<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;background-color:rgb(250,250,250);vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-06/trump-s-wiretap-tweets-raise-risk-of-impeachment"><span style="color:black">www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-06/trump-s-wiretap-tweets-raise-risk-of-impeachment</span></a><span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:3.75pt 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Trump's Wiretap Tweets Raise Risk of Impeachment<span></span></span></b></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:1.2pt">MARCH
6, 2017 1:42 PM EST<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">By <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/AFZ_b1F72Xw/noah-feldman"><span style="color:black">Noah Feldman</span></a><span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">The
sitting president <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-04/trump-calls-obama-sick-claims-trump-tower-was-wiretapped"><span style="color:black">has accused</span></a> his
predecessor of an act that could have gotten the past president impeached.
That’s not your ordinary exercise of free speech. If the accusation were true,
and President Barack Obama ordered a warrantless wiretap of Donald Trump during
the campaign, the scandal would be of Watergate-level proportions.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">But if
the allegation is not true and is unsupported by evidence, that too should be a
scandal on a major scale. This is the kind of accusation that, taken as part of
a broader course of conduct, could get the current president impeached. We
shouldn’t care that the allegation was made early on a Saturday morning on
Twitter.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">The
basic premise of the First Amendment is that truth should defeat her opposite
number. “Let her and Falsehood grapple,” wrote the poet and politician John
Milton, “who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">But
this rather optimistic adage only accounts for speech and debate between
citizens. It doesn’t apply to accusations made by the government. Those are
something altogether different.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">In a
rule of law society, government allegations of criminal activity must be followed
by proof and prosecution. If not, the government is ruling by innuendo.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Shadowy
dictatorships can do that because there is no need for proof. Democracies
can’t.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Thus,
an accusation by a president isn’t like an accusation leveled by one private
citizen against another. It’s about more than factual truth or carelessness.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">The
government’s special responsibility has two bases. One is that you can’t sue
the government for false and defamatory speech. If I accused Obama of
wiretapping my phone, he could sue me for libel. If my statement was knowingly
false, I’d have to pay up. On the other hand, if the president makes the same
statement, he can’t be sued in his official capacity. And a private libel suit
mostly likely wouldn’t go anywhere against a sitting president -- for <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-11/supreme-court-never-imagined-a-litigant-like-president-trump"><span style="color:black">good reason</span></a>, because the
president shouldn’t be encumbered by lawsuits while in office.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">The
second reason the government has to be careful about making unprovable
allegations is that its bully pulpit is greater than any other. True, as an
ex-president, Obama can defend himself publicly and has plenty of access to the
news media. But even he doesn’t have the audience that Trump now has. And
essentially any other citizen would have far less capacity to mount a defense
than Obama.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">For
these reasons, it’s a mistake to say simply that Trump’s accusation against
Obama is protected by the First Amendment.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">False
and defamatory speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">And an
allegation of potentially criminal misconduct made without evidence is itself a
form of serious misconduct by the government official who makes it.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">When
candidate Trump said Hillary Clinton was a criminal who belonged in prison, he
was exposing himself to a libel suit. And the suit might not have succeeded,
because Trump could have said he was making a political argument rather than an
allegation of fact.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">But
when President Trump accuses Obama of an act that would have been impeachable
and possibly criminal, that’s something much more serious than libel. If it
isn’t true or provable, it’s misconduct by the highest official of the
executive branch.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">How is
such misconduct by an official to be addressed? There’s a common-law tort of
malicious prosecution, but that probably doesn’t apply when the government
official has no intention to prosecute.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">The
answer is that the constitutional remedy for presidential misconduct is
impeachment.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">That
would have been the correct remedy if Obama had “ordered” a wiretap of the
Republican presidential candidate’s phones. The president has no such legal
authority. Only a court can order a domestic wiretap, and that only after a
showing of probable cause by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Breaking
the law by tapping Trump’s phones would have been an abuse of executive power
that implicated the democratic process itself. Impeachment is the remedy for
such a serious abuse of the executive office.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">That
includes abuse of office in the form of serious accusations against political
opponents if they turn out to be false and made without evidence. These, too,
deform the democratic process.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">The
Constitution speaks of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” A lot of
ink has been spilled over these words, which date back at least to impeachment <a href="http://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.MSS.3.1152"><span style="color:black">proceedings</span></a> in the
14th century. This isn’t the place for a detailed analysis.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Suffice
it to say that what makes crimes “high” is that they pertain to the exercise of
government office. That’s exactly what accusations by the executive are:
actions that take on their distinctive meaning because they are made by
government officials.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">What’s
more, government acts that distort and undercut the democratic process are
especially serious and worthy of impeachment. The Watergate break-in to the
Democratic National Committee headquarters was part of an effort to steal the
1972 election. A wiretap of Trump’s campaign would’ve had political
implications.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">And
accusing the past Democratic president of an impeachable offense is every bit
as harmful to democracy, assuming it isn’t true. Obama is the best-known and
most popular Democrat in the country. The effect of attacking him isn’t just to
weaken him personally, but to weaken the political opposition to Trump’s
administration.<span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:15pt;line-height:150%;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Given
how great the executive’s power is, accusations by the president can’t be
treated asymmetrically. If the alleged action would be impeachable if true, so
must be the allegation if false. Anything else would give the president the
power to distort democracy by calling his opponents criminals without ever having
to prove it.<span></span></span></p><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>   <div style="height:auto;width:auto">   <div> <div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.3333px">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. </span><br style="font-size:13.3333px"><br style="font-size:13.3333px"><span style="font-size:13.3333px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. 
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance 
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not 
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it 
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your 
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
<br><br></div></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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