Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

The New York Times Vows to Hound President Trump to No End

February 5, 2020 --

The New York Times signaled in its February 3 editorial that it will continue its  war against his presidency, ad infinitum.  The editorial, titled, "A Dishonorable Senate,"     began be declaring that the Senate vote against witnesses in the impeachment trial   "was tantamount to an acquittal of the impeachment charges against President Trump."  The editorial then proclaimed, "The move can only embolden the president to cheat in the 2020 elections."   The Times, in the next paragraph asserted that "[f]aced with credible evidence that a president was abusing his powers, [the Senate]  would not muster the institutional self-respect to even investigate."

The New York Times here does not recognize that as the House has "sole Power of Impeachment, Article II, Section 2, "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments."  LPR believes that this means that the Senate has no right to try to influence the House in  bringing accusations against presidents or other officials, and the House has no constitutional role to play in the Senate trial, other than the role given the House managers to prosecute the impeachment.   And so, in the current matter, the House chose to ignore witnesses that Republican members wanted to hear from -- and the Senate could similarly choose to  limit at trial  the evidence developed by the House majority,, without agreeing to hear from witnesses who did not testify at the House impeachment inquiry

Further down in the editorial, the Times alleges: "Mr. Trump has accepted foreign assistance to win one election, has actively sought it out for another and has given no indication that he plans to stop doing so."   This is a most remarkable falsehood as to the past, the present and the future.

The editorial concludes by asserting that Senate acquittal of the president will not exonerate him,  that "Mr. Trump is the most corrupt president in modern times," and the paper envisions "continuing investigations by the House, which should immediately issue a subpoena to [John] Bolton...."

In short we have not seen the beginning of the end of the war against the president; just, at best, the end of the beginning,  to borrow from Churchill.   If the president is re-elected, with a re-elected House Democratic majority, Mr. Trump could well become the only president impeached two (or more) times, simply because Democrats refused to acknowledge him as a legitimate president.  After all, Speaker Nancy Pelosi call the president as "impostor," on "Face the Nation,"  November 17, 2o19, and moderator Margaret Brennan let the slur pass, without comment as to its propriety.

The Times February 3 declaration of continuing war against President Trump indicates that the nation remains cleaved in twain: deep blue against red.  The deep blue continues to put the worst face possible on remarks and actions from Mr. Trump. Consider the paper's December 14 editorial demanding the impeachment of President Trump. It characterizes the July 25, 2019 phone call between the president and Ukraine President Zelensky in these words:  "President Donald Trump abused the  power of his office by strong-arming Ukraine, a vulnerable ally, holding up hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid until it agreed to help him influence
the 2020 election by digging up dirt on a political rival." The transcript of the July 25 conversation  does not support this false and malicious attack on the president from The New York Times, which seems to be working in tandem with the anti-Trump forces in Washington and elsewhere in the nation,  LPR would add that Republican senators who agree that the president made "inappropriate remarks" clearly have not paid attention to the transcript in toto.

For example, President Trump did bad-mouth Ambassador Yovanovitch.  Not reported, not noted, however,  by Senate Republicans, much less the anti-Trump media, is that fact that President Zelensky agreed with Mr. Trump's criticism of the ambassador.     Mr. Zelensky indicated that he agreed "100%" with Mr. Trump's comments about the ambassador.  LPR does not recall hearing anyone quote this Zelensky reference to Ambassador Yovanovitch in that July 25 phone conversation:  "Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough"

LPR has found not evidence of pressure, coercion, or strong-arming by the president against the Ukraine leader.  President Trump simply asked for a favor: a Ukraine investigation whether the previous government was involved in Russia-gate, and whether the actual pressure that former Vice President Biden placed on Ukraine, as U.S.pro-consul for Ukraine, to dismiss the prosecutor probing Burisma, the energy company that included Hunter Biden as a very well-paid director  represented wrongful conduct.   

Where is the Republican senator to  inquire, if the former vice president did not act improperly in Ukraine, why should his presidential candidacy suffer from any investigation?  There was an editorial on the Democratic presidential candidates  in The New York Times, January 20.  That editorial rejected  Mr. Biden in favor of Senators Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren, declaring, in part that at age 77, Mr. Biden was too old to be president.  Should readers of the TImes cancel subscription because the paper harmed a political rival of Senators Klobuchar and Warren?

The concluding part of the July 25 phone conversation offers further evidence that President Zelensky was not coerced by President Trump.  Their conversation ends with a bantering remark from Mr. Zelensky who said that it "might be a very good idea,"  after their trip to Poland early September,  for the two leaders to travel together to Ukraine.  Mr. .Zelensky then said, "We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine."   

LPR cannot believe that the head of state would speak in such light-hearted terms if he felt great pressure from a much more powerful leader.

Only persons wishing ill of President Trump will find anything objectionable in their July 25 phone conversation.   The February 3 New York Times editorial is tantamount to a declaration from the paper's owners, editors and staff that The New York Times will continue to demonize every thought, word and deed of our 45th president so long as he remains president.  The best defense to the anti-Trump aggression from the left (and their Never Trump allies on the right) is to regain a Republican majority in the House, increase the Republican majority in the Senate (and encourage GOP senators to strengthen their backbones.)   LPR  would  note that even a Republican Congress is not  guarantee of false and malicious slurs against President Trump. After all the president has a Republican House and Senate the first two years of his presidency, and that didn't prevent the bureaucracy of hounding him with unwarranted investigations.  

There is, also, the forthcoming Durham Report on the attempted coup by Messrs. Brennan, Clapper and Comey to consider.   God-willing it will clarify the nature of the establishment's war on constitutional government -- that is,  the refusal of  the establishment to accept the decision of the people to elect a president  pursuant to the procedures the Founding Father bequeathed to us.   How hypocritical it has been of the House managers to cite the words of the Framers, as if they took those words seriously. The House managers who accuse our best president since Ronald Reagan of being "dangerous," "a dictator," "a threat to democracy," project onto the  president their  intention of, borrowing from the words of Chief Justice in Gibbons v. Ogden, leaving the Constitution "a magnificent structure indeed to look at, but totally unfit for [any] use [except their own aggrandizement].