Elizabeth Drew for PS Say More

[View this message in a web browser]( Welcome to Say More, a weekly newsletter that gives PS readers a new level of access to our most influential contributors. In each issue, a selected contributor will expand on topics they've covered in their commentaries, delve into new ones, and share their top recommendations of the moment. For anyone seeking a closer look at the ideas and interests of the world's leading thinkers, PS Say More is required reading. This week, [Project Syndicate]( catches up with [Elizabeth Drew]( a Washington-based journalist and the author of [Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall](. Last week, in [the first edition of Say More]( Joseph Nye – a professor at Harvard and the author of the forthcoming book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump – shared his thoughts on everything from the US-China trade war to Tolstoy's War and Peace. Elizabeth Drew says Project Synd In a recent PS [commentary]( you take issue with Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s decision not to move ahead with impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. As you put it, “impeachment isn’t about politics, but about constitutional principles.” House Democrats, particularly progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are increasingly [echoing]( that sentiment. Viewed cynically, is there a point at which upholding constitutional principles becomes good politics for the Democrats? Elizabeth Drew: Whether or not Trump is subject to impeachment shouldn’t be based on whether it’s good politics: the Founding Fathers put impeachment in the Constitution as a mechanism for holding a president accountable between elections. The questions should thus be: Are there sufficient grounds for beginning that process, and what is Congress’s constitutional duty? Impeachment wasn’t a popular subject when it was taken up against Richard Nixon: at the beginning, it wasn’t supported by anything near a majority. It was far less popular than moving against Trump is at this point. But, to the extent it matters, impeachment could become good politics – or better – if there are more shocking disclosures about the president. The main problem with the public discussion of impeachment is that it’s based on the issue of whether the president committed crimes, and while crimes can be impeachable offenses, not all impeachable offenses are crimes. The most important non-criminal set of issues has to do with presidential abuse of power. The second [Article of Impeachment]( adopted by the House Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon in 1974 concerned abuses of power, including Nixon’s use of the Internal Revenue Service to harass political and non-political “enemies” (including journalists and university presidents) and his wiretapping of certain some of them. Article II also held, significantly, that a president can be held accountable for a pattern of actions by aides. Winking and nodding wouldn’t get the chief executive off the hook. Yet almost no effort has been made to educate the public on this aspect of impeachment. There are various reasons to fear that, if an impeachment process were launched against Trump, it wouldn’t be handled as skillfully as the one against Nixon. US politics are more divisive today, and we have a different Republican party: in the 1970s, there were far more moderates, and the Republicans took Nixon’s misdeeds seriously. PS: The Trump administration, with the [help]( of Attorney General William Barr, [badly]( [mischaracterized]( Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, claiming that it exonerates the president. With most Americans unlikely to read the 448-page report, is there anything that can be done to make its conclusions better understood by the public? ED: It wasn’t just Barr who mischaracterized the report. The president himself has, as usual, had the loudest megaphone, which he has used to declare, inaccurately, that Mueller found, “no collusion; no obstruction.” He says it all the time. In truth, though the Mueller report didn’t end in charging the president with crimes, it also didn’t deal with abuses of power. The report also said that while Mueller wasn’t moving to charge Trump with crimes, he wasn’t totally exonerating the president. And Mueller said at a press conference that if he believed that Trump hadn’t committed any crimes, the report would have said so. Trump’s Democratic opponents have been seeking ways to push back against the mischaracterizations, since much of the public isn’t going to read a long, dry report. Some well-known celebrities are putting on shows in which they read sections of it, and will be published as a comic book. Congressional hearings will also aim to help people understand the report’s findings. Even Mueller himself has now agreed to provide congressional testimony. I doubt that he will say anything new when he appears on July 17, but the Democrats think that it will be quite helpful, even if he simply reads some sections from his report. After all, his previous limited press conference had a major impact. Some Trump backers said that they previously had no idea the report had been at all critical of the president. The hearings will be broadcast live, and will draw a large audience. This is why Trump, having a keen understanding of the effects of television, has used his power to keep those few current or former aides that he permits to appear before congressional committees from testifying in public or saying much of interest, if anything at all. The White House’s refusal to permit aides to appear before congressional committees (publicly or otherwise) is without precedent, and could itself be an impeachable offense. The committees are left to fight this out in the courts. So far, they’ve won most of their challenges. PS: For many, the Mueller report felt like a letdown, because it didn’t recommend obstruction of justice charges against Trump (owing to a Nixon-era Justice Department rule barring indictment of a sitting president). But the Mueller report has spawned a raft of new investigations, including an investigation of the investigation! Could any of this yet endanger Trump, politically if not legally? ED: People expected that the Mueller report would come down harder on the president than it did, so when it was released, there was a widespread feeling of disappointment. One limitation was that Mueller abided by a disputed Justice Department rule – not a law – that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Another was that Mueller’s writ was restricted to very few specific questions. Did Russia interfere in the 2016 election? Did the Trump campaign cooperate in that interference (usually referred to as “collusion”)? And did Trump obstruct justice by trying to stop the investigation? (He did not succeed in killing off the investigation, mainly because aides refused to carry out his orders to fire Mueller, knowing that that would have set off a political firestorm.) In fact, a special counsel might not have been a good idea, because that cast the issue in terms of provable crimes. It didn’t help that the report was written in desiccated legalese. By contrast, the mandate of the 9/11 commission – officially The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States – was broader, and the commission’s report was written as a sweeping history and became a bestselling book. But it was most unlikely that Trump would approve the creation