democrats and the media began calling for Comey to be fired. That is until, Trump fired him. Then all of the sudden, in another neck-twisting move, the same people who had been calling for Comey’s firing now began crying “Foul” that Trump fired him!
They are claiming Trump fired Comey because he was getting “too close” to Trump’s ties to Russian. However, once again, it must be said, there is not a scrape of evidence of any Trump/ Russian collusion in the election. It was also falsely reported that Comey had just asked for more money for the Russian investigation before being fired. But as with everything else with the Russian narrative, that was fake news as well.
The facts are, Trump can fire anyone in the executive branch he wants anytime he wants. Granted, it would have helped the situation if the Trump administration could have gotten its story straight as to why Comey was fired. First it was because Rod Rosenstei had recommended his firing in a detailed letter sent to Trump. Rosenstei had just been confirmed a couple of weeks before, so this would explain why Trump did not fire Comey in January, right after he was inaugurated, for the mishandling of the Hillary case. Then it was because Comey was a show-boater, who held the press conferences just to get attention. Then it was because of the Russian investigation and that it was a waste of time and money.
Most likely, the reason for Comey’s firing was “all of the above.” Comey was incompetent and had to go. He should never have held the press conference in July. He should never have recommended Hillary not be indicted, nor that she should be indicted. That is up to the Justice Department, not the FBI. And that misguided press conference led to his “October surprise” about reopening the investigation then closing it a week later. All of that was out of the purview of the FBI. And that is why just about all Democrats had been saying he should be fired for months. Therefore, for them to now proclaim it was wrong for him to be fired is simple hypocrisy.
But whatever the case, no law was broken by Comey’s firing. Thus no “high crimes or misdemeanors” was committed that would be cause to impeach President Trump.
Spilling of Classified Information to the Russians:
The media has been in a tizzy declaring that Trump revealed classified information to the Russian ambassador. Their source for this was the same as it always is for their fake news stories, an anonymous source. More and more, articles and news reports in the mainstream media cite anonymous sources. This keeps the source(s) from being able to be questioned by anyone else to verify the report. It also makes it hard to verify if the sources were even in a position to know what they are claiming to be revealing.
In this case, the only people in the room at the time, FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe and NSA Director Michael Rogers, have come out and declared in no uncertain terms that no classified information was revealed. As such, who should be believed, the two respected men who were in the room, or some unknown source who probably was not?
Moreover, the President of the United States is the ultimate Classifier. He can classify or declassify any intelligence at any time. Therefore, if Trump wanted to reveal classified information to someone, be it a Russian ambassador or anyone else, he can simply declare it unclassified and reveal it, and no laws would be broken.
Obstruction of Justice:
This is the peg on which the Oust-Trumpers are pinning their hopes. The New York Times (NYT) reported that Comey wrote in a memo that Trump told him to cease the investigation into General Michael Flynn and his involvement with the Russians. The NYT claimed about this memo, “The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.“
This sounds bad, until you look at it for more than a few seconds. First, the source for this report was (what else?) an anonymous source. This unnamed “source” read part (not all) of a memo Comey supposedly wrote back in February. “The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.” The part of the memo that was read claimed that Trump had said to Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go... He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go” (New York Times).
Let’s be clear here. The NYT has not seen the memo itself, nor has anyone else. The full contents of the memo including the context of this statement were not revealed. All we have is someone’s (no one know whose) claim that a memo that Comey wrote claimed to report what Trump said. Thus what we have is a third party reporting of what Trump said, without the full context or the tone of the statement. This is a perfect example of hearsay, which is “information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiated; rumor” (Oxford Dictionary on MS Word 365). Such would never stand up in a court of law. What we need is the full memo to be subpoenaed by Congress or the new Special Counselor, along with all of Comey’s other memos.
Moreover, note the language, “I hope.” Not “I order” or anything along those lines. This was just Trump pointing out that Flynn had served our country for decades with honor and should be given some consideration because of that. It was also a case of Trump putting in a word for his friend. It was not an order, not a mandate. It is no different than Obama coming out publicly on four separate occasions and declaring Hillary had not broken any laws. If there ever was any attempt to influence an FBI investigation, that was it. But there were no cries of “obstruction of justice” at that time by Democrats or even Republicans, and there shouldn't be now. And that leads the next point.
Comey was asked in March when he appeared before Congress if he had ever been asked by any administration to suspended any investigation, and he replied, “That has never happened.” He went on to say that it would be a “big deal” if it did. Therefore, if in his memo written in February he was indicating he felt Trump was trying to get him to suspend the investigation into Flynn, then Comey committed perjury before Congress in March. Moreover, a Department of Justice law states that if someone tries to impede an FBI investigation, it must be reported to the DOJ. Since Comey did not report such, if he comes out now and says that Trump was trying to impede his investigation, then he should be immediately put into handcuffs and hauled away, both for perjury and for breaking that law.
Moreover, if in his statement to Comey, Trump was trying to stop the investigation into Flynn, there is a legal method open to him. He could simply pardon Flynn. As President, he can do so anytime for anyone.
Bottom line is this whole charge is bogus. Trump did not obstruct justice. There is no evidence of such. But I guess we will find out more when Comey appears before Congress once again next month and when Special Counselor Robert Mueller finishes his investigation. By all accounts, Mueller is a straight-shooter, so maybe we will get some truth from his investigation.
Supposed Signs Trump is Mentally Unbalanced
Unfinished sentences, rambling thoughts, wild hand movements, forgetfulness, narcissism, and a myriad of others personality quirks are said to be signs that Trump is mentally unbalanced in some way. But such quirks have characterized Trump for decades, all while he amassed a fortune and built a business empire. Such accomplishments do not normally accompany a mentally unbalanced person. Moreover, a mental disorder cannot be diagnosed by watching someone on TV. This is just reaching by Oust-Trumpers who cannot find a solid reason to oust Trump. For a follow-up to this part of this article, see President Trump’s First Annual Physical (Thwarting 25th Amendment Coup Attempts).
President Pence?
I was flabbergasted when I heard about a “person on the street” type of survey, where some Americans actually think that if President Trump is removed from office, Hillary Clinton will become President! For such people who obviously who slept through high school civics, “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President” (The United States Constitution. Amendment XXV. Section 1, 1967).
This is the part of this whole scenario that does not make sense. If the Oust-Trumpers have their way and Trump is removed from office, then Vice-President Michael Pence will become President. And the Oust-Trumpers hate him almost as much as they hate President Trump. The reason they hate him are the same as the reason they hate Trump—they hate his policies. But Pence’s policies are similar to Trump’s, so if we end up with a President Pence, then the same policies will still be enacted, and the Oust-Trumpers will probably become Oust-Pencers.
It would be much better if all of the Oust-Trumpers just obeyed the Constitution and do what has always been done—wait until the next election and present your case before the American people and work to get your candidates elected over Trump/ Pence. Until then, do what we conservatives did during the eight long Obama years, cool your heals and work to get your candidates elected in the mid-term elections and in the presidential election next time. But there is too much hatred among the Oust-Trumpers for such a reasoned approach.
Note:
All quotes from the United States Constitution are from: United States of America. The United States Constitution: with Amendments. Wohnrecht. Kindle Edition.
Warning! Coup in Process (Yes, Right Here in America). Copyright © 2017 By Gary F. Zeolla.
Joe Biden's Failing Presidency
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The above article was posted on this website May 24, 2017.
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