While the rest of us marvel at Trump’s contempt for the rule of law and Constitution, a Fox News “constitutional expert” recently opined that Dear Leader has been a model of legally upstanding behavior.
"Constitutional scholar" Dr. John C. Eastman visited Fox's Life, Liberty & Levin show Sunday night. The only law-breaking Eastman or host Mark Levin saw anywhere was on behalf of Democrats and the Russia investigation. Rather than concern themselves with a foreign country’s “sweeping and systemic” on our election, these two Trump worshipers echoed Sen. Lindsey Graham and Fox host Maria Bartiromo in acting as though Democrats, the media and Trump non-loyalists are the only enemies worthy of their attention:
LEVIN: The entire [Russia investigation] was fundamentally illegal, wasn't it?
EASTMAN: Well it was.
[…]
LEVIN: Dr. John Eastman, you're a constitutional expert. This is really a rejection by the Democratic Party and the media and the rest of them, rejection of the 2016 election, isn't it?
EASTMAN: I think so. They still can't believe that they lost that election and they're trying to rationalize that there must've been something nefarious in order to produce it...
Sadly, that’s the kind of talk we’re used to on Fox News. But I can’t recall anyone gushing over Trump’s respect for the law. Even Levin didn’t go there. But Eastman did. The exchange came near the end of the show, when the two discussed the grounds for impeachment:
EASTMAN: Well, you know, treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors had a very specific understanding. High crimes and misdemeanors were not the ordinary crime, high crimes and misdemeanors was a term of art of fundamental abuse of the office that would undermine the legitimacy of government itself. Those were the kind of things that we're talking about.
They [the framers of the Constitution] did not want a King who was above the law, who could do whatever he wanted.
LEVIN: Has that happened here?
EASTMAN: Well, no, I mean, I've been stunned at how scrupulous Trump and his team have been in staying within the legal line that they had.
They could have it otherwise. His immediate predecessor, you know, blew through the lines on executive power and constitutional authority on numerous occasions and they could have said, we are going to take what Obama did as precedent and we're going to do the same thing in the other direction, but they haven't done that.
Watch it below, from the May 12, 2019 Life, Liberty & Levin, via Crooks and Liars.
Who can blame them? Their base of morons wouldn’t know the difference between a true expert and a lying sack of shit, anyway. And the moron will dance to any tune Fox plays…at a much lower cost.
In the above action the judge ruled that NOM lost the case and could not recover any of those legal fees.
Great work Doc. In fact, Eastman lost at least three other cases for NOM plus NOM’s amicus briefs in Windsor and Obergefell proved irrelevant.
Eastman is NOT a constitutional expert to anyone who actually understands the document. He’s just a Far Right crank who gets trotted out from time to time by other cranks who hope nobody has looked up Eastman’s lack of credentials.
Nearly everything Eastman states in this interview is just a regurgitation of talking points already voiced on Fox News and AM radio. And he ignores how the Pence White House has repeatedly pushed their agenda through Executive action – including the illegal attempt to re-route funding to the nonsense “wall” project and the vicious policies enacted toward refugees. I will allow that President Obama also used Executive Orders, although it was clear at the time that he was doing so specifically because angry Right Wingers in Congress had made clear that they would obstruct every single thing he attempted to do. President Obama’s work was toward accomplishing things that actually were meant to help people. Acting President Pence’s work has been malicious – intended to attack various groups head-on.
I’m frankly amazed that Levin still has an audience for his viciousness, but he somehow does. It has allowed him to purchase the failing “media empire” of Glenn Beck, although one suspects this may not be a long-term solution for either of them.
