JOUR107.1002
James L'Angelle
University of Nevada, Reno
Spring 2020
Historical Precedents: Climate of Corruption, State of Emergency and Diversion of Funds
Now that a formal vote for impeachment has been reached, the case for removal from office of the President goes to the Senate. Already at least two variables have entered into the process; the suggestion that the case would be delayed in the House and that climate change in the Senate, with respect to the opposition, needs to improve, citing "rogue" elements. The case for impeachment has been based on two nebulous charges; that of abuse of power and obstruction of justice. The opposition in the Senate has quasi-officially stated in media briefings that the impeachment is dead-on-arrival and the President is expected to remain in office. Failure to remove the chief-executive has been speculated to play in his favor for the upcoming national election late 2020. The case is weak, the articles watered down; so what if there are other aspects of the overall case that have been overlooked; the so-called "Lost Articles?"
At least three can be found with historical precedent that relate at least to some degree to the current resolution. Whether they were included or not due to plain lack of evidence, a total oversight or concern they would be rejected is not relevant. The fact that they could have been considered is. Below are the hypothetical articles with their historical precedents.
Article III: Climate of Corruption. Following the release of the Mueller Report in April, 2019, a number of associates to the President were convicted on various charges ranging from campaign finance fraud to perjury. The sentences ranged from severe to lenient while others are yet to be handed down. These include Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen and Rick Gates to name a few. (RT Beckwith, Time) Clearly, if unable to achieve anything else, the result of the Mueller probe established what might be considered a "climate of corruption."
Historical perspective for the climate of corruption points to the President Grant administration and the case brought against his Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, in 1876;
"It is to be remembered that the Centennial year was also the year of a presidential election. Credit Mobilier, Whiskey Ring, Sanborn, and De Golier contracts, Star Route, Mulligan letters-these placed the Republican party on trial. It was the high-water mark of corruption in national affairs (Rhodes, History of the United States, vii, 191). It was the nadir of national disgrace (Dunning, Re construction Political and Economic, 286). Belknap had been a personal friend and a companion in arms of the President. He had served as secretary of war since 1869. He was a political associate of many senators. He was popular in the circles of Washington society." (Belknap, 216)
Belknap resigned just before he was charged with accepting cash payments, "gifts" according to the trading post operators at Fort Sill that appeared to be more than that. The fact that many more government officials had been indicted at the time lent a great deal of credence that Belknap himself was also guilty, but in the end he was acquitted. (senate.gov) Nonetheless, the degree to which Grant knew of the climate that existed in his administration was cause for alarm not just for the rank-and-file at the time but for historians as well.
Indeed, by the time the next top-level impeachment proceedings came along, for Richard M. Nixon, the question as to his knowledge of Watergate led to his eventual resignation in 1974;
"Nixon’s Attorney General of the United States John Mitchell served 19 months for his role in the scandal, while Watergate mastermind G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent, served four and a half years. Nixon’s Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman spent 19 months in prison while John Ehrlichman spent 18 for attempting to cover up the break-in. Nixon himself never admitted to any criminal wrongdoing, though he did acknowledge using poor judgment." (Nixon)
Perhaps "Tricky Dick" was telling the truth, somewhere the answer is there but regardless, the climate of corruption did exist and leadership must necessarily have to assume responsibility for it.
Article IV: State of Emergency. On December 22, 2018, the US government shut down for the longest period in its history, which lasted until January 25, 2019. (Wikipedia) Less than a month later, the White House announced a "State of Emergency" in an effort to free up money to build the border wall along the states contiguous with Mexico, as reported by Olivia W. Waxman for Time magazine;
"President Trump announced he’s signing a proclamation on Friday declaring a national emergency to free up billions of dollars to build his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The move is the latest in a two-month showdown that included a 35-day partial government shutdown. Congress only voted to allocate $1.375 billion for border barriers – far short of the $5.7 billion Trump wanted." (Time)
Although the article indicates that a de facto state had been in existence since 1976, the current decree only created more friction in the already radically partisan legislative branch. William Cummings and John Fritz for USA Today gave a brief account of the President's powers back in January related to national emergency;
"Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens," says a 2007 CRS report." (USA Today)
The President managed to get part of what he needed but did his method justify his madness? Again there is at least some allusion to the possibility of impeachment as seen in the case of William W. Holden, the Governor of North Carolina.
As chief administrator during his tenure of 1868-1870, Holden found himself in an existential battle with anti-Reconstructionist rivals, the Ku Klux Klan in particular. While Ewing Cortez argues in
The North Carolina Historical Review that the Klan might have had primary interests in racial purity, he is "convinced" the Fifteenth Amendment was the target;
"Hundreds of Negroes and a few whites were dragged from their cabins in the darkest hours of the night and whipped by hooded monsters, some of whom swore that their thirst had not been slacked since being killed at Shiloh, Vicksburg, or Chickamauga." (Cortez, E., 206)
The Klan's criminal activity eventually led to Governor Holden's decision to declare martial law in certain rebellious counties with the arrest of ringleaders. By early, 1870, Democrats petitioned to have the prisoners to appear before a magistrate but the governor refused. Following a statewide election in late summer, the Democrats assumed control of the legislature and impeachment of the governor was in order and by early December;
"Nevertheless, if the house judiciary committee conducted an investigation of Holden's official acts, it was of the most cursory character. The exigencies of politics rendered superfluous any real investigatorial labors, for the legislators already knew enough of his 'malfeasance' to convict him in the highest court that they could erect." (Cortez, 211)
Holden faced eight articles including illegal arrest, refusal of habeas corpus, proclaiming martial law and raiding the treasury to pay out rewards. In March, 1871 Holden was removed from office and Cortez had this evaluation;
"In conclusion, I believe that Holden should have been impeached on charges relating to martial law; he should have been called to an accounting for failure to use it to protect the lives of citizens of the State. Such use of martial law is always dangerous, and it takes courage, more courage than Holden possessed. Probably, however, if he had firmly called it into being to suppress the unpardonable crimes of the Klan organizations, and not for the purpose of immediately increasing the Republican vote, he would have been supported by the respectable members of both parties." (225)
As in the present case, a State of Emergency is an invitation, an excuse, to enact martial law for political purposes and as Cortez points out, "always dangerous." It is equally dangerous as a threat and might infer an abuse of power if there is no justification.
