Statement of Principles Regarding the Suitability of Nominees for Senate-Confirmed Positions

Statement of Principles Regarding the Suitability of Nominees for Senate-Confirmed Positions

As President-elect Trump undertakes the process of selecting his cabinet members and other high-ranking administration officials, it is imperative that nominees support the U.S. Constitution, embody American ideals of inclusion and respect for all individuals, uphold our democratic processes and institutions, and respect our nation’s human rights obligations.

While each of the undersigned organizations has additional priorities and will respond to the incoming administration accordingly, we all believe that potential cabinet members and senior administration appointees should adhere to the following principles: Adherence to the U.S. Constitution Nominees for Senate-confirmed positions who support taking actions or enacting policies that are objectively unconstitutional, and especially provisions designed to undermine individual liberties and equal protection under the law, should be deemed unsuitable for those positions by the Senate.

An example of such an action would be implementing a ban on people of a specific faith entering the country or advocating policies that violate the civil rights or liberties of any particular group of people. Adherence to the Rule of Law and Human Rights Obligations Nominees for Senate-confirmed positions who support taking actions or enacting policies that would violate U.S. laws or international conventions protecting human rights to which the United States is a signatory should be deemed unsuitable for those positions by the Senate. A willingness or desire to order the use of torture would fall into this category.

The same standard for unsuitability would also apply to any nominee who has previously been involved in authorizing or implementing human rights or civil liberties violations.

Presbyterian Church (USA)
Alliance for Citizenship
Amnesty International USA
Brooklyn for Peace Center for Gender & Refugee Studies Center for Victims of Torture
Church World Service
Human Rights First
Human Rights Initiative of North Texas
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
National Council of Jewish Women
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
North Carolina Stop Torture Now
Peace Action
Peace Action Bay Ridge
The Advocates for Human Rights
USC International Human Rights Clinic
UUSC: Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Voices for Progress
Win Without War
Women's Action for New Directions

What Trump & Nixon Have in Common

What do Donald Trump and Richard Nixon have in common? Both became President because sitting Presidents, Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and Barack Obama in 2016, decided the people couldn’t handle the truth. It took nearly half a century for the Nixon truth to surface; hopefully the Trump truth will come sooner.

Researching a biography on Wyoming U.S. Senator Gale McGee, I encountered three historians who confirm that LBJ allowed Nixon to get away with one of the most heinous crimes in American political history. (Tim Wiener’s “One Man Against the World-The Tragedy of Richard Nixon (2015); Evan Thomas’ “Being Nixon-A Man Divided,” (2015); and Ken Hughes 2014 book “Chasing Shadows-The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate.””

In 1968 the Vietnam War was the issue pitting Johnson’s Vice-president Hubert Humphrey against Richard Nixon. New scholarship and more than 2,600 hours of taped conversations from Nixon’s Oval Office lead these historians to believe, “Nixon was trying to sabotage the (Vietnam) peace process before it even began.” As the general election neared Nixon’s poll-lead narrowed. The Republican nominee learned Johnson’s negotiations with North Vietnam were succeeding. Nixon feared that just before election day, the U.S. and its enemy might sit down to talk peace. That would aid Humphrey. Nixon sought to thwart the peace process.

After months of delicate discussions with South Vietnamese allies, President Johnson had achieved agreements that would meet North Vietnamese demands for peace talks. However, South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu preferred anti-communist hardliner Nixon over Humphrey. Nixon sent a secret intermediary to Saigon to tell the South Vietnamese to “hold out.” Thieu opted for boycotting the Paris Peace Conference.

With phone taps and undercover work, Johnson knew why. The Republican nominee had committed an act of treason. But Johnson decided not to go public, worrying that Nixon’s conduct would be so shocking that it would do serious harm to the national psyche. LBJ thought its disclosure might bring about Humphrey’s election, while irreparably damaging the country.

So, voters never knew.

