Censure Dianne Feinstein - The Senate cannot let this wrong go unaddressed.
Regardless of the fate of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, the Senate should censure the ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein. Her deception and maneuvering, condemned across the political spectrum, seriously interfered with the Senate’s performance of its constitutional duty to review judicial nominations, and unquestionably has brought the Senate into “dishonor and disrepute,” the standard that governs these matters. As a matter of institutional integrity, the Senate cannot let this wrong go unaddressed.Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution provides that each House of the Congress may “punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour.” Nine times in American history the Senate has used that power to censure one of its members. Feinstein has richly earned the right to join this inglorious company.
The senior senator from California not only disgraced herself personally in the underhanded and disingenuous way she dealt with the sex-assault charge against Judge Kavanaugh, but she also misused her position on the Judiciary Committee and broke faith with her fellow committee members. She was further, to quote the San Francisco Chronicle, no less, “unfair” to Judge Kavanaugh — manipulating the public disclosure of the charge so as to maximize the adverse publicity Judge Kavanaugh received and minimize the judge’s opportunity to defend himself. Censure is appropriate in this case for the Senate to defend its procedures and institutional reputation.
By her own account, Feinstein was aware of the charge shortly after President Trump nominated Kavanaugh, nearly two months before her committee opened its hearings. She came into possession of the letter making the charge by virtue of her position on the Judiciary Committee. We don’t know what contact she had thereafter with the accuser or the accuser’s Democrat-activist Washington lawyer — but we do know that Feinstein kept the information from her Senate colleagues, ensuring it was untested and unmentioned in the committee’s hearings. This, even though the hearings were accompanied by loud complaints from Democrats that the administration’s document production was insufficient. Indeed, as this is being written, while yet another Judiciary Committee hearing has been scheduled, she still has not released the unredacted text of the letter that made the charge.
Her conduct has been condemned all across the political spectrum. Her hometown newspaper, the left-leaning Chronicle, editorialized that she chose “the worst possible course” in dealing with the charge. The Chronicle specifically noted that her treatment of the more than three-decade-old assault charge was “unfair to Feinstein’s colleagues — Democrats and Republicans alike — on the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Across the political aisle, her conduct was called “totally dishonest and dirty” in the pages of the Washington Examiner; the Wall Street Journal, more restrained, described her conduct as “highly irregular.”
In substance, she “deliberately misled and deceived” her fellow senators, with the “effect of impeding discovery of evidence” relevant to the performance of their constitutional duties. No one should know better than Feinstein herself that such deceptive and obstructive conduct, widely regarded as “unacceptable,” “fully deserves censure,” so that “future generations of Americans . . . know that such behavior is not only unacceptable but also bears grave consequences,” bringing “shame and dishonor” to the person guilty of it and to the office that person holds, who has “violated the trust of the American people.” These quoted words all come from the resolution of censure Feinstein herself introduced concerning President Bill Clinton’s behavior in connection with his sex scandal. She can hardly be heard to complain if she is held to the same standard.
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Comments (20)
If she wanted to stay anonymous she should have sent to the New York Times. At least they keep names protected as far as I know.
That is the only sensible explanation. This scandal would not exist if it were not made public by a US senator. And so what is this press release? A criminal accusation with no evidence, no witness, no substance, and apparently not a whole lot of memory on the accuser's part. And on the senator's part, a diversion of this 'case' from the Judicial branch to the Legislative branch. That itself is bass-ackward enough to smell.
If this is all the 'evidence" we are going to get, the only practical outcome will be character assassination. And free airtime.
It's all I need to know in order know that Holton-Arms wasn't renowned for it's mathematics department...
My Birthyear.... + 15 =....
GOOD GRIEF, Y'all!
The same can be said of my daughter, Aa.
She doesn't do it often but, should an occasion require her to do so, she can blister the ears of a boatswain's mate
Where DO our children learn such language...
"There are certain times, urgent times, desperate times when profanity offers a relief denied even to prayer."
- Mark Twain
Wrong blog!
@ Tex: Short answer - "No."
This is a longer & more thorough answer...
So I won't.
Even if there is testimony it be not true anyway.It could've been just a way for either of the parties to have some leverage.I don't know and not going to assume anything.
I will not testify near or far....
I will not FLY in a plane...
I will not testify on a train...
I will not testify here or there...
I will not testify anywhere...
I will not testify slow or fast...
I will not do it first or last...
There's nothing more for me to say...
I cant remember anyway.
about time for Feinstein to get off the Stage!