On Trump’s 2019 impeachment and the fake whistleblower
Alan Dershowitz says “Trump Should Move to Expunge 2019 Impeachment”:
After newly declassified documents showed that an inspector general wrongly pushed an unvetted accusation from a Democrat operative who lied to launch the first impeachment of Donald Trump, legal expert Alan Dershowitz said that the president has a strong case for moving to expunge that first impeachment from his record.
While Dershowitz was a Democrat himself, he defended Trump during the impeachment trial. …
The defense team never got to confront the accuser with evidence that was exculpatory for the president, and now we have these new revelations to confirm how bogus the whole impeachment was.
Referring to an impeachment reversal, Dershowitz admitted, “It’s never been done. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done. Impeachment is a quasi-judicial procedure, whether you have to go back to Congress and ask them to expunge it or go to the courts.” …
RealClearInvestigations named the “whistleblower” in question as intel analyst Eric Ciaramella. He was a registered Democrat, he met with Schiff before submitting his complaint, and he would not reveal any credible contacts, yet Inspector General Michael Atkinson didn’t even question, let alone rigorously assess, either the honesty or motivations of this “whistleblower.”
In fact, Atkinson did not even follow standard inspector general procedures, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed. Atkinson conducted interviews with four individuals only: “the Whistleblower, the Whistleblower’s friend who was a co-author of the January 2017 Russia Hoax Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) and close colleague of disgraced former FBI Agent Peter Strzok, and two character references who had zero firsthand knowledge of the July 2019 phone call.” Yet Atkinson exceeded his statutory jurisdiction based just on all that blatantly biased hearsay.
Just a different form of political lawfare against Trump – shall we call it “impeachment-fare”?
Reading this, I felt that the whole thing had a familiar ring – not every single detail, of course, but the main outline. Looking it up, I see that I wrote several posts on Ciaramella at the time it all happened. It wasn’t a secret who the so-called whistleblower was even back then, although it hadn’t been officially revealed. This post is especially relevant; please take a look.
Law, clarity, and simplicity
Commenter “Skip” makes this interesting observation:
Nothing glazes my eyes over faster than reading law. Yet one like me would think a written law shouldn’t need to be determined, it should be cut and dry what it means. Seems that isn’t the case and hasn’t been for a long time.
I think I might have said something similar prior to going to law school. But if there’s one thing I learned there – really really learned – it was that it’s impossible to do as described. The phenomenon is not something recent, either. It’s something that’s an intrinsic and unavoidable part of law.
The reason this is true is connected to what Karl Popper pointed out about language itself:
Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
And that is true of all laws. One must try to write laws that are as clear and comprehensive as possible. But attempts to clarify all gray areas that can arise from a law will inevitably lead to laws that are incredibly lengthy and convoluted in their attempts to cover all bases, an attempt that always fails because life always serves up the unexpected and unforeseen. So these attempts at clarification often result in statutes that serve to make things murkier and more unwieldly.
That’s where courts come in. They are tasked with interpreting and applying laws. That’s how we get precedent and case law. And because it’s a matter of interpretation, we often get disagreements. The disagreements can be based on the definition of a word or phrase, the history of the people who passed the statute and what they said the law was about at the time, and the legal philosophy of the judges (which can be based on politics and how “elastic” they think a law should be).
It’s amazing that the legal system functions as well as it does, considering.
Tax day musings
I did my own taxes by hand for years, burning the midnight oil night after night, filing at the last minute. Then I tried TurboTax, but for whatever reason it seemed to make things even more complicated. And so I gave up that approach, and finally about four years ago I decided to treat myself to the services of an accountant.
And a treat it was, although of course I still had to do some prep work. But it was so much easier to take my papers to the accountants, who were so very organized compared to me. In due time, back would come a big folder with my tax returns, forms and envelopes for estimated taxes next year all neatly typed. Of course, the fee for the service was quite a bit, but it was worth every penny.
Last year they raised their prices 50%. Still worth it. This year they raised their prices a bit more, but not more than the going rate for other accountants in the area. So I gave them the information requested by the designated date, which was about a month ago.
And waited to hear from them. And waited. And waited some more. Late last week I called to ask how things were going. The secretary said fine, and I’d be hearing from my accountant before the 15th. And indeed, yesterday the accountant called me.
Called me to say that she had asked for an extension and that in two or three weeks my taxes would be prepared.
Now, this is not the end of the world. An extension is okay, but it’s not what one expects from an accountant preparing a tax return that although not simplicity itself is really not all that complicated. I’d complied with all their instructions and I’d done it on time, something she acknowledged. But sorry, they were just swamped this year.
