Trump is hurtling toward a Nixonian ending
The anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination
has long served as a stark reminder of all that was lost on that day in
1968, and of what American politics might have become had the New York
senator survived that turbulent year. Wednesday’s 50th anniversary of
the tragedy saw a deluge of tributes remembering a man both haunted by
history and driven by the vision of an America redeemed.
Esquire’s Charles Pierce this week describes Kennedy as a man uniquely capable of standing against the “foul gales” that were then rising in American politics.
Pierce believes, as do I, that Kennedy’s election to the presidency
could have healed a nation pushed to a breaking point by a cacophony of
cultural tremors. Despite campaigning against the bleak backdrop of
Vietnam, torched American cities, heightened racial tensions
and political assassinations, RFK would have stitched together the
shredded fabric of American culture and healed the soul of a country
that remains, as Pierce writes, “perpetually redeemable.”
In a new book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham reminds
readers of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s belief that for all of this
country’s failings, the trend of American civilization is forever
upward. That is an invaluable reminder during a time when the president
proclaims his power unrestrained by Madisonian checks and balances,
including ignoring federal subpoenas, killing Justice Department
investigations, obstructing justice to protect his personal interests
and even pardoning himself. The resident’s hapless lawyers seem to have
convinced Donald Trump, like Richard M. Nixon before him, that “when the resident does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
But
that twisted interpretation of presidential authority is dead wrong.
Even in resident Trump’s America, no man is above the law.
It
may come as little relief to those unsettled by the commander in
chief’s autocratic impulses that this resident will likely face the
same fate as Nixon if he acts upon his lawyers’ ignorant legal opinions.
But perhaps take comfort from Meacham’s insight in “The Soul of America” that “to know what has come before is to be armed against despair.”
History
does, in fact, show that a president cannot pardon himself. Days before
Nixon resigned in 1974, the Justice Department issued an opinion that
echoed centuries of American and English law by declaring, “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.“
The history of Bill Clinton’s presidency also undermines recent claims
from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that Trump is legally entitled as resident to ignore a subpoena from Robert S. Mueller III.
But do not
take my word for it. Read instead Giuliani’s own words
from 1998. “You gotta do it. I mean, you don’t have a choice,” the
former U.S. attorney said of Clinton’s legal options if he received a
federal subpoena to testify to Whitewater investigators.
Other
claims of unchecked residential authority by Trump and his lawyers are
so preposterous that they warrant little discussion here. What Time
magazine describes as
the White House’s “increasingly broad claims of presidential impunity”
would likely be struck down in a unanimous opinion by the Supreme Court.
And even Trump’s most timid quislings on Capitol Hill would never
suggest (like Giuliani) that Trump could have murdered
former FBI director James B. Comey and escape indictment as long as he
was in office. Perhaps there are constitutional excesses that even Trump
apologists will not yield to in their unending efforts to defend Trump.
On the same day Americans marked a half-century since Kennedy’s death, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) defended
the FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign and told reporters that no
man is above the law. Ryan’s performance may have met only the
bare-minimum standard for political courage. But as one who still sees
America as perpetually redeemable, forgive me for believing this
president’s worst instincts will be checked, our country’s rule of law
will be preserved and the upward arc of American civilization that FDR
once spoke of will again be restored.
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