Trump's Baseless Amazon Attacks Can't Be Ignored

(Bloomberg View) -- My Bloomberg View colleague Timothy L. O'Brien has an excellent item about what President Donald Trump is up to in going after the Washington Post -- that is, in going after Amazon.com Inc., whose founder, Jeff Bezos, also owns the Post. 

I can only add a little historical perspective. One of the things that hurt Richard Nixon was his "enemies list" and the revelation that he attempted to use the government against the news media. Jay Rosen remembers:

That's right: Nixon wanted to intimidate the Washington Post by interfering with its business, just as Trump is attempting to bully the very same newspaper. The only difference is that Nixon did it behind the scenes (where it might have stayed if it weren't for his taping system), while Trump is doing it out in the open.  

It would be a perfectly appropriate piece of an abuse-of-power article of impeachment. Trump took an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Trump has a positive obligation to protect the First Amendment's freedom of the press, something he violates nearly every day of his presidency generally and is very much doing specifically in attacking Amazon. That would be true even if his claims were based in truth; for what it's worth, they're laughably false.

It's certainly not enough to merit impeachment all by itself; impeachment and removal of a president is a very serious business, and one that should not be undertaken unless the need is overwhelming. If this was all Trump had done -- if it was all Nixon had done -- impeachment would be far too strong a response. However, add up all of Trump's misdeeds, both under the abuse of power and obstruction of justice categories, and we've moved into the middle ground, where impeachment would be appropriate but the offenses do not demand it. 

Unfortunately, new evidence and new violations of his oath of office keep piling up. A year ago, I would have said there's enough to justify impeaching and removing Trump but it would be a stretch for Congress to act. Now? The same, except it's really not a stretch at all. Granted, we'll probably know more when Robert Mueller's investigation ends. And in practical terms, a purely partisan impeachment with no realistic hope of conviction in the Senate is even harder to justify, so even if Democrats do as well as they hope in the November midterms, they'll still be far short of the necessary votes in the Senate unless a lot of Republicans support the effort. 

But that doesn't mean we should ignore this sort of thing. Trump is still running a lawless administration, and it's an embarrassment to the nation and damaging to U.S. democracy. 

1. Angela X. Ocampo on the importance of networked groups and parties for Latino/Latina electoral success. 

2. S.V. Date on new polling that shows most Trump voters think he's doing what he promised to do. Although some of the numbers are odd: Trump voters underestimate his success in areas he's actually fulfilled promises (such as nominating a Supreme Court justice) and overestimate it when he hasn't actually succeeded.

3. It's not just candidates: Michael Tackett reports on a new wave of women running campaigns. 

4. Eileen Drage O'Reilly at Axios on counting deaths from Hurricane Maria. 

5. And LaToya Ruby Frazier on the geographical aftermath of the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

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Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.net.

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