I asked quite a few questions and it turns out that one of the accountants had quit and they were shorthanded. But the real culprit was some new software system that seems to have stymied them much like TurboTax had messed me up years ago.
Was she telling me the truth? I don’t know. But it’s just another strange example of things not quite working as they’re supposed to.
[NOTE: Here’s a tribute I wrote in honor of my father, who was a CPA and lawyer. It’s about tax season and what it meant in our house when I was growing up.]
Open thread 4/15/2026
Day one of CENTCOM’s action at the Strait of Hormuz …
… seems to be going well so far:
CENTCOM’s update stated, “More than 10,000 U.S. Sailors, Marines, and Airmen along with over a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft are executing the mission to blockade ships entering and departing Iranian ports.” It proudly affirmed, “During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade and 6 merchant vessels complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.”
It seems to me the need for this action had been anticipated, because unless I’m mistaken the troops and ships have been more or less at the ready for a while and were nearby.
DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules against Boasberg
The ruling was 2-1:
The J.G.G. v. Trump case has already made its way up to the Supreme Court once, and while the case is still working its way through the courts on the merits, there’s been a contemporaneous contempt proceeding, in which Judge Boasberg has been assessing whether he’d hold certain members of the Trump administration in criminal contempt over its actions following his order to effectively turn the planes (already in transit to El Salvador) around.
In connection with that, the administration sought a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, essentially asking that Boasberg’s contempt inquisition be shut down. On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit granted the writ and halted the district court’s ongoing contempt investigation into the administration’s March deportation flights, blocking further testimony and fact-finding aimed at determining whether officials defied a temporary restraining order.
The majority ruled that the Boasberg court abused its discretion, by continuing the proceedings despite SCOTUS having ruled that the original suit was brought under the wrong legal reasoning and in the wrong court. Continuing on with contempt proceedings meant that Boasberg was abusing his court’s discretion and also making an attempt to impair the executive branch in its constitutional duties.
When I read that the decision was 2-1, I immediately wondered about the political breakdown of the judges. Sure enough, two were Trump appointees and the dissent was written by an Obama appointee. No surprise. Next there might be a request for a hearing en banc (the larger panel) and that could go quite differently.
Swalwell quits the House; Gonzales quits the House
Swelwell saves House members the trouble of having to expel him from the House or defend him; he quits:
Swalwell announced his resignation in a statement posted to his X account, while still denying some of the allegations made against him in recent days.
“I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make,” Swalwell said in the statement.
Which is which?
Gonzales – a Republican – also resigned:
… Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who has been dogged by allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide …
Gonzales, who admitted to the affair and said he would not run for reelection, announced in post to X on Monday he would file his retirement from office when the House returns on Tuesday.
“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all,” Gonzales said. “When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office.
A recent accuser of Swalwell says this:
[In 2018 Swalwell] invited me to two public events. I knew he was married and that his wife was pregnant. He was my friend.
On the third occasion, I believe he drugged my drink. I only had one glass of wine. We were supposed to go to a political event, and he said he needed to get paperwork from his hotel room.
When I arrived at his hotel room, I was already incapacitated, and I couldn’t move my arms or my body.
He raped me. And he choked me.
And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness. And I thought I died.
I did not consent to any sexual activity.
Although I did not undergo a rape kit at the time, I disclosed the assaut to the people closest to me. I also recorded these events in my handwritten calendar.
The assault and its impact were later documented during my therapy sessions at a sexual assault center.
Although she has only come out recently with the public accusations that are from 2018, if there is earlier (especially if close to that time) documentation of her discussing this with a therapist, that would tend to corroborate her story. But her story itself, although chilling, has a vulnerability common to many such stories: because she was drinking, and says she was incapacitated, was it from a drug Swalwell gave her or from her own drinking – the amount of which she’s underestimating? And far more importantly, in her diminished capacity can her memory be trusted?
At any rate, it was plenty enough, added to the other stories (supposedly including lewd emails a la Anthony Weiner), to get Swalwell to resign. In this case, there may indeed be truth behind the accusations.
The Pope versus Trump; Trump versus the Pope
I’m not Catholic and I’m not even Christian, and so I don’t ordinarily pay much attention to the Pope. But of course I follow any big news of the Pope and general trends, and the trend with the last two popes – in the political sense, because popes operate in a political world and both reflect it and have an effect on it – has been to the left.
I don’t expect popes to be cheerleaders in most wars. I expect them to talk about praying for peace and that sort of thing. But I was shocked when Pope Leo (the first American pope) said this the other day:
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo said. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.'”
