Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) in Washington, D.C., February 27, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

A point I forgot to include in today’s Morning Jolt:

After Robert Mueller completed his testimony yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared in a press conference: “There’s a cone of silence in the White House that is engaging in a massive cover up of obstruction of justice.”

Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, declared, “Martin Luther King said something that I — is in my DNA and is still in my brain, particularly right now. He said, ‘There comes a point when silence becomes betrayal.’ And we refuse to betray generations yet unborn and the American people.” (Hey, it’s nice to see a Congressional Democrats recognize the unborn in any context.)


Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, warned, “we face a time of great danger. Richard Nixon said he thought that the President was a dictator. He said, ‘If the President does it, that means it’s not illegal.’ President Trump echoed that yesterday. He said, ‘Under Article II, I’, that is, he, ‘can do anything I want.’ That is a totalitarian picture, not a democratic picture. The United States must be safe from this. A President who engages in crimes, repeated crimes, to cover up these unpatriotic and dictatorial actions and this cannot go on.”

And House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff added, “accepting campaign help from a foreign agent is disloyal to our country, unethical, and wrong. We cannot control what the Russians do. But we can decide what we do. We can — and must — decide that this centuries-old experiment we call America is worth cherishing.”



This just about the most serious series of charges that Congressional leaders can throw at a president: “Massive coverup.” “Betrayal.” “Great danger.” “Totalitarian.” “Unpatriotic.” “Dictatorial.” “Disloyal.” In their view, nothing less than the fate of America is at stake.

On Friday, the House will adjourn for summer recess for six weeks.

If you really believe that Trump is an “unpatriotic,” “totalitarian,” “disloyal,” “dictatorial” “great danger” who is “betraying” the country with a “massive coverup”… why are you going back home for the rest of the summer? Where’s your sense of urgency? I can hear the argument that members need to go home and make the case for impeachment in their districts, but from the way the Democrats describe Trump, his menace is obvious. If the country really is in the grips of a dictatorial madman, why are you leaving Washington until September 9?