Thursday’s Hardball featured MSNBC host Chris Matthews continuing his now-permanent campaign to impeach President Trump by repeating the tiresome phrase about how the Trump administration has placed America “dangerously close to a constitutional crisis,” but he went further this time.
How? Well, he showed a new level of desperation by bashing his congressional Democrats as a “paper tiger” afraid to impeach the President.
Matthews began his show with this lede: “Good evening. I’m Chris Matthews up in Philadelphia where the U.S. Constitution was written and tonight, America is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis as President Trump tightens his grip on power and continues to strong arm the Congress.”
He then teed up a clip from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) by hailing his move to still hold a hearing without Attorney General Bill Barr and thus “warned that the Trump administration’s defiance of Congress has dangerous implications for the country.”
Before introducing his lead-off panel, Matthews fretted that Barr’s no-show because Democrats couldn’t apparently ask relevant questions on their own without staff lawyers was “a dramatic escalation, of course, of tensions between a White House that sees itself free to roll unimpeded and a Congress that is trying to wrestle back its constitutionally mandated responsibilities to serve as a check on executive misconduct.”
He went first to freshman Congresswoman Madeline Dean (D-PA) and blasted her fellow caucus members from the left:
It’s momentous. I’ll tell you, I get the sense that Congress has weapons at its disposal, but they’re meaningless against this President. Has Congress become a paper tiger? You can’t get your subpoenas honored, you can’t scare people with contempt of Congress, you don’t want to go after impeachment. Are you disarmed against this attorney general and this President?
Moments later, Matthews justified his pressuring of congressional Democrats to former Ted Kennedy aide Mieke Eoyang by asserting that Barr believes “this President is above the law,” putting the country in a perilous spot.
She responded by claiming Barr doesn’t know how the law works when it comes to congressional oversight and, if matters continue downward, the question must be asked whether he’s “being at all faithful to the oath he swore to defend the Constitution.”
At the end of the segment, Matthews told Eoyang that if Congress won’t cooperate, “[t]hat leaves only one access to justice, and that is impeachment” and if special counsel reports don’t “provide a charging document in any way useful to the Congress” for impeachment, then “[h]ow are we able going to get judgment about a president’s misconduct.”
“Well, it’s very clear that Emmet Flood is using taxpayer dollars to defend the President and its personal capacity, and....Mueller, in laying out his report, was pointing to a number of instances of obstruction of justice and very problematic behavior from the President, which, even if not criminal, might be at the level of high crimes and misdemeanors for the impeachment standard,” she replied.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on May 2, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
May 2, 2019
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Good evening. I’m Chris Matthews up in Philadelphia where the U.S. Constitution was written and tonight, America is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis as President Trump tightens his grip on power and continues to strong arm the Congress. Attorney General William Barr who, yesterday, spent hours justifying President Trump’s misconduct called off in appearance before the House Judiciary Committee today and continued to resist the committee’s call for the full unredacted Mueller report. Chairman Jerrold Nadler presiding before an empty chair warned that the Trump administration’s defiance of Congress has dangerous implications for the country.
CONGRESSMAN JERRY NADLER (D-NY): The Attorney General must make a choice. Every one of us must make the same choice. That choice is now an obligation of our office. The choice is simple. We can stand up to this President in defense of the country and the Constitution and the liberty we love or we can let the moment pass us by. I do not — and we have seen in other countries what happens when you allow such moments to pass by. I don’t know what Attorney General Barr will choose. I don’t know that my Republican colleagues will choose, but I am certain that there is no way forward for this country that does not include a reckoning with this clear and present danger to our constitutional order.
MATTHEWS: Moments after the hearing ended, the White House leaked a letter from the President’s counsel, Emmett Flood, that five-page letter which was delivered to the Attorney General on April 19th, one day after the Mueller report went public, highly criticized the Mueller report itself. The President’s lawyer wrote, the Special Counsel office “produced a prosecutorial curiosity — part ‘truth commission’ and part law school exam paper.” Flood added that the Mueller’s refusal to exonerate the President was a political. He wrote, “exoneration statements can be understood only as political statements, issuing from persons....who in our system of government are rightly expected to never to be political in the performance of their duties.” Additionally, Trump’s lawyers signaled that the President would move to prevent his aides and administration officials from testifying before Congress. William Barr’s refusal to appear today is a dramatic escalation, of course, of tensions between a White House that sees itself free to roll unimpeded and a Congress that is trying to wrestle back its constitutionally mandated responsibilities to serve as a check on executive misconduct.
(....)
7:04:06 p.m.
22 secondsMATTHEWS [TO CONGRESSWOMAN MADELINE DEAN]: It’s momentous. I’ll tell you, I get the sense that Congress has weapons at its disposal, but they’re meaningless against this President. Has Congress become a paper tiger? You can’t get your subpoenas honored, you can’t scare people with contempt of Congress, you don’t want to go after impeachment. Are you disarmed against this attorney general and this President?
(....)
7:08:31 p.m.
1 minute and 13 secondsMATTHEWS: Mieke, let me — here’s the thing that gets me after all this and the reason I was tough with the Congresswoman, and I’ll be tough with everybody about this, I hear the outrage from a number of members of Congress, including the gentlewoman from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and I hear it and I believe in it completely in the virtue of her arguments. And yet, if you listen to Mr. Barr, the President cannot be indicted, he should not be accused if he’s not indicted. The Special Counsel has no role in delivering information to the Congress for use of impeachment and, besides, the President’s incapable of obstruction of justice because he’s all-powerful in controlling the executive. By the attorney general’s measure, this President is above the law. And it looks like he’s going to operate his AG in that fashion.
MIEKE EOYANG: Yeah, I think that Barr hasn’t recognized what the law will do to those arguments. It’s very clear that when the attorney general or when others are going to try to and challenge the congressional subpoenas in court, that the courts have a long record of siding with Congress on this. It’s well established law and then he’s going to find himself in defiance of a court order and so he’ll be in defiance of not just one branch of government but two and then you really have to ask, is he being at all faithful to the oath he swore to defend the Constitution?
(....)
7:13 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: Mieke, last question for me in this segment, and this is — we know the President, according to the Office of Legal Counsel, you’re not supposed to indict a president, and, therefore, if you can’t indict him, you can’t accuse him, that wouldn’t be fair, according to Mr. Mueller and his report. That leaves only one access to justice, and that is impeachment, at least a report to Congress they can use in an impeachment proceeding and now we’re hearing from the President’s lawyer, Flood — Emmet Flood, that the Special Counsel has no right to offer a road map for impeachment. It is not — in other words, not to provide a charging document in any way useful to the Congress. Then why do we have a Special Counsel? How are we able going to get judgment about a president’s misconduct, ever?
EOYANG: Right. Well, it’s very clear that Emmet Flood is using taxpayer dollars to defend the President and its personal capacity, and now, looking out for the institutions of our government and it’s very clear that Mueller, in laying out his report, was pointing to a number of instances of obstruction of justice and very problematic behavior from the President, which, even if not criminal, might be at the level of high crimes and misdemeanors for the impeachment standard.