I am certainly no historian of the Catholic Church, but has any other pope ever said anything remotely like this? As far as I know, Catholic priests are often chaplains to the military, and they lead soldiers in wartime in prayer and there is no assertion that God doesn’t hear the prayers of those soldiers. There is also Catholic Just War theory, and plenty of Biblical precedent:
The Old Testament contains numerous examples of divinely sanctioned warfare. In Exodus 15:3, God is described as “a man of war,” affirming that war, under certain conditions, is not inherently evil. Judges and kings of Israel often led battles under divine mandate, as seen in the campaigns of Joshua (cf. Joshua 6) and David (cf. 2 Kings 5:19). Judas Machabeus led a successful war for freedom against the Seleucid Antiochus Epiphanes, a type of antichrist. God’s people suffered many martyrs (see 2 Machabees 6 & 7) but they also had angels fighting on their side (see 2 Machabees 3:24-26; 5:2-4). …
Church history is littered with saints who also served as soldiers; notable among them are as St. Sebastian, St. George, Bl. Charlemagne, St. Ferdinand III, and most famously, St. Joan of Arc.
These scriptural passages and saintly exemplars illustrate a foundational principle: War is not intrinsically immoral, but its morality depends on context, authority, and intention.
The passage to which Pope Leo seems to be referring is in Isaiah and here’s the context:
Dr. Marcus Peter writes that the Holy Father “might have been evoking Isaiah 1:15” when he said those words. The pastor of my church, in his homily on Palm Sunday, offered the same opinion.
But Isaiah did not say that God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.
In Isaiah Chapter One, the prophet is chastising Israel. He says Israel has become a “Sinful nation, people laden with wickedness, evil offspring, corrupt children!” (1:4). Then he says, “When you spread out your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood!” (1:15).
Dr. Peter notes that the language in the official Vatican text is clear. “The Italian original reads, “non ascolta la preghiera di chi fa la guerra,” which closely means that God does not hear the prayer of those who make or wage war.”
Isaiah is saying, however, that God does not hear the prayers of the wicked, the evil, or the corrupt. And not everyone who wages war is evil, wicked or corrupt. I don’t think George Washington, our Founding Fathers, or Abraham Lincoln were evil, wicked or corrupt. And President Roosevelt cannot be considered evil or wicked for declaring war on a country that attacked the U.S. and on another country that was out to conquer the world.
The Pope also criticized Trump’s “a whole civilization will die” threat, either not understanding it (as I wrote about here) or perhaps considering words as awful as deeds. Nor has Pope Leo (and I include when he was Cardinal Prevost) ever had a word to say about Iran’s constant “Death to America” threats, over the near-half-century of the mullahtocracy’s existence. At least, I couldn’t find any such statement by him.
So it’s unsurprising that Trump took issue with what the Pope said, although I actually think this is one of those times when Trump would have done better to have ignored it.
The Pope also said he’s not afraid of Trump. The statement implies that this involves some sort of bravery. But of course Trump isn’t going to send out a hit man to harm the Pope. Then again, Pope Leo might well be afraid of Iran, or Muslim terrorists. After all, look at what happened to Pope John Paul II:
In 1979, The New York Times reported that Agca, whom it called “the self-confessed killer of an Istanbul newspaperman” … had described the Pope [John Paul II] as “the masked leader of the crusades” and threatened to shoot him if he did not cancel his planned visit to Turkey, which went ahead in late November 1979. The paper also said (on 28 November 1979) that the killing would be in revenge for the then still ongoing attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which had begun on 20 November, and which he blamed on the United States or Israel.
It’s a long and very convoluted story; you can find it at the link if you’re interested. It was a conspiracy, but only Agca fired and severely injured the Pope, who nevertheless later forgave him.
Back to the present – I’ve also seen quite a bit of talk in the comment sections of blogs on the right from people saying that of course it was David Axelrod’s visit that sparked Pope Leo’s comments critical of Trump. Some of them add that Axelrod is Jewish, which makes this one of those “the Jews are behind it” charges. But I doubt very much that the Pope is motivated by Axelrod or by Jews, whatever online commenters may think.
I don’t know what Pope Leo and David Axelrod discussed when they met, but they’re both from Chicago and they seem to share political worldviews anyway. My guess is that at least a portion of their discussion may have had something to do with Axelrod’s daughter. I’m speaking of this:
[Axelrod’s] first child, a daughter … was diagnosed with epilepsy at seven months of age. Axelrod describes Lauren as having had brutal seizures, requiring a constantly changing regimen of medications for some time. This left her developmentally disabled, but nevertheless mainstreamed in school. For a few years after high school, the family struggled to find programs that would keep her happy and fulfilled, but were able to place her in Misericordia, a large dormitory-style group home in 2002, where she leads an active life. As of 2021, Axelrod advocates for a flexible, mixed approach to group homes that support environments for people like his daughter, in contrast to the common approach of exclusively moving toward smaller group homes.
