Is Trump Above the Law?

It is a long shot that the Democrats will win a majority in the Senate in 2020.

Cartoon by Bill Bramhall, NY Daily News

(SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.) - Although the Supreme Court in Clinton v. Jones ruled a sitting president is not above the law, I'm not so sure this is true in fact in the case of President Donald Trump.

Normally the U.S. Constitution’s checks and balances would rein in a rogue president like Trump. But presently we have a U.S. Senate controlled by Trump-enabling Republicans and a Supreme Court packed by a Republican-controlled Senate.

Of course, the Democratically-controlled U.S. House of Representatives can conduct oversight hearings, but so far, Trump has successfully stonewalled/delayed testimony and document production. (True, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has said he will honor the subpoena and testify publicly before two House committees on July 17.)

The House can also impeach Trump but his stonewalling has delayed House action and time may be running out. Soon any impeachment proceeding would run up against the 2020 primaries and presidential election.

Of course, given the Republican majority in the Senate, there is little likelihood Trump would be convicted in an impeachment proceeding.

It is a long shot that the Democrats will win a majority in the Senate in 2020.

Trump once said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” He may be right.

That leaves the 2020 presidential election as the only realistic option to remove Trump from office. Hopefully the Democrats won’t again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.