The Washington Post did an opinion piece on the man likely to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy of California.
The Post lambasted McCarthy for his inability to say that Trump was wrong to lie to the American people about the Trump Tower meeting.
There was a line that tickled me.
McCarthy seems to be more of a memory-foam Republican — taking the exact shape of presidential pressure.
The column also says, “When the king is a liar, truth becomes treason.”
There is a simple, yet powerful, explanation how under Republican reasoning, Trump truly is above the law and can shoot some guy on Fifth Avenue and nothing will happen.
Give it a read if you can. But if TL;DR —
According to Trump and his lawyers, the president’s role as chief law enforcement officer gives him “absolute” power to fire investigators, terminate investigations and pardon himself at any time, for any reason. This means obstruction of justice by the president is a practical impossibility, because his actions are the definition of justice.
Since, in this view, any violation of federal law by the president (including, according to his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, the shooting of former FBI director James B. Comey) could be immediately self-pardoned — and any resulting investigation ended on his order — the only relevant legal check during his time in office is impeachment. And because the Constitution makes impeachment so difficult — requiring a two-thirds supermajority vote in the Senate for conviction and removal — any president who retains the loyalty of his party has essentially no practical limits on his power in criminal matters.
Including imprisoning children in the Rio Grande Valley. Here is the story from the McAllen Monitor. Can we call in the Red Cross?