Article V: Diversion of Funds. Damage to the Marine Corps Base at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina exceeded $3 billion when Hurricane Florence flattened the base in mid-September, 2018. Money was allocated to rebuild the base but the White House found another use for it, to build the wall along the southern border., as Tara Copp reported in News-Observer;
"In all, 34 installations in the United States and eight bases in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, will absorb $1.8 billion in domestic cuts to planned construction projects. Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017, is losing more than $400 million in planned military construction projects." (News & Observer)
Reallocated, diverted, what's the difference, the money was stolen. The Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. Robert Neller, leaked memos related to the embezzlement, as reported by James Laporta in Newsweek;
"When asked why Neller would allow internal memorandums to leak to press outlets, one Defense Department source expressed bluntly, "Because he didn't want the Marines and families at Camp Lejeune [in North Carolina] to get f***ed." (Newsweek)
It was a bad career move for the general, he retired soon afterward. But the diversion of funding issue didn't go away and in mid-December, a federal judge blocked the misappropriation as reported in the Military Times;
"EL PASO, Texas — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from spending some Defense Department money to build a border wall with Mexico, the latest twist in a long-running legal battle over one of the president’s signature domestic issues and campaign priorities.
The ruling by District Judge David Briones in El Paso, Texas, prevents the government from spending $3.6 billion that was diverted in September from 127 military construction projects to pay for 175 miles (280 kilometers) of border wall." (Military Times)
A similar scandal emerged, once again during the Grant administration, involving his Secretary of the Navy, George Robeson. In his book,
The Reconstruction Years: The Tragic Aftermath f the War Between the States, Walter Coffey gives a backgraound of the affair;
"A Democratic committee in the House of Representatives exposed a scandal in which Navy Secretary George M. Robeson was suspected of awarding lucrative food contracts to Alexander Cattel & Company, a Philadelphia grain firm, in exchange for financial favors. An investigation of Robeson's finances revealed that he had deposited up to $320,000 while serving as navy secretary , a job that paid $8000 a year." (Coffey, 280)
In yeat another scandal involving the navy secretary, the New York Sun, in mid-February, 1872, accused Robeson of his financial shenanigans, found in John Niven's book on Gideon Welles;
"Two days later came the 'Robberies of Robeson' and on the February 21st (Charles Anderson) Dana published a comprehensive article charging Robeson with specific instances of graft in the Secors claim, the T
ennessee conversion and the supply of coal to the navy, through a single agent, A.G. Cattell & Company." (Niven, 573)
Another accurate characterization of Robeson's shady deals can be found in the article by Gordon Calhoun in the Daybook;
" A lawyer by trade, Robeson was a political supporter of Grant and exchanged in some very shady business practices. Naval historian Robert Albion discovered that Robeson moved all of the Navy’s accounts used to pay for overseas operations from a well established and connected British accounting firm to an American firm on the verge of bankruptcy that had no offices in foreign ports. Despite his reputation, the 1872 investigation cleared him and the Department for the time being." (Calhoun, 6-7)
Once again, the climate of corruption, combined with diversion and reallocating of funds, appears to be very tempting grounds to investigate a political official with the intent to impeach.
The current House resolution has impeached the President on two articles. There could have been more, proving them might have been difficult, if not impossible. But as in the case of his predecessors, it has been shown that in just about every example, as in life itself, more is always better. The President, by being subjected to far less accusations, will probably "beat the rap," but lurking underneath is the nagging sense of a corrupt administration, being part of the very "swamp" he promised to drain.
Sources
HR755,
Beckwith, RT, Mueller Investigation,
https://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-guilty-pleas/
“The Belknap Impeachment Trial.”
The Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 10, no. 2, 1926, pp. 211–218. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/4630658.
Belknap Acquittal,
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/War_Secretarys_Impeachment_Trial.htm
Nixon, https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/watergate
Shutdown,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_United_States_federal_government_shutdown
Waxman, O.W.,
Trump Just Declared an Emergency at the Border,
https://time.com/5496270/presidents-history-national-emergency/
Cummings, W., Fritz, J.,
President Trump could declare a national emergency, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/07/trump-national-emergency-wall-funding/2496357002/
Ewing, Cortez A. M. “TWO RECONSTRUCTION IMPEACHMENTS.” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 15, no. 3, 1938, pp. 204–230. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23513819.
Coffey, W., The Reconstruction Years: The Tragic Aftermath of the War Between the States, Authorhouse, Bloomington, IN 2014, Page 280
Niven, J., Gideon Welles; Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, Oxford, NY, 1973, Page 573)