Article V: The New, Improved, Fairer-to-Me Constitution

In his first thirty-five months in office, President Trump proved that he was:

1. Pro-collusion

2. Pro-obstruction of justice

3. Pro-abuse of powers

With this Ukrainian thing—the famous phone call of July 25, 2019—POTUS is on record as being pro–shakedowns of foreign governments for personal political gain. Without threatening to break his knee caps, wasn’t it awesome the way he held those Javelin anti-tank missiles to the head of the Ukrainian president, asking to do him “a favor, though” by digging up schmutz on the corrupt Sleepy Joe Biden & Son—or else!

President Can-You-Do-Me-a-Favor-Though since Election Day 2016 has been as busy as the Framers—the thirty-nine who eventually signed the document that has been the supreme law of the land since 1789—serving as a one-man Constitutional Convention, eliminating the need for a costly assembly of delegates from all the states, savings that can be used for building his wall, which Mexico and Congress refuse to finance.

Mr. Trump claims to love the Constitution. He would marry it, if third wife Melanoma doesn’t work out. But it needs fixing.

We have already seen such improvements as a self-revised emolument clause that allows the president and his family to operate a hostel at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., an oasis for foreign delegations and lobbyists catering to the Great White Father up the street at 1600 Pennsylvania.

I’m talking about the fabulous Trump International Hotel, where a standard one-bedroom suite (on October 29, 2019), went for $16,282.02. I was afraid to ask if that was for a month or a year, but suspect it was the daily rate. Nonrefundable! BOOK NOW, as the hotel website urged. A brief visit to negotiate, say, an arms deal would put a serious dent in the GNP of some shithole nation while its delegation curried favor with the First Hotelier.

It also makes possible the strategy of Air Force personnel patronizing the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland after refueling at Prestwick, an airport only twenty miles away, rather than at a military base, which would have been cheaper.

According to Politico, the USAF has lodged Air National Guard crews at the beautiful Turnberry waterside property at least forty times since 2015. Crews of five to nearly forty people have had such good fortune at least four times since September 2018. Did the innkeeper president at least comp his airmen?

Turnberry, according to Politico, lost $4.5 million in 2017, but saw an increase in revenue of $3 million in 2018. They must be doing something right. Maybe it was adopting a new slogan: DONALD TRUMP SLEPT HERE.

“I know nothing about an Air Force plane landing at an airport (which I do not own and have nothing to do with) near Turnberry Resort (which I do own) in Scotland, and filling up with fuel, with the crew staying overnight at Turnberry (they have good taste),” Honest Don tweeted (September 13, 2019) “NOTHING TO DO WITH ME.”

Elsewhere in Washington, the practice raised conflict-of-interest concerns in the House because the Constitution prohibits the president from receiving money from the federal government, other than his salary.

In fairness, Trump the patriot eschewed taking any salary when elected. But, of course, there is no way the zero paycheck can be confirmed or denied, until he releases his tax forms.

Besides the inalienable right to lie or make false statements—he has made 12,019 false or misleading claims over the first 928 days of his administration, as compiled by the Washington Post—the president’s most impressive accomplishment in office has been his interpretation of the executive powers part of the Constitution.

As he sees it, Article II, Section 2 allows him to do whatever he wants to do. For justification, he cites his gut, gastric central from which all executive decisions emanate, and which sometimes can be confused with breaking wind.

Although he has sworn to obey and uphold the Constitution, etc., etc., as the duly elected president, he has given himself a bye on whatever he swore to. That’s because the Constitution, which he hasn’t had time to read or have it read to him, is a complex document that is still being debated by scholars in conservative think tanks. Until they find out what it really means, he has the right to abuse his powers to the best of his abilities, so help him God.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia chose to disagree. Observing on a case of Executive Office stonewalling, Judge Jackson stated, “Presidents are not kings.”

Well, that’s her opinion. The judge, who is on the president’s “DO NOT INVITE TO DINNER” list at the White House and can forget about free golf days at the four Trump golf clubs in her jurisdiction, added the presidential legal arguments are “a fiction.”

That doesn’t cut ice for a person with an emperor complex whose reign is an absolute fantasy come true.

The pen is mightier than the sword, as it has been written earlier in these pages. Even mightier is the eraser, the tool the president is employing in dealing with the annoyance of an Impeachment Inquiry and Trial, as required by the Constitution.

His new rules include:

1. No subpoenas for White House officials.

2. No answering questions from congressional committees.

3. No releasing of documents, transcripts, emails, texts, correspondence, etc.

4. No congressional oversight of any kind.

5. No following of Rules of Law.

6. No whatever else the Constitution or traditional practice deems proper, especially if it might tend to be incriminating.

In the unlikely event that such an unlawful waste of time and energy called “impeachment” be perpetrated on the American people, the president has the right to label it “a partisan scam, a hoax, a witch hunt,” the greatest since Salem 1692.

All of which raises the profound question:

Is this president above the law?

Which law is that? In his execution of the presidency, he is so far above the existing laws he is out there where the buses don’t run. High up in the sky, in the wild blue yonder of the Trumposphere where only true Trumpistas can breathe, Donald J. Trump is the law!

What quick-to-find-fault critics who are still trying to undo the 2016 election results don’t seem to understand is that Trump, the party of one, currently revising and improving the basic law of the land, thinks this is his Constitution, just as it is his Javelin missiles, his SEALs, his army, his air force, his ambassadors, whom he can claim not to know when they testify against him.

I, the People, as the preamble to the Constitution Second draft might begin, will make clear that premature removal from office is a nonstarter for No. 45, if not future presidents.

A priori, therefore, Ukraine-gate is a Trumped-up case. All the socialists in Congress have against him are his own words. As we say in New Jersey, fuggedboutit.