And of Misericordia:
Misericordia Home is a not-for-profit developmental home for persons with mild to profound developmental disabilities in Chicago, Illinois. It is run by the Sisters of Mercy and operated under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Axelrod’s daughter is now in her mid-forties and she’s been in that Catholic-run home for most of her adult life. Maybe Axelrod wanted to thank Pope Leo. Not everything is about politics.
Open thread 4/14/2026
How the NY Times presents the negotiations with Iran
If you can get access to the Times, you can find the original here. If not, you can find a copy here.
The headline is “In Pakistan Talks, Iran Saw a U.S. Trying to Dictate, Not Negotiate.” The paper seems to be intent on presenting Iran’s viewpoint. A sample:
Vice President JD Vance summed up the failure of 21 hours of negotiations with Iran in one sentence: “They have chosen not to accept our terms.”
To Iranian officials, that line reflected their biggest problem with the talks, too: The United States they argue, had not come to negotiate.
“Bingo,” Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister who led Iran’s negotiators in the nuclear deal negotiations with the United States and Europe in 2015, highlighting the comment from Vance, wrote on the social platform X. “No negotiations — at least with Iran — will succeed based on ‘our/your terms.'”
This is very much designed to appeal to the left – Trump and Vance the bullies, as opposed to the kindly Obama of the famous Iran Deal. How dare dictatorial Trump and Vance! – say those New Age Iranian regime leaders, always trying to find common ground and consensus.
More:
“We are open to dialogue and negotiation,” Medhi Tabatabei, a deputy to Iran’s president, wrote on social media on Sunday. “But we do not submit to force.”
No, of course not. So very open to that favorite term of the left: dialogue. And force is such an outdated concept. The Iranian regime itself not only doesn’t submit to force – but it never uses force either, right? Just ask all the protesters it has treated so kindly.
More:
Iran’s government sees itself not only as victorious for having survived that onslaught, but also for having emerged with a new and strategic card. Since the war began, it has asserted control over passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping corridor — and it is not willing to give up that leverage now.
“We will not stop for a moment in working to secure the achievements of the last forty days,” Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s speaker of Parliament and the head of the negotiating delegation, wrote in a statement on social media on Sunday.
It’s not willing to give up its leverage. But I don’t think the US is asking if it’s willing any more. And what is “new” about this strategic card?
Of course, Iran may have more tricks up its sleeve to thwart the US. But to speak of securing “the achievements of the last forty days” sounds very Black Knight indeed. But much of the world, and I assume many of the Times’ readers, seem willing to buy this narrative.
News roundup
(1) Swalwell quits the race for governor.
Let me just say that when the Democrats want you out, they don’t pull their punches. Do they have this volume of opposition research prepared on everyone, just in case? Is one of the other Democrats running for governor in California next under that commodious bus? They have to winnow that field down to eliminate any chance, however slim, of a Republican winning the race.
(2) I don’t know how I got to it. I don’t know why I clicked on it. But once I did, I became fascinated with this one fact about the home Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez once shared, having purchased it for $60 million:
The former couple struggled to find a buyer for the 12-bedroom, 24-bathroom mansion for more than a year.
What’s up with that ratio? Two bathrooms for each bedroom?
(3) From Trump:
(4) There have been large demonstrations in Ireland over high fuel costs:
The Irish government has announced a package worth €505m (£440m) to support those “most impacted” by rising fuel costs.
Fuel costs have soared globally as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran and demonstrators in the Republic of Ireland have been blocking fuel distribution sites and many major motorways and roads in protest.
Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin said on Sunday that his government are extending temporary measures to reduce excise duty on petrol, diesel and marked gas oil.
They will also be postponing an increase on carbon tax …
So, which thing are they protesting – or probably both? The high fuel costs due to the war, or the high fuel costs due to the taxes and the proposed tax increase?
(5) How our blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is planned to work:
So we aren’t closing the Strait, we are blockading Iranian ports. This means that Iran won’t be able to sell any oil. Two countries will be hurt: Iran and China, which buys 80% of Iranian oil. The Gulf States will be able to ship their oil through the Strait as soon as they choose to do so.
Meanwhile, we are sending vessels to the Strait to try to dispose of the mines that Iran may or may not have laid there. Other countries may aid in that effort. Iran still has a lot of small boats that they have used to harass shipping, but they will be useless against our ships. And reportedly, a number of oil tankers have diverted from other courses and are heading to the Gulf of Mexico America to load up on American oil and gas.