It’s come to this! The President’s former campaign
manager testifies before Congress. The questions are simple. The lawyer asked
Corey Lewandowski if the testimony he had given to a Special Prosecutor was
true or if the statement he made on CNN was true since they differed.
“I have no obligation to be honest to the media,”
was the reply. In other words, he lied, and that was no big deal because he was
under no obligation …! This man is considering his own run for the Senate in 2020.
I am a bit old-fashion about this stuff. It may
have to do with the way I was fashioned. My folks wouldn’t put up with lying,
and the nuns at school certainly wouldn’t. I took an oath almost every week at
scout meetings, for several years, to be trustworthy and I try to live up to
that promise.
Mr. Lewandowski appeared before the House
Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his relationship with the
President, and some actions he might have taken on behalf of the President. The
White House advised him not to tell the committee anything. The Committee knew
this and didn’t expect very many complete answers to their questions.
Lying to a committee of Congress is a crime. For
most of the day, Mr. Lewandowski read a statement, prepared by the White House
Counselor’s office. The stalemate between the Legislative branch and the executive branch of government continued pour
tout le monde a voir.[i] A constitutional
crisis unfolds before us each day and no one seems to care.
This isn’t about left or right, conservative or
liberal, democrat or republican, or even about politics, but about the ethical
degradation of our nation’s governance. Benjamin Franklin said, “You have a
republic if you can keep it.” Ours is a unique form of government: three equal
branches working with each other and checking on each other. It works best when
each trusts the other to do the honorable thing. When that trust is broken, the government grinds to a standstill.
The House brought three articles of impeachment
against Richard Nixon in 1974: 1) obstruction of justice, 2) abuse of power and 3) contempt of Congress. The obstruction and abuse of power were so
anathema to Americans at that time that Nixon quickly resigned from office.
Contempt of Congress, something devoutly to be avoided, occurs when one ignores
a call to testify or defies a subpoena to testify. Obstruction of justice
occurs when one lies to Congress or to Justice Department investigators. Mr.
Lewandowski was instructed to do both, and stone walled the hearing. The White
House directed two others to be MIA at the hearing. I’m no lawyer, but …
Branch intramural contests aren’t really the
issue. Faith and trust in our government is worthy of our focus. Our nation is
divided right down the political middle. Folks on either side of the red or
blue line don’t trust those on the other side, won’t have dinner with “them,”
won’t date “them,” and don’t want to be around “them.” At all levels of polity,
we have state-of-the-art models of non-cooperation in all things government.
That’s no way to run a government.
In just the last few weeks, we have heard and
read about Air Force crews bedding down at expensive digs in Scotland, our Vice
President camping out at a luxury hotel 300 miles from his meetings in Dublin,
and the Secretary of Transportation taking her father with her to a meeting to
discuss shipping policies that would favor his business. The President, of
course, owns the fancy hotels. Our constitution is very specific in its disdain
for a President making a profit on his or her business because of his/her office.
Yet, foreign dignitaries are encouraged to stay at his hotel in the District of
Columbia and other cities around the world, with total disregard for tradition,
for law, for policy, or for our Founder’s intent.
Shakespeare laid it out for us, but we don’t
have to go back as far as Hamlet or Richard II to see the rot of self-preservation
and exercise of personal power from within. We see the corruption in our time,
and recent years: a Vice President forced from office because of corruption, a
President chased from office for defying Congress; governors spending time in
jail for taking bribes, and other major offenses. Today’s corruption in the
highest levels of government is at a level not seen since Tea Pot Dome days; it
is blatant. Rather than being shocked and awed by the audacity of it, we treat
it as if it was only the scandal-of-the-day. Not to worry it will get worse.
Mr. Lewandowski does have an obligation to be honest
with the media and the American people. It’s a moral obligation, if not a legal
one. Those called to testify before Congress have an obligation to appear and
be honest. The White House has an obligation to encourage those under subpoena
to show up and be honest.
I do not smell of self-righteousness to ask all
of us to try to be honest in our dealings. The stench is with those who don’t
feel an obligation to be trustworthy, who consider it OK to lie to the press,
to Congress, or to suppress any investigation into those who may have lied to
the Congress. Frankly, it stinks to the high heavens.
America is not easy and democracy is not easy. It
is even harder when you have a republic. Historians consider it a bit of a
cliché to equate our current state of affairs to those of a declining Western
Roman Empire. Invasion by the Huns, the spread of a new state religion, and the
vastness of the territory all contributed to its fall. Most agree, however, that
the rule of strong- willed despots, an economy controlled by oligarchs, and
less than competent leaders contributed to its decline. Corruption abounded
across the empire in plain view. The Senate, its legislative branch, did little
to correct a worsening situation. People stopped listening, stopped being proud
of their inheritance and lost trust in their leadership. Romans, proudly
proclaiming “Civis romanus sum”[ii] became a boast from the past.
We have a republic. Can we keep it?
[ii] I am a Roman Citizen, for those of
you who forgot your Latin I. The story is often told that a Roman citizen could
walk anywhere in the empire without fear, because an attack on one Roman was an
attack on all Romans. They were proud to be Roman and felt safe because they
were romanus.
