The Worst Presidents Club
Does Donald Trump really think it’s a good idea to emulate … James Buchanan?
by CHARLES SYKES
MAY 21, 2019 11:02 AM
Not only did a federal judge hand President Trump a stinging defeat Monday on his attempts to block a House subpoena of his financial records, he did it by explicitly lumping Trump in with one of the nation’s worst presidents.
If only Trump knew enough history to feel the burn.
Judge Amit Mehta opened his decision by quoting President James Buchanan protesting against a congressional investigation, claiming that it was merely a means of “furnishing material for harassing [the President], degrading him in the eyes of the country.”
I do, therefore, . . . solemnly protest against these proceedings of the House of Representatives, because they are in violation of the rights of the coordinate executive branch of the Government, and subversive of its constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own advantage, to swear before ex parte committees to pretended private conversations between the President and themselves, incapable, from their nature, of being disproved; thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading him in the eyes of the country . . . – President James Buchanan
Buchanan, whose feckless presidency was defined by the Dred Scott decision and his invertebrate response to the secession of the South, was objecting to the House’s decision to investigate whether his administration had sought to improperly influence the actions of Congress.
He argued that Congress had no general powers to investigate him, outside of formal impeachment proceedings. If Congress were allowed to investigate his conduct outside of impeachment, he warned, it “would establish a precedent dangerous and embarrassing to all my successors, to whatever political party they might be attached.”
“Some 160 years later,” wrote Judge Mehta, “President Donald J. Trump has taken up the fight of his predecessor.”....
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