After Comey Firing, Congress Gives Up on Checks and Balances

[EasyAce]

It's time to bring back meaningful Congressional oversight of the executive branch.
By Peter Suderman
http://reason.com/blog/2017/05/10/trump-fires-comey-oversight-constitution/print

The Constitution calls for three separate and coequal branches of government, each operating independently of each other,
and each with their own powers—and limitations. But in recent years, under both Republicans and Democrats, the federal government
has acted more like an entity made of just two branches, or possibly two and a half. Congress has abdicated much of its responsibility
for legislating, descending into petty dysfunction when power is divided and acting more like a subservient arm of the executive
when one party controls both the White House and the Capitol.

One result is that the executive branch has grown stronger, ruling by regulations and executive orders rather than laws debated and
passed by those elected to do so. Another is that the system of checks and balances designed to provide oversight and accountability
to all three branches has effectively lost one of its checks, leaving the entire system in a precarious state of imbalance. That imbalance
is on display today in the wake of President Trump's highly suspicious firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Under Trump, Republicans have resisted providing meaningful oversight of the executive branch. Consider Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the
Republican head of the House Oversight Committee.

A month before last year's presidential election, when most observers expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, he announced
that he had two years of investigations already in the pipeline.

Yet once Trump was elected, Chaffetz's desire to investigate the White House mysteriously vanished. At the end of January, Chaffetz
released a 43-point list of issues he planned to investigate, not one of which related to Trump. The following month, Chaffetz said
that his committee would not investigate Trump adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned as Trump's national security adviser amid questions
about contacts with Russian officials. In April, he rather unexpectedly announced that he would not run for reelection in 2018, and
would be taking immediate medical leave.

Chaffetz, a rising star in the Republican party who looked forward to years of oversight of a Hillary Clinton administration, had lost
his appetite for the job. He did, however, seem to regain that appetite briefly last week when he announced that he would investigate
presidential pension payments—made to President Barack Obama.

So it is hardly surprising that following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, which Trump justified with reasoning that is contradictory
and difficult to believe, Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, responded by dismissing calls for a special prosecutor to
investigate the president. A few Republicans, including Rep. Justin Amash and Sen. John McCain, have expressed support for an outside
investigation, but Republicans have largely backed the president on the firing. And McConnell rejected the idea of additional congressional
oversight. "Today we'll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation," he said in a speech this morning, "which can only serve to impede
the current work being done."

McConnell's statement is not only cynical. It is detrimental to his own institution, the Senate, and to the American system of government.
It does not portend a constitutional crisis, yet. But it does suggest a willingness to continue to slouch into constitutional weakness and
dysfunction.

McConnell is effectively arguing that an independent investigation should not be pursued because it would bog down the legislative
agenda of President Trump and the Republican party. It is an argument that Congress should not play its constitutional role, but should
instead function as a partisan lackey operation for the executive branch. That is a worrying view under any president. Under a self-dealing
president with sketchy affiliations such as Trump, it is even more dangerous.

[Frank Cannon]

Nice thought, but congress is only interested in reelection now and they have learned that they can keep their heads down and live like fat cats and let the Executive and Judicial run the country. Hell, we have the Judiciary and Executive making laws now through rulings and EO's.