After an eighteen month absence from this blog, I expect you certainly might wonder, why this, why now?
It was all innocent enough. I finally got around to rummaging closely through my late father’s papers. Big old dusty accordion files of 1960’s-1970’s vintage, cloth bindings, legal size. Military records. His Harvard transcript (mostly Cs and Ds), his BU Law transcript (magna cum laude). Press clippings. Private correspondence between him and others. “Dear mom and dad” letters from summer camp, from my brothers and me. Amazing stuff.
Among some assorted documents from the 1990’s was a copy of an “Open letter to the Members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.”
The letter concerned the highly-contentious matter of whether or not the Congress should take up an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Bill Clinton following the discovery of Clinton’s perjurious testimony in his Paula Jones deposition. The letter itself is undated, but was intended to respond to an October 28, 1998 letter from 400 historians opposed to impeachment, which was followed by a concurring opinion of some 430 law professors. Since Clinton was impeached by the House in December of that year, it’s safe to say the letter was written in the month before the impeachment vote.
The author of the letter is unidentified, and I doubt Charles H. Morin had a significant hand in its drafting, or else it would have been much, much better. Nonetheless, I’m certain he had a hand in its circulation and solicitation for signatories, among them the conservative elite in national government, academia and legal practice. Names like William Bennett, Robert Bork, Mark Levin, Edwin Meese, William Bradford Reynolds, and dozens of law professors and historians.
And Charles H. Morin.
You see, for the past eight years or so, I have wondered how my dad, the rock-ribbed, hard-core conservative Republican, would have reacted to the election of Trump, his administration, the changes in the Party leadership, the wholesale adoption of Trumpism as the dominating principle of government, and Trump’s impeachments – both of them.
I did have a firm idea how he felt about Trump – he absolutely detested the man. It might have had something to do with dad’s 1970’s works as Chairman of Nixon’s Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling, which long preceded Trump’s entry into the casino business, but Trump had been sniffing around and trying to insinuate himself into the public hearings for publicity, and my father generally had a pitch-perfect bullshit meter and absolutely no patience for stupid people. During one of the many visits to Florida before he left us, I remember watching an early episode of The Apprentice with mom and dad (both total Boob Tube junkies). The same word kept coming out of their mouths: “fraud.”
So I’ve had some faith that, as I would have hoped, my most brilliant father would have been horrified when Trump used the Presidency to attempt to extort Ukraine’s foreign aid, and certainly when he fomented an insurrection. I’d faithfully put him in with Liz Cheney, Adam Kinziger, Bill Barr, Mark Milley, Michael Luttig, et al – the brilliant, principled conservatives who hadn’t already melted down their moral compasses. I’d heard him say enough contemptuous things about Falwell and “the Moral Majority” and the “Tea Party” movement (not that he disagreed with the policies, just with the idiots leading the charge). He thought these assholes (his word) were “ruining conservatism.” Nonetheless, he admired Dan Quayle and considered Nixon the smartest man he’d ever met, so who can ever know?
Now then, the letter, and the obvious questions that must be asked of all of the signatories to this letter: How do you feel about impeachment now, given our recent experiences with Trump’s two and the House’s current parodic pursuit of the “Biden Crime Family?”
Let’s look at the text:
This letter from twenty-five years ago provides a compelling illustration of how far the conservative standards for presidents have fallen.
“When the President defies the constitutional rules applicable to him, there must be no escape by narrow sophistries and linguistic maneuvering.” Do you hear that, Supreme Court?
“Impeachment is as much a part of the Constitution as the First Amendment. In fulfilling their constitutional duties, neither the courts nor the Congress should be deflected by public opinion polls.” Do you hear that, spineless, MAGA-fearing incumbents?
If a president can lie with impunity to the American people about his own disgraceful behavior and his multiple perjuries, who can henceforth expect any truth to issue from the Oval Office?” Oh, thud, I think the horse has left the barn.
I’m going to encourage someone of more media heft to reach out to the remaining living signatories to this letter, listed here: