Mr. Madison thought it indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community agst. the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate. The imitation of the period of his service, was not a sufficient security. He might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers.

—James Madison, Notes on the Federal Convention, Saturday, June 2, 1787.

From the Washington Post:

President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials. Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They explained that the president had “concerns” and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent. Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an “interagency process” but to give them no additional information — a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.

This has to be the beginning of the end. The House Democrats, slower than molasses up until this point, suddenly have been transformed into quick drying cement around the president*'s ankles. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut now has come close to calling for an impeachment inquiry; she is a close friend and closer ally to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, so that's a signifying development, as is the op-ed signed by seven rookie Democratic congresscritters from toss-up congressional districts, all of whom, significantly, have experience in the national security apparatus, in which they call for investigations to intensify. The Ukraine business has shifted something in the political tectonics. The slippage has begun in earnest, on one side of the aisle, anyway.

On the other side, there are clues within the Post stories that folks are feeling the ground shift under their feet as well. Consider:

Besides Bolton, several other administration officials said they did not know why the aid was being canceled or why a meeting was not being scheduled. The decision was communicated to State and Defense officials on July 18, officials familiar with the meeting said. By mid-August, lawmakers were acutely aware that the OMB had assumed all decision-making authority from the Defense and State departments and was delaying the distribution of the aid through a series of short-term notices. Several congressional officials questioned whether the OMB had the legal authority to direct federal agencies not to spend money that Congress had already authorized, aides said.

Between the lines there, you can hear the pitter-patter of little feet as they begin to jog toward the lifeboats. "Don't quote me, but we all knew something was screwy here and, by the way, I was against the whole business from the start." Some people are hearing the klaxon of the political termination alarm ringing in the near distance. There's more of this in The New York Times' account of events.

American government officials were left in the dark as well. When staff members at the State Department and Defense Department who work on issues related to Ukraine learned of the holds in July, they were puzzled and alarmed, according to current and former government officials familiar with the situation.

Yes, phony-baloney jobs are at risk here, and it's every apparatchik for themselves.

"...the President's noncompliance with the committee's subpoenas is a usurpation of the power of the House of Representatives and a serious breach of his duty to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' In refusing to comply with limited, narrowly drawn subpoenas, which seek only materials necessary to conduct a full and complete inquiry into the existence of possible impeachable offenses, the President has undermined the ability of the House to act as the 'Grand Inquest of the Nation.' His actions threaten the integrity of the impeachment process itself; they would render nugatory the power and duty of the legislature, as the representative of the people, to act as the ultimate check on Presidential conduct.”

—John Doar, Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, Statement Of The Evidence, July 19, 1974.



Former Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox speaks with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington DC on October 21, 1973, the morning after President Richard Nixon fired him during what is knowns as the Saturday Night Massacre. David Hume Kennerly Getty Images

The Democratic caucus was scheduled to meet late Tuesday afternoon to discuss the way forward, which suddenly seems a lot clearer than it did three days ago. Years ago, while recounting the cascading events of the summer of 1974 that led to the excision of Richard Nixon from the body politic, political historian Walter Karp wrote of the impeachment vote in the House Judiciary Committee that "the hour of the Founders had come around at last." Karp was unsparing in his criticism of how dilatory the system had proven itself to be in the face of Nixon's crimes. He criticized the Republicans for enabling a criminal administration, and he criticized the Democrats for having had to be dragged into their constitutional duty by their ears. Karp wrote:

It was the reluctance of Congress to act. I felt anew my fury when members of Congress pretended that nobody really cared about Watergate except the “media” and the “Nixon-haters.” The real folks “back home,” they said, cared only about inflation and the gasoline shortage. I remembered the exasperating actions of leading Democrats, such as a certain Senate leader who went around telling the country that President Nixon could not be impeached because in America a person was presumed innocent until proven guilty. Surely the senator knew that impeachment was not a verdict of guilt but a formal accusation made in the House leading to trial in the Senate. Why was he muddying the waters, I wondered, if not to protect the President? It had taken one of the most outrageous episodes in the history of the Presidency to compel Congress to make even a pretense of action.

Karp was talking about the Saturday Night Massacre, when Nixon decapitated the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and his attorney general and deputy attorney general quit rather than swing the ax. We are there again. Despite Republican enabling and Democratic timidity, the hour of the Founders has come around again. There is no place left for anyone to hide, no clever dodge left to employ, nothing left to kick down the road. History accepts no alibis.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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