More Possible Grounds For Obama Impeachment

In Will Obama Be Impeached? Watch The Stock Market, I looked at the various scandals involving the Obama Administration and then looked to the stock market as a barometer of how presidents deal with scandal. Only Nixon was impeached in the midst of a major bear market in stocks. The other presidents had similarly serious scandals, but positive social mood kept them in office.

Obama too is benefiting from rising stocks and positive social mood, but his term isn't over. Additionally, the list of scandals keeps growing.

Allegations of CIA spying on the Senate deserve investigation

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, has been an ally of Obama and a staunch defender of the administration during the controversy over the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. So her credibility could not be questioned when she went public, reluctantly, to accuse Obama’s CIA of illegal and unconstitutional actions: violating the separation of powers by searching the committee’s computers and intimidating congressional staffers with bogus legal threats.

All of this was allegedly being done to keep quiet information about the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs during the George W. Bush administration. Feinstein said that the CIA’s actions may have violated the Constitution’s speech-and-debate clause and the Fourth Amendment, not to mention criminal law and the ban on domestic spying by the CIA.

Executive branch abuse of power on a Nixonian scale.

Obama also should remove those people involved in spying on the Senate panel and in harassing Senate staffers. First out should be Robert Eatinger, the CIA’s acting general counsel. Previously, Eatinger had been a lawyer in the unit that conducted the interrogation program at the heart of the Senate’s probe. Eatinger, Feinstein said, filed a “crimes report” with the Justice Department suggesting that congressional staffers had stolen the Panetta Review.

The staffers, Feinstein said, “were provided access to the Panetta Review by the CIA itself. As a result, there is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting counsel general’s referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff.” The president might also consider whether he wants to tolerate the imperious behavior of CIA Director John Brennan, who promptly dismissed Feinstein’s allegations Tuesday. Feinstein said that Brennan had previously told her that the CIA would continue snooping on the committee staff.

What to do about it?

The accusations of constitutional violations — coming after the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, misled Congress about the NSA programs — are more serious and better documented than wrongdoing alleged by Republicans in the IRS or Benghazi “scandals” subjected to numerous probes. In the House, Democrats say they’d support a bipartisan investigation of the CIA’s actions.

That’s not likely to happen because the allegations don’t suggest political motives and because the Obama administration is concealing information about the Bush administration’s torture program. But if Republicans really care about protecting the Constitution, they’ll join Feinstein in demanding justice.

Those haven't really been investigated. If this turns into a bipartisan investigation of the Obama Administration, they will find more dirt. Then the question will be where is the stock market? If it is sharply lower, Obama may well face impeachment or at least become the weakest president since the 19th Century.