Archives for June 2019

While Nancy Pelosi and many Democrats in her caucus are slow-walking impeachment proceedings against Trump, deferring to more investigations, ex-ethics chief, Walter Shaub, has tweeted a few “inconvenient truths” for Democrats to consider.

“Heed the signs and don’t underestimate the threat to our republic from within,” writes Shaub, who served under former President Obama and then for six months under Trump until his resignationin July 2017.

Here is Shaub’s 14-tweet thread of “offenses” committed by the man currently occupying the White House and his administration:

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Heed the signs and don’t underestimate the threat to our republic from within:

-Trump obstructed justice
-A McConnell-packed SCOTUS says precedent can be changed more easily than previously thought
-AG Barr is an open partisan and slow-motion Saturday Night Massacre beneficiary

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-White House ignores congressional subpoenas, document requests
-Mnuchin is violating a law on turning over taxes to House
-Barr & Senate allies want to investigate officials who investigated Trump to retaliate against them and deter future efforts to hold him to the rule of law

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-State Dept is setting up a commission to supplant human rights with “natural law”
-An Inspector General found standing room only in border detention cells, with detainees standing on toilets to breathe
-children stolen from parents at the border are dying in internment camps

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump cut resources for investigating domestic terrorists
-FBI- reports a recent significant rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism
-evidence found of a white supremacist plot to add census Q to help gerrymander in ways “advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites”

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump is still resisting setting up defenses against foreign election interference
-Trump’s personal attorney solicited foreign govt investigation of current Trump political rival Biden
-AG Barr said something in a weird interview about investigating former Trump rival Clinton

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-There’s cause for concern Trump/Kushner personal interests may be influencing middle east policy
-Ignoring Congress, Trump declared fake emergency & abused authority to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia to continue its atrocities in Yemen, after it murdered a Washington Post reporter

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump declared fake emergency to get more power to ramp up activity at border
-ethics violations (and ethically dubious conduct not rising to a violation) occurring at an unprecedented rate among Trump appointees
-senior admin official says she doesn’t care about an ethics law

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-if impeached, Trump says he’ll try to get SCOTUS to overturn the impeachment
-McConnell, who blocked Merrick Garland ostensibly because it was an election year, shamelessly hinted this week that he’d be willing to fill a SCOTUS position for Trump in an election year

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump is praising autocrats, undermining allies
-Tone of OLC’s recent opinions has changed under Assistant AG Steven Engel, who was tied to one of the torture memos
-Military went to the border for Trump
-Military hid a ship to placate Trump
-Airborne seen wearing MAGA patches

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump admin & Graham inexplicably advocating war in Iran/Venezuela
-DOJ experimenting with new legal theory for prosecuting those who publish classified information (raising a question as to whether the theory will be limited to hostile foreign actors or expanded to journalists)

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-some public voices are normalizing Trump admin conduct
-voicemail from Trump lawyer to Flynn shows a disturbing carrot/stick approach (or worse)
-Trump has seemed to dangle pardons to buy silence or worse
-Trump admin officials are violating records laws to conceal actions

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump said “Russia, if you’re listening”
-Trump said “fine people” marched with nazis
-Trump has told over 10,000 false or misleading statements, per Washington Post
-Trump helped cover up Khashoggi murder, and Kushner’s said to have offered advice to MBS on weathering the storm

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-a foreign prince is reported to have said he has Kushner in his pocket (but denies saying that)
-Helsinki
-Trump’s behavior is erratic and is marked by frequent lies, bizarre public outbursts, name-calling and confusion
-no press conferences, and no transparency

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

Replying to @waltshaub

-Trump allies in congress are either lying about the Mueller report or haven’t read it
-Trump allies in congress are trying to prevent Mueller & others from testifying because they know their base hasn’t read the report and right wing media has kept them from hearing about it

Speaker Pelosi, while Mr. Shaub’s list of “offenses” is long, it is hardly exhaustive of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” committed by Donald Trump. When will enough be enough?

Photo | cnn.com