The Mueller report is in -- now House Dems need to get busy and impeach Donald Trump

Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?, Raw Story’s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried – or were at least under-appreciated – due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and other sundry embarrassments coming out of the current White House

Robert Mueller finally transmitted his long-awaited report to Attorney General Bill Barr, and across the country, Trumpers are celebrating the fact that the Special Counsel only obtained 37 indictments along the way, and that any future prosecutions will be filed by investigators not named Robert Mueller. They’ve set the bar pretty low.

And they’re not alone…

Here in the real world, we obviously have no idea what Mueller’s report contains. It could in fact exonerate the “president” in Russia’s campaign to get him elected—although we know that Individual-1 is still an unindicted co-conspirator in various federal crimes charged by other prosecutors. It could also contain politically devastating revelations that don’t rise to the level of criminality, or detail crimes that Mueller declined to charge for a variety of reasons. In any event, law enforcement is still investigating the Trump Crime Family and Mueller's report won't change that.

But while we don’t know much about what Mueller’s team found, it is a significant moment in that for months, prominent Democrats have staved off questions about impeaching Mango Mugabe by insisting that they had to wait for Mueller’s probe to be completed.

There are various arguments for and against impeachment, but it should come down to whether one believes that Donald Trump and his minions have violated the law. And again, we know that Trump personally conspired with Michael Cohen to break campaign finance laws, and that conspiracy to violate the law is a serious crime even if the underlying offense is not. Let’s not move the goalposts so far that any crime other than directly plotting with the Russian government to sway the election is a nothingburger.

The worst argument against impeachment is probably the most common one -- that even if the House impeached Marshal Tweeto, there’s approximately zero chance that 67 members of the Trumpublican-controlled Senate would vote to remove him from office.

Nut there are three problems with that. First, the Founders gave Congress a Constitutional mechanism to remove a president who breaks the law. If we won't use it for a regime that routinely and in many cases openly flouts the law, then we’re effectively conceding that the President is effectively above the law and future presidents can do whatever they want as long as their party continues to support them. And that's a really bad precedent to set.

Second, the process of impeachment would itself shine a bright light on the regime’s perfidy. The hearings would be must-watch TV. Dozens of witnesses would be called to testify, and regime officials would be subpoenaed if necessary. It's a safe bet that the regime is going to do whatever it can to block the release of Mueller's findings, but they can be drawn out in impeachment hearings.

Insisting that the Senate would never convict is a self-fulfilling prophecy. According to Pew, the Watergate hearings led to a massive shift in the public’s opinion of Richard Nixon. When the House Judiciary Committee began the process, his approval rating was about five points higher than Trump’s today and fewer than one-in-five Americans approved of the effort to remove him. During the process, those numbers flipped and by the time he resigned in disgrace, 57 percent of the public believed he should have been removed from office. The Senate never got a chance to vote, but his own party’s Senators made it clear how that vote would play out.

Finally, the White House is currently defying document requests from several House committees in an effort to prevent Congress from fulfilling its Constitutional mandate to oversee the executive branch. If that doesn’t change, it should be seen as an open invitation for impeachment.

At the end of the day, if you genuinely believe that Donald Trump and his inner circle haven’t committed any crimes, then you should absolutely oppose impeachment. It would be an act of partisan spite, as Trump constantly claims. If, on the other hand, you accept that it's already been established that Trump has violated the law, repeatedly, then you should be calling for the House to impeach and let the chips fall where they may.

And with that, let’s see What (other) Fresh Hell this week brought us.

*****

Speaking of impeachable offenses, Reveal News reported this week that “the federal government is relying on secret shelters to hold unaccompanied minors, in possible violation of the long-standing rules for the care of immigrant children.”

Minors being held at the clandestine facilities initially were placed at known shelters around the country but later were transferred to these off-the-books facilities that specialize in providing for youth with mental health and behavioral challenges.

"Mental health and behavioral challenges" that might have stemmed from being separated from their parents and locked up? We're not psychologists, but it seems plausible.

Black site baby-jails – welcome to our dystopian present.

*****

Related…

And The Daily Beast reported this week that “for nearly nine months, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held a 72-year-old grandfather with Alzheimer’s disease in a Texas immigrant detention center…Although his family has petitioned to have de la Cruz released into their care while his removal is adjudicated, ICE has refused.”

*****

Meanwhile, Scott Lloyd, the guy who had been in charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement--which places children snatched from their parents detained by Customs and Border Protection--appears to have “mislead’ Congress about his rather odd obsession with female minors in his custody.

More details on that story are here, via ABC news.

*****

And speaking of Christian fundies infiltrating the federal government...

*****

Snowflakes, safe spaces, etc…

*****

File this one under either #MAGA, or Nothing Matters Anymore…

*****

Somewhat relatedly, “the U.S. Department of Defense is proposing to pay for President Donald Trump’s much-debated border wall by shifting funds away from projects that include $1.2 billion for schools, childcare centers and other facilities for military children,” according to Reuters.

*****

“President Donald Trump’s tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials,” according to McClatchy. “No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump’s decision, and the diplomats responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark. Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump’s message.”

Also, WTAF?

*****

Three political scientists wrote in The Washington Post this week about their study which found that counties that hosted one of Trump’s Nuremberg campaign rallies “saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes.” In a bit of understatement, they added: “There is suggestive evidence that Trump’s rhetoric matters.”

Other studies have found similar results using different methodologies.

*****

Surviving a natural disaster is traumatic enough.

According to a recent report by the DHS Inspector General, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “shared and subsequently exposed the personal data of 2.3 million survivors of a number of natural disasters that included the 2017 California wildfires as well as hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria,” putting them “at risk of fraud and identity theft.”

Via Gizmodo.

*****

We'll leave you with some good news this week, as is our wont.

This happened…

And NBC News reported that the Trump Supreme Court “declined to hear a challenge to a lower court ruling that found that the owner of a Hawaii bed and breakfast violated a state anti-discrimination law by turning away a lesbian couple, citing Christian beliefs.”