The End of Scandal Norms

I haven't been paying super close attention to the story that Russia has some damning info on Trump that it's holding over his head. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. This sort of raw intelligence is always -- at best -- hit or miss. But even if it is true that they've got it, I'm skeptical that it matters.

Let's say that this info is out there. Maybe it's Trump watching Russian prostitutes piss on the bed the Obamas slept in. Or maybe it's something else. Doesn't matter. And let's say it leaks. Here's the sequence of events:

• Media reports on the news breathlessly, insists that Trump's administration can never survive a scandal of this magnitude.
• Democrats seize on the news, demand hearings, resignations, hearings, and more hearings.
• A few Republicans issue murmurs about "inappropriate behavior." More than a few denounce the leak as Russian interference (now it's a problem) and suddenly demand we focus on that.
• Somebody -- probably in the National Review -- writes a "clever" column on how leftists are hypocritical because they oppose revenge porn. Mary Anne Franks gets more citations from conservative columnists than she ever dreamed nightmared.
• Republican congressional leaders do nothing. Media starts asking "are they really going to do nothing?"
• Republican congressional leaders continue to do nothing. Eventually the storm dies down.
• Scene.

This has been the great, terrible discovery of Mitch McConnell and the 21st century GOP: nobody can force them to do anything.

I first noticed this with former Bush AG Alberto Gonzales, who nearly rode out a seemingly-infinite array of scandals. And when he finally did resign, it was impossible to figure out why. There was no legal obligation to do so. Normally, we chalk up that sort of behavior to "norms" -- but the norms had already been shredded. Gonzales already demonstrated that the sorts of "norms" which would "normally" compel a resignation could be ignored more or less indefinitely. For whatever reason, he just didn't ride the train to the end.

It was Mitch McConnell who decided to take that train all the way to the terminus. You can't make a filibuster-proof majority mandatory for every bill? Why not? You can't just refuse to even hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee for a year? Watch him! Other politicians caught on to the act. Remember Scott Desjarlais, the pro-life Republican from Tennessee who, as a doctor, had slept with several patients(!) and was caught on tape pressuring his mistress(!!) to have an abortion(!!!)? Everyone assumed he just had to resign. You know where he is now? Still in Congress.

Turns out, you don't have to do much of anything if you don't want to. There is an extraordinarily narrow range of levers through which one can be compelled to act in Washington: impeachments, being voted out of office, mandatory court orders ... it's not all that large, and it doesn't cover all that much. Much of what we take for granted our government will do is not legally compelled, but is based on politicians following established patterns of political culture. Among those patterns is that a major scandal will lead to an investigation and some measure of accountability. But nobody forces Congress to launch an investigation, and nobody forces administration officials to resign or even acknowledge scandals reported in the media.

If they ignore it long enough, the storm will eventually pass. And that is what will happen if Russia does have something on Trump and it does eventually leak. The media will convince itself that something has to happen. And then nothing will.

The AG with a Thousand Lives

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales mis-handled classified data (shades of Sandy Berger?), according to a just-released DoJ report. In classic Gonzales fashion, he reported that

he did not remember whether he took home notes regarding the government's most sensitive national security programs and did not know they contained classified information despite notations on the papers that they were "eyes only -- top secret," according to a report released this morning.

The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that Gonzales had improperly handled materials about the government's most sensitive national security programs, carrying the notes home in an unlocked briefcase for an "indeterminate" period of time. Gonzales failed to keep them in a safe at his Northern Virginia home because he "could not remember the combination," according to the report.

And, also in classic Gonzales fashion, the upshot of this ordeal will be....nada:

Improper handling of classified material can result in criminal charges, but prosecutors in the department's National Security Division declined to bring a case after reviewing the allegations and consulting with senior career officials at Justice, according to the report and lawyers involved in the case.

Is this guy made of teflon or what?

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/08/08

Daily roundup of civil rights and related news

A new study confirms that having gay members in the military doesn't damage unit cohesion, or have any negative effects whatsoever.

Elie Wiesel testifies in case of assailant. He feared he was being kidnapped -- the perpetrator has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

A Turkish Studies Institute has been roiled by charges that its Turkish funders seek to suppress inquiry into the Armenian genocide.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales raised eyebrows the other day with an editorial on what Latinos want this election cycle. Attorney Raul Reyes wrote a response today that bears notice.

I was prepared to laugh at this editorial complaining of "age discrimination" in retirement mega-communities, but the author actually raises some valid points.

Rosa Brooks has a message: the constitution "doesn't contain any footnotes that say, "Note to our descendants: This Constitution is intended for easy times only. At the first sign of trouble, feed this document to your dog."

Tolerance of minorities: it's not just more just, it'll also make you happier!

It's something crits have been urging for years, and social service workers in Orange County are finally getting: different communities require different tactics if you want your services to reach the people.

The LA Times says that between 271 and 433 illegal immigrants are enrolled at the University of California. I say, if you're good enough to make it into the UC system, you're welcome in my community -- legal or illegal.

A controversy is brewing in Texas about a Mexican comic book whose main character is eerily reminscent of the "sambo" image of Black people. The local Black community is outraged that these comics are being sold in Wal-Mart; while some leaders in the Mexican community have responded that the sambo image does not exist in Mexican culture. Even if that's true (and I'd be interested in asking the Black population in Mexican about it), I think one Mexican immigrant parent they interviewed had the right line: he read it as a kid in Mexico, but he wouldn't want his own kids reading it. Different things have different meanings in different places -- pluralism means adjusting our behaviors accordingly.

Also in Texas, a Catholic Church has had its statutes and religious icons knocked over several times. What was originally assumed to be vandalism is now being investigated as a hate crime after a message was left: "You have been warned: don't worship idols."