of a commission. The special counsel was quickly established by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein shortly after Trump fired FBI director James Comey. Many critics felt that, even considering the limitations, Mueller’s approach was too cautious and legalistic. But Mueller’s report did make clear that Russians took an active role in the 2016 campaign, which Trump continues to deny, despite the unanimous view of his intelligence agencies. (Trump recently said in an [interview]( that he’d welcome foreign interference in 2020; after an uproar, he walked that statement back, but only partly). And the report did contain much damning evidence against the president. For example, the report cited numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Kremlin-connected Russians in 2016 (though Mueller said he didn’t have the proof of cooperation that prosecutors would need, so he didn’t recommend charges). It also specified ten instances in which Trump attempted to obstruct justice. But Mueller declined to press charges for these presidential actions, because of the aforementioned Justice Department rule. Though he did strongly imply that Congress should make that call instead, Barr stepped in to declare the president innocent. One purpose of the various congressional hearings that have taken place is to bring the report alive. But a second is to explore various issues that Mueller wasn’t tasked with investigating, including Trump’s possible financial dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his government, or his oligarch allies, and whether Trump has bent his foreign policy to favor countries where he has businesses. Frankly, they also include the extent to which Trump might be a crook (for example, possible involvement in money laundering, since at one point no US banks would lend him money). The various roadblocks that the White House has thrown in the way of these investigations has cast doubt on whether congressional Democrats will be able to establish presidential wrongdoing, but other investigations in New York state are causing Trump major headaches and augur danger. PS: In March, you [expressed]( your growing sense that Trump could win a second term, despite his consistently – and increasingly – troubled presidency. What is it about Trump that has made his presidency so resilient, and where might its Achilles heel – assuming it has one – lie? ED: Despite all the turbulence and pratfalls of Trump’s presidency, as well as the polls, it would be foolish to assume that he can’t possibly win a second term. Yes, his base isn’t large enough to elect him, but as of now, it’s still devoted to him, and might turn out in enough strength to enable him to win. Much depends on whom the Democrats nominate and the nature of their primary contest. If the party nominates someone well to the left of the country (which is where its candidates largely – and increasingly – stand); if it ends up as divided as it was in 2016; or if other factors depress the turnout of Democratic voters, Trump’s chances of victory would increase. Also, the 2020 election is likely to be the dirtiest, with the most foreign interference, of any in our history. That also could affect the outcome. By the Way PS: What story should people be following right now? ED: The biggest political story in the US is the same as it’s been since the 2016 election (though one could argue it began before then): the extraordinary, exceptional, fascinating, and dangerous presidency of Donald Trump – what he’s doing to the US, and his impact on our dealings with the world. None of us has seen anything like this before. The sub-story right now is whether or not he will be reelected. PS: Who is the most trustworthy politician you’ve ever met? ED: I couldn’t possibly single out the most trustworthy politician I’ve ever met. The point is that it’s popular to denigrate politicians in general, but while the field contains some scoundrels and fools, it also includes some very intelligent, honorable, and even noble people. Generalizing about them doesn’t reflect reality. PS: Are you a creature of habit, whether about writing or other matters? ED: I suppose that like most people I have some good habits (I meet deadlines), and some not-so-great ones (I stay up too late from taking in the abundance of things to read and watch to help me know what’s going on). PS: What do you most wish you were proficient at doing? ED: I wish I weren’t a slow reader, but I figure someone struggled with the words, so I owe it to that person to read them. Drew recommends We ask all our Say More contributors to tell our readers about a few books that have impressed them recently. Here are Drew's picks: Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century]( By George Packer A wonderfully told biography of one of the most brilliant and complicated figures in America’s world of diplomacy in the last century. [The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic]( By Benjamin Carter Hett I’ve read a lot of books about Hitler’s rise but this one, without being ponderous, is more granular and explicative than most. from Bury Park]( By Sarfraz Manzoor An affecting, honest account of a young émigré from Pakistan to a suburb of London inhabited by his parents and other immigrants from their country, and how he dealt with the conflicts such a life presented, and found his way into the wider world, thanks to Bruce Springsteen. From the PS Archive From 2016 During the last US presidential campaign, Drew wondered why Hillary Clinton – who was obviously more prepared and better suited for the American presidency than Donald Trump – wasn’t waltzing to victory. Read her full commentary [Why is the US Presidential Race So Close?]( From 2017 Less than a year into Trump’s presidency, Drew reported that the risk of a US military confrontation with North Korea, coupled with Trump’s increasingly peculiar behavior, had already thrown Washington, DC, into a state of near-panic. Read her full commentary [The Madness of King Donald](. [Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall]( From Abrams Press [Washington Journal]( Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall By Elizabeth Drew Originally published soon after Richard Nixon's resignation, Elizabeth Drew's Washington Journal is a landmark work of political journalism. Keenly observed and hugely insightful, Washington Journal opens in 1973 and follows the deterioration of Richard Nixon's presidency in real time. Around the Web In case you missed it, here are some other places around the web where Drew's work or ideas have appeared recently. When Drew was covering Watergate, she was frightened, but not as frightened as she is today, covering the Trump administration. In a 2018 article, she convinces readers that they should be frightened, too. Read the full commentary [here](. Accepting the Washington Press Club Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award in March, Drew unflinchingly calls out enduring sexism in journalism, whether in the form of unequal pay and insufficient parental leave or in the form of “condescension.” Watch her full speech [here](. In a recent article, Drew argues that the political dangers Democrats will incur if they pursue impeachment are dwarfed by the risk of doing nothing. In fact, she reiterates, Congress has a responsibility to act. Read the full commentary [here](. Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. 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