Donald Trump, GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican lawmakers are taking a page out of Hitler’s assault on the German Weimar Republic by undercutting Congress’s ability to serve as a check and balance on the president.
One of Congress’s duties is to conduct oversight of the administrative branch.
That includes the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation.
Impeachment Gives Trump What He Wants: Smearing Joe Biden
Congress’s oversight authority derives from its “implied” powers in the Constitution, public laws and House and Senate rules. Chief among them is its power to subpoena administration officials to appear before investigative committees.
In effect, it is a co-equal branch of government, along with the administrative branch and the judiciary.
But Trump and the Senate under McConnell’s leadership have undercut Congress’s authority to conduct government oversight, creating a real Constitutional crisis that could have far reaching consequences, beyond Trump, or his presidency.
Trump Stonewalling Crumbles Following Legal Setbacks
The House has responded accordingly by making obstruction of Congress an article of impeachment.
The charge arises because Trump has stonewalled the investigation. He’s ordered key administration officials both in and out of government not to testify in defiance of congressional subpoenas.
He cites a broad claim of “executive privilege” that exceeds any ever made by any president before him.
This story first appeared on the politics & government site Money & Power. To read the rest of this story, click here.