The military is reforming its response to sexual assault reports. Given some of its past behavior in this field, I'm glad to hear it.

Woman arrested at public McCain event for holding McCain = Bush sign. She was reportedly standing on city property when she was arrested for "trespassing."

Jeweler settles lawsuit for discriminating against a former employee who wears a headscarf.

A rural Maryland town is being sued after it blocked a Muslim organization from building a temple and retreat within its borders.

Advocates are fighting for illegal immigrant day-workers cheated out of their wages. Under federal law, they have the same right as any other worker to sue for unpaid back wages.

Alberto Gonzales Top Ten

TPM's got his 10 best moments. They're wonderful, if you're the type of twisted person who enjoys kicking a man while he's down. Which I'm not. Usually. But when it's Alberto Gonzalez, I say, get the popcorn!

Via Orin Kerr

Gonzo News

Okay, now that I've finished celebrating (for now, anyway) the departure of el terrible himself from the Attorney General's office, the next question to consider is: Why? Or rather, why now? Nobody can seem to figure it out. Dan Markel and the folks at Slate take stabs at it (with varying degrees of seriousness), but as the Washington Post's analysis noted, the facial appearance is that this is the absolute worst time Gonzalez could have left. He'd seemed to have extracted the maximum possible damage from the administration, and leaving now just insures that his sins remain in the public eye even longer. Unless it was that Gonzalez finally remembered he had a duty to the country to leave before he did anymore to destroy the DoJ's integrity (snicker), it's really rather inexplicable.

Unless....Both Henry Farrell and Kevin Drum (well, his wife) noticed something odd about Gonzalez's departure. Specifically, that it came during a vacation break for The Daily Show.

Could it really be....nah.

Update: I should add that by calling Gonzalez "el terrible", I mean absolutely no disrespect to Erik Morales, a fine man whose own recent retirement should be celebrated because of his great performances across his boxing career (Gonzalez could be rather pugilistic himself at times--but his "great performances" were rather few and usually unintentional).

Sunshine on my Window

Is it just me, or is today a particularly shining, sunny day? Bright blue skies, fluffy clouds, the birds are chirping. Somehow, life just seems more beautiful today.

Hmmm. It's probably just me.

Deadly C-X

Remarking on the proposed Senate vote of "no confidence" in Alberto Gonzalez, Senate "minority whip" Trent Lott (R-MS) made the following statement on the floor:

"This is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament," protested Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.), the chamber's No. 2 Republican. "Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?

Putting aside the fact that this whole "we're not a parliament" argument is dumb, is there something bad about instituting an equivalent of "Prime Minister's questions"? It will never happen, of course, but it does not strike me as a bad thing to force the President to leave Pennsylvania Avenue every once and awhile and publicly articulate and defend his agenda in front of lawmakers.

This is a fairy tale idea that will never come to be, but nonetheless I'm confused as to why Senator Lott decided to use it as a paradigmatic example of the ridiculous outcomes we might see if Congress became more "parliamentary." If voting no-confidence in Gonzalez would also mean a trend towards greater public engagement with the executive, hey, that's a hell of bonus feature.

Today's Watergate

Former Reagan and Bush-the-elder attorney Douglas Kmiec tries to take down the breath-taking testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey. For those of you who don't know, while then-AG John Ashcroft was lying sick in a hospital recovering from surgery, Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card tried to get him to sign off on Bush's domestic survaillence program. Horrified at this attempt to take advantage of a man so sick he had signed over his powers to Comey, he rushed to the hospital, beating Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft, and tried to get him alert enough to know what was going on. He even felt compelled to get a personal order from the head of the FBI demanding that he was not to be evicted from the room by Gonzales or Card under any circumstances. At the end of day, Ashcroft, displaying "a strength that I had never seen before," explained point-by-point his objections to the program, and refused his assent. President Bush then authorized the program anyway.

So, Kmiec's got his work cut out. He spends a lot of time arguing as to whether Bush had the authority to ignore the advice of his own Justice Department. Maybe he does, but the point here is less about the interplay of executive agency authority than it is as to whether a) Bush's ultimate determination was lawful and b) whether or not it is remotely ethical to try and take advantage of a virtually incapacitated man in order to seize a massive amount of new executive power. And so, here Kmiec has a simple argument: It's not Watergate.

Now, I'm not sure who has made the Watergate comparison thus far. Indeed, while Kmiec calls Comey's testimny "histrionic," the clip seems to show otherwise. And furthermore, as Orin Kerr notes, there is significant space between "not Watergate" and "not newsworthy," in which this case very well might fall. Nixon seems to have spoiled us--there are Presidential scandals that fall short of breaking and entering, and this seems to be an obvious case.

But you know what? As Steve Benen puts it, if you want to talk Watergate, let's talk Watergate:

Attorney General Richardson and DAG Ruckelshaus did not resign in October 1973 because they concluded there had been a "burglary for purposes of political dirty tricks," in Kmiec's words. The burglary was an old story. They resigned because the President insisted that they fire prosecutor Archibald Cox when Cox subpoened Nixon's tapes. In other words, Nixon was trying to subvert the established procedures of the Justice Department. As were Bush and Gonzales.

Cox, I'd imagine we would hear now, served "at the pleasure of the President" as well.

Let's be clear--there is very strong evidence that the program President Bush had been and wished to continue to operate was illegal, and that's a crime. We shouldn't minimize that. But as Watergate (among others) reminded us, sometimes it isn't the crime, it's the cover-up. And for all the trouble I have with the idea of warrant-less domestic survaillence, the behavior of this administration in trying to get legal approval--though not a "cover-up"--betrays a disrespect for established procedures and basic integrity that threatens the entire character of the US government. That, amazingly, might be the worse sin here.