Chaffetz Comes Home

People gather in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, before Rep. Jason Chaffetz's town hall meeting, accusing him of refusing to probe Donald Trump's executive orders.

(Associated Press)

By SCOTT SALMON for the Staten Island Advance

"I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution," Barbara Jordan declared in her customary solemn, cerebral tone.

It was her responsibility to be Richard Nixon's "inquisitor," for there is none better "for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves."



It was July 25, 1974, and Jordan, a first-term member of the House of Representatives from Texas, sat on the House Judiciary Committee. The committee was considering levying articles of impeachment against Nixon, but only one president had ever been impeached before, Andrew Johnson; none had ever been removed from office. Yet, over the course of thirteen minutes, Jordan laid out the legal argument for impeachment, as well as her grave duty to uphold a tradition of checks and balances, even if it meant taking down the president.



Jordan stated that impeachment "designed for the president and his high ministers to somehow be called into account" in the face of swollen power and tyrannical excess. It is limited to high crimes and misdemeanors; as Woodrow Wilson stated, "nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice."

Jordan cited James Madison at the Constitutional Convention, where he stated that the president is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution. And so Jordan asserted that we must follow the evidence with "reason, and not passion," and which plainly showed that Nixon had engaged in such improper conduct as to warrant the answering of the question of whether he deserved to be impeached and removed from office.



In contrast, Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has abdicated the responsibility of inquisitor, even though he is tasked with leading the main investigative body in the House. Chaffetz has flatly refused to investigate Trump; he has not even shown a pretense of interest in investigating whether Trump has committed an impeachable offense.



Chaffetz is not alone. His conduct is emblematic of the sickness and cowardice gripping Congressional Republicans. Even John McCain, the famed "maverick," has voted in favor of all of Trump's cabinet nominees. This is the fundamental issue with a government led by one party; nobody is left to provide checks and balances, except the judiciary.



And that may not last long. Jordan referenced the "great anxiety" with which the nation waited, "not knowing whether their president would obey an order of the Supreme Court of the United States."

We wait with similar anxiety today as Trump's Executive Orders wind their way through the legal system. At the end of the day, will he adhere to their decisions, or will he summon his newfound hero, Andrew Jackson, who said, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"

We don't know, and that in and of itself should be concerning to every warm-blooded American.



However, we do know that Trump has refused to divest conflicts of interest from his sprawling business empire or simply release his tax returns, which even Nixon did.

We do know that Trump is personally profiting every time he stays at Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, which costs taxpayers $3,000,000 per visit.

We do know that there are allegations that Trump has violated of the Emoluments Clause.

We do know that there is high confidence among our intelligence agencies that Russia subverted our sovereign electoral process and may hold blackmail over Trump.

We do know that Trump has had highly confidential conversations in public and used an unsecured cell phone.

We do know Trump's National Security Advisor lied about conversations with the Russians, possibly in violation of the Logan Act, and that Trump knew about the lie a month before he was forced to fire the adviser.

We do know that Trump is trying to bully the judiciary while he attempts to ban an entire religion.

We do know that Trump fired the Acting Attorney General for her refusal to defend an unlawful Executive Order, again invoking Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre.



Any of these allegations would have rightfully provoked a dozen hearings had they been leveled against any Democratic president, and it is impossible to justify why Chaffetz has flatly refused to investigate any of them other than pure partisanship.



"The president is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution." Jordan charged that if impeachment did not cover Nixon's crimes, then the Constitution should be relegated to a paper shredder.

Has Trump committed an impeachable offense? We don't know, and like Nixon, the only way to find out is to investigate.

Last week, an overflow crowd of over a thousand people booed Chaffetz at a local town hall and chanted, "Do your job." Do your job is right, and every day that passes in which Chaffetz doesn't do his tarnishes Jordan's legacy and sullies our Constitution.

(The Salmon family has a long history on Staten Island. Scott was born on Staten Island and now resides in New Jersey with a law practice there. His grandfather, Egon, moved to Staten Island after he escaped the Holocaust. His father, Jon, uncle Henry and other family still have businesses here. While on Staten Island, Scott worked for Judge Philip Stranieri, Judge Eric Vitaliano, then-Congressman Mike McMahon, and then-District Attorney Dan Donovan.)