Nixon won by a scant seven-tenths of one percent of the popular vote. What followed was a scandal-ridden administration that included an illegal war in Cambodia, more than 20,000 additional U.S. war dead, revelations of political break-ins, dirty tricks, abuse of the IRS and the CIA, and the only Presidential resignation in U.S. history.

Half a century later, history repeats itself. It remains to be seen whether Vladimir Putin acted on his own or in concert with the Trump campaign. CIA conclusions that Russia interfered out of a motive to elect Trump must be fully investigated if we are to know the truth.

It will be hard to dissuade reasonable skeptics that Donald Trump was not directly involved. The circumstantial evidence certainly points in that direction. Senator John McCain represents mainline Republican thinking when he says, “Vladimir Putin is a thug, bully and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying.”

Well, Trump does describe Putin as “anything else.” That’s evidence.

Trump said Putin is a better leader than our own president and took his party on a 180 degree turn on Russia, employing pro-Russian lobbyists like Paul Manafort. Trump’s Secretary of State will be Rex Tillerson whose personal and business ties with the Russian dictator concern McCain. His National Security Adviser is General Michael Flynn, a man with closed Putin ties.

Most suspicious is the extent to which Trump defends Putin against his own country’s claims that Russians tampered with the election.

The investigation must be bipartisan. For Democrats that means demanding answers to the “Watergate question.” What did the President know and when did he know it? President Obama knew of Putin’s crimes and must be held accountable for his failure to make the evidence public.

It’s troubling to read of Johnson’s long-ago decision to cover-up Nixon’s treason to the extent it provides a hint of what’s ahead in a Trump Administration. As Mark Twain said, “History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

WHP and Standing Rock Secrecy

The story of Wyoming Highway Patrolmen dispatched to North Dakota to protect the Dakota Access Pipeline is as much about government secrecy as about the reason they went.

WHP officers were sent to help North Dakota squelch protests pursuant to an apparently top-secret interstate compact. It’s called the “Emergency Management Assistance Compact.” Asked to review the document, WHP officials refused my public records request. They claim it cannot be “recreated, duplicated, disseminated, or used without written permission, and it is protected by copyright laws.”

I also requested after-action reports to learn what services our patrolmen provided in North Dakota. The work of six officers during 16 days in October and November is documented in four heavily redacted pages.

Does it matter? On November 29, the Bismarck Tribune reported the National Lawyers Guild filed a federal court class action lawsuit against several law enforcement agencies alleging use of excessive force against Standing Rock protesters.

The public has a right to know whether their Patrolmen were involved in any manner in the abuses alleged to have been perpetrated on Native Americans and other protesters while they were on duty at Standing Rock.

An earlier October 27 High Country News op-ed made claims similar to those in the NLG lawsuit saying the pipeline “has been ‘protected’ by a multi-state police force acting as armed corporate security. They use military-grade anti-riot technology with drones and helicopters buzzing like mosquitos in the air. The police force has been supplemented by private security firms, “hired guns” with dogs attacking nonviolent Native Americans. Crop-dusters have sprayed Standing Rock encampments with pesticides. Police use rubber bullets and spray tear gas and Mace from large canisters. Most recently, water cannons caused hundreds of nonviolent protesters to seek medical attention for hypothermia.”

The writer added, “People are being arrested, processed, strip-searched, thrown into cells and dog kennels. Police block highways. Cars, trucks and buses bringing supplies are stopped, people detained, their possessions and goods confiscated.” 

The October 27 Seattle Times reported, “Shots reportedly fired, 141 arrested at Dakota Access Pipeline protests.” Their report continued, “Hundreds of protesters have joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in their effort to block construction of the pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites. About 200 law enforcement officers launched an operation midday Thursday to force out the protesters from land owned by the pipeline developer.”

Did Wyoming Highway Patrolmen participate in or witness of these alleged abuses? We may never know because of the unwillingness of WHP to fully respond to public records requests.

