The Constitution’s concept of bribery not only encompasses Trump’s conduct — it practically defines it
Okay, folks, this is becoming a thing.
It is clear that Ds are moving from the language of “quid pro quo” to the language of extortion/bribery in l’affaire Ukraine. 1/20
This is an excellent move, because, while Americans can disagree about policy and even whether Trump is fit to be president, most Americans overwhelmingly object to corruption in government, 2/20
so the corruption charge, which is implicit in the extortion/bribery charge, has got to have Rs particularly worried.
And it clearly does. 3/20
The R pushback has already begun, with @AndrewCMcCarthy leading off on Fox News 12 hours ago with the argument that in framing Trump’s misdeeds as extortion/bribery, Ds have reached a “new low.” 4/20
According to McCarthy, “The fact of the matter is, extortion is a domestic criminal law concept where everybody is involved with under [sic] the same rule of law…under the same legal authorities.” 5/20
Let’s us ignore for the moment the fatuity of another of McCarthy’s claims in the interview, which is that quid pro quos are involved in foreign relations all the time.
True, but that is not what is at issue in this case. 6/20
What is at issue in the impeachment inquiry is the abuse of the massive power of the presidency to get a *personal* benefit (which happened to be a political one) that actually ran *counter* to well-established U.S. foreign policy and *undermined* U.S. national security. 7/20
(It is unfortunate that one has to take time out of one’s life to explain this to McCarthy, but there it is.) 8/20
McCarthy is also mistaken about extortion being a “domestic criminal law concept” that has “no application to foreign relations.” 9/20
As @tribelaw has explained, extortion is just the flip side in the law to bribery, and bribery is identified in the Constitution itself as an impeachable offense. 10/20
So it might behoove us to determine what the Framers meant by the term, right?
After all, Rs are originalists who believe that the Constitution should be read according to the meanings that the Framers had in mind when they wrote the thing. 11/20
(I do not know that McCarthy is an originalist, but I assume he is, and in any case it is virtually certain that almost all the Rs in the House and Senate are.) 12/20
Fortunately, the question of what the Framers meant by the term “bribery” in Section 4 of Article Two of the US Constitution has been investigated and answered by three legal experts in Lawfare. 13/20
Here in a nutshell is what they found (but by all means Read The Whole Thing): 14/20
Schiff makes the same point — that the Constitutional concept of bribery is much broader than its current definition in U.S. criminal law — in this audio interview by NPR (beginning at 2:30). 15/20
It is also particularly absurd for McCarthy to argue that the Constitution’s understanding of bribery is limited to domestic affairs, because *all* Constitutional scholars understand that the Framers’ *principal* worry 16/20
about possible abuses of presidential power concerned corruption and betrayal of the national interest for personal gain with respect to *foreign* powers. 17/20
So the fact that Trump asked for a political favor from a foreign government doesn’t render Section 4 of Article Two inapplicable to the offense.
If anything, it actually synergizes and heightens the offense, 18/20
and Ds shouldn’t have any trouble making that historical point either in the public hearings that start tomorrow. 19/20
McCarthy should really stop embarrassing himself. It seems he has become so partisan he can no longer get *anything* right.
He should throw in the towel now. He has clearly lost it — if in fact he ever “had” it. 20/20
