Tag: Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Former top FBI lawyer James Baker, in closed-door testimony to Congress, detailed alleged discussions among senior officials at the Justice Department about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, claiming he was told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said two Trump Cabinet officials were “ready to support” such an effort. “I was being told by some combination of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, he had stated that he -- this was what was related to me -- that he had at least two members of the president’s Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it, an action under the 25th Amendment,” Baker told the committees. One way that could happen is if a majority of the president’s Cabinet says the president is incapable of discharging his duties. Fox News requested further comment from the parties involved. “As the deputy attorney general previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment.” During his testimony, Baker acknowledged he was not directly involved in the May 2017 discussions but testified over a two-day period in October that McCabe and Page came to him contemporaneously after meeting with Rosenstein for input in the days after Comey was fired by the president. “I had the impression that the deputy attorney general had already discussed this with two members in the president’s Cabinet and that they were…onboard with this concept already,” Baker said. During the closed-door hearing, the former FBI lawyer told lawmakers he could not say whether Rosenstein was taking the initiative to seek out Cabinet members: Question: “Do you know what direction that went? On Thursday, the top Republicans on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees called for McCabe and Rosenstein to testify before their respective panels, following McCabe's comments about these discussions. Also during the testimony, Moyer said the chances of securing a 2016 surveillance warrant for a Trump campaign aide were only “50/50” without the controversial anti-Trump “dossier,” according to transcripts confirmed by Fox News. Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

WASHINGTON — When John Keats said that autumn is the season of “mists and mellow fruitfulness,” he did not anticipate this American autumn. It resembles the gorier Shakespearean plays in which swords are brandished, people are poisoned and stabbed, almost everyone behaves badly and those who do not are thinking: Things cannot continue like this. Actually, they probably will because this is the first law of contemporary politics: There is no such thing as rock bottom. Next week, Rosenstein is expected to speak with the president, presumably because of last week’s report that in May 2017, Rosenstein spoke, in the presence of other senior Justice Department officials, about possibly wearing a wire to surreptitiously record the president, presumably to facilitate invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him. The amendment requires the vice president and a majority of the president’s Cabinet to notify Congress that they consider the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Were the turmoil in the Justice Department, which is headed by the precariously placed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, exacerbated by the firing of Rosenstein, this would provide yet another occasion, this one fewer than 41 days before 435 House and 35 Senate elections, for congressional Republicans to remind voters of the purity of their fealty to the president. It is darkly amusing that in this instance they are Trotskyites. In 1924, Trotsky groveled at the Communist Party conference in an attempt to crawl back into the good graces of Lenin’s widow, Stalin and others not famous for forgiving deviations from party positions. Trotsky said: “Comrades, none of us wishes to be nor can be right against our party. In the last analysis, the party is always right.” In today’s hyperventilating Washington, sifting evidence and weighing probabilities are considered damning evidence that the sifters and weighers are guilty of allowing reasoning to temper their ideological reflexes and inhibit their tribal loyalties. Watergate was a vindication of, not a crisis of, the Constitution.

WASHINGTON — When John Keats said that autumn is the season of “mists and mellow fruitfulness,” he did not anticipate this American autumn. It resembles the gorier Shakespearean plays in which swords are brandished, people are poisoned and stabbed, almost everyone behaves badly and those who do not are thinking: Things cannot continue like this. Actually, they probably will because this is the first law of contemporary politics: There is no such thing as rock bottom. On Thursday, however, Rosenstein is expected to speak with the president, presumably because of last week’s report that in May 2017, Rosenstein spoke, in the presence of other senior Justice Department officials, about possibly wearing a wire to surreptitiously record the president, presumably to facilitate invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him. The amendment requires the vice president and a majority of the president’s Cabinet to notify Congress that they consider the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Were the turmoil in the Justice Department, which is headed by the precariously placed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, exacerbated by the firing of Rosenstein, this would provide yet another occasion, this one fewer than 41 days before 435 House and 35 Senate elections, for congressional Republicans to remind voters of the purity of their fealty to the president. It is darkly amusing that in this instance they are Trotskyites. In 1924, Trotsky groveled at the Communist Party conference in an attempt to crawl back into the good graces of Lenin’s widow, Stalin and others not famous for forgiving deviations from party positions. Trotsky said: “Comrades, none of us wishes to be nor can be right against our party. In the last analysis, the party is always right.” In today’s hyperventilating Washington, sifting evidence and weighing probabilities are considered damning evidence that the sifters and weighers are guilty of allowing reasoning to temper their ideological reflexes and inhibit their tribal loyalties. Watergate was a vindication of, not a crisis of, the Constitution.

WASHINGTON — When John Keats said that autumn is the season of “mists and mellow fruitfulness,” he did not anticipate this American autumn. It resembles the gorier Shakespearean plays in which swords are brandished, people are poisoned and stabbed, almost everyone behaves badly and those who do not are thinking: Things cannot continue like this. Actually, they probably will because this is the first law of contemporary politics: There is no such thing as rock bottom. On Thursday, however, Rosenstein is expected to speak with the president, presumably because of last week’s report that in May 2017, Rosenstein spoke, in the presence of other senior Justice Department officials, about possibly wearing a wire to surreptitiously record the president, presumably to facilitate invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him. The amendment requires the vice president and a majority of the president’s Cabinet to notify Congress that they consider the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Were the turmoil in the Justice Department, which is headed by the precariously placed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, exacerbated by the firing of Rosenstein, this would provide yet another occasion, this one fewer than 41 days before 435 House and 35 Senate elections, for congressional Republicans to remind voters of the purity of their fealty to the president. It is darkly amusing that in this instance they are Trotskyites. In 1924, Trotsky groveled at the Communist Party conference in an attempt to crawl back into the good graces of Lenin’s widow, Stalin and others not famous for forgiving deviations from party positions. Trotsky said: “Comrades, none of us wishes to be nor can be right against our party. In the last analysis, the party is always right.” In today’s hyperventilating Washington, sifting evidence and weighing probabilities are considered damning evidence that the sifters and weighers are guilty of allowing reasoning to temper their ideological reflexes and inhibit their tribal loyalties. Watergate was a vindication of, not a crisis of, the Constitution.

Good Tuesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. • Judge Brett Kavanaugh denied allegations of sexual misconduct and said he would “not be intimidated into withdrawing” as the Supreme Court nominee. The woman they were referring to is furious, calling the insinuation “horrible, hurtful and simply untrue.” [Read the story] • Judge Kavanaugh took the remarkable step of submitting to a television interview before a confirmation vote, defending himself on Fox News. One historian called it “utterly extraordinary.” [Read the story and the transcript] • President Trump on Judge Kavanaugh: “Hopefully we’ll have a second judge very shortly who is a fantastic, fantastic man, a fantastic talent and intellect.” [Read the story] • Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, expected Mr. Trump to fire him on Monday after The Times reported that he had considered secretly taping the president and had discussed using the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. But at the end of the day, he was still in his job. Here’s what went on behind closed doors. [Read the story] • The drama surrounding Mr. Rosenstein and Judge Kavanaugh is proving a distraction for Mr. Trump at the U.N. General Assembly. [Read the story] • Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic nominee for Senate from Arizona, has made her story of childhood homelessness central to her appeal. But court documents reviewed by The Times raise questions about how she told that story.