One example of incomplete responses received was a report from the same day described by High Country News and the Seattle Times. An unidentified WHP officer reported on events occurring on October 27 when he assisted North Dakota officers “with clearing the North Camp along Highway 1806.” He reports, “During the operation, logs, stick, bottles and other things were thrown at us. Some protesters were riding horses towards the line of officers. One rider was within 20 feet of the line. Officers ordered the rider not to get any closer to the line and to back up. The rider refused to listen and came closer. I observed an officer (words perhaps describing the officer’s behavior are redacted), the rider fell off the horse and was taken into custody by an arrest team.”

The records provided by WHP are too incomplete to determine whether Wyoming officers played any role in the day’s event.

Asked to justify the redactions, the WHP emailed me saying Wyoming’s statute “describes both the types of records that can be withheld and the general reasons for doing so. WHP determined that release of the information could jeopardize security interests, be used to facilitate the planning of terrorist attacks, and/or endanger the lives or physical safety of various individuals.” 

 

It’s not clear how words describing the conduct of a law enforcement officer from another state could do any of that. Sounds all the more important that the public know.

 

 

Can Liz Cheney be a statesperson?

When the ancient Israelites became ungovernable, Moses told them, “Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders (Deuteronomy 1:13).

The just-concluded campaign caused many Americans to wonder whether the United States is capable of choosing wise, discerning, and reputable leaders. The new President will take office lacking the faith of more than half the nation.

Some of us are old enough to remember one of the most divisive episodes in U.S. history. In 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. His successor, Gerald Ford, said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” Our political system has again been disgraced by another “long national nightmare.” This campaign was too ugly too long. In the view of many, the results have the potential to be even worse.

As the Founding Fathers completed the Constitution in 1787, Ben Franklin responded when asked what kind of a government they created. Franklin said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

It is not overly dramatic to suggest the U.S. finds itself with a dwindling number of opportunities to keep it. As Robert Frost foretold we have reached that place where two road diverge.

The election is over but our nation is no less divided today than it was before election day. Wyoming did nothing to ebb that flow. The state sent an apparent ideologue to Congress.

Liz Cheney made her name on Fox News with partisan bluster. Her Congressional campaign was much of the same. She said Barack Obama would rather wage war on Wyoming coal than on terrorists, that the President was more dedicated to killing Wyoming’s energy industry than to killing ISIS. Mrs. Cheney Tweeted, “Hillary Clinton is a crooked and corrupt felon who is being protected by an unethical Attorney General and President.”

Mrs. Cheney’s wasn’t alone in mimicking the nastiness we claim to hate. A worse omen was Jared Olsen’s choice to cross a line many hoped would never be crossed in local politics. He shamelessly used blatantly dishonest tactics to defeat Rep. Mary Throne, proving that candidates go negative for one reason. It works. In other words, the shame falls at the doorstep of the voters. If ugly politics are to end, the voters will have to demand it rather than rewarding it.

Eight years ago Barack Obama won the White House. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell identified his party’s mission. “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” They didn’t achieve the goal but not for a lack of trying. Instead they paralyzed the Republic. The harsh words and actions of those eight years gave birth to the distasteful campaign just concluded.

It doesn’t have to be this way for another four years. The Republican Party has been handed a surprise gift. The voters of the United States said they want Mr. Trump to govern with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. Wyoming voters said they want Ms. Cheney.

Just as the traveler in Robert Frost’s poem looked down one road “to where it bent in the undergrowth,” Ms. Cheney can look down the road and see the undergrowth of continued division.

So, what if Ms. Cheney became the leader America desperately needs?

Liz Cheney is a freshman member of Congress, but not in the usual sense. Given her elevated national profile, Ms. Cheney is blessed with the opportunity to be the change our nation needs. Assuming she is inclined to lead us down the road less traveled, she ‘ll need assurance from the voters that they’ll walk beside her. A politician seldom does what needs to be done without being rewarded by voters.

In the awful days leading to Richard Nixon’s resignation, the country became as divided as it is today. President Ford had a Constitutional tool to bridge that divide. He pardoned Mr. Nixon, ending the rancor. Today Democrats and Republicans must pardon one another if our long national nightmare is to end.