Benjamin Wittes Profile picture
Nov 26, 2017 19 tweets 7 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Statement of Principles of the #CoalitionOfAllDemocraticForces of the United States of America: A political manifesto in eighteen tweets. /1/
#IBelieve that any issue that Americans do not need to be actively contesting right now across traditional left-right divisions, Americans need to be *not* actively contesting right now across traditional left-right divisions. /2/
We have grave disagreements about social issues, about important foreign policy questions, about tax policy, about whether entitlements should be reformed or expanded, about what sort of judges should serve on our courts. #IBelieve in putting them all aside. /3/
#IBelieve in a temporary truce on all such questions, an agreement to maintain the status quo on major areas of policy dispute while Americans of good faith collectively band together to face a national emergency. #IBelieve that facing that national emergency requires unity. /4/
#IBelieve that reasonable Americans across the political spectrum should unite around a political program based on the protection of American democracy and democratic institutions. /5/
#IBelieve that means, among other things, an active defense of the First Amendment’s protections of free speech, press, and religion. /6/
#IBelieve it also means a focus on ethics in government and a long-term battle against the corruption-prone opacity surrounding the President’s personal finances and business interests. /7/
#IBelieve it also means opposition to the abuses of power the President has called for or promised or attempted during his campaign, his transition, and his months in office—from prosecuting political opponents to retaliating against media to interfering with law enforcement. /8/
#IBelieve in supporting investigations that will shine a searchlight onto the administration and its conduct. And #IBelieve in supporting the men and women of American law enforcement who are conducting those investigations. /9/
#IBelieve in supporting the men and women of the bureaucracy who are courageous enough to come forward and assist those investigations. /10/
#IBelieve in the work of our intelligence community in the performance of its professional duties. #ISupport the men and women who are doing that work. /11/
#IBelieve in the restoration of decency—decency in presidential conduct, in America’s treatment of refugees and migrants, in its treatment of domestic minorities, and in the way the president talks about foreign nations and individuals. /12/
#IBelieve in respecting America’s alliances and in keeping our word. When the USA promises something, that promise must have meaning. That’s true promises to our abroad. It’s also true of promises to individuals of protection and sanctuary and rights. /13/
#IBelieve in getting answers to the many unanswered questions about the relationship between the President and his entourage and the Russian Federation. /14/
#IBelieve in rejecting the demonization of Muslims and Muslim Americans. Full stop. /15/
#IBelieve in the regular order—that process matters and that shoot-from-the-hip ideological government has no place in our policy decision-making systems. /16/
#IBelieve in expertise, in evidence, and in moral seriousness about hard decisions, both domestic and foreign. /17/
#IBelieve in preserving a country, and in fighting to preserve a country, in which we can disagree about the many important issues that divide us. /18/
That's all I got.

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More from @benjaminwittes

Aug 25, 2020
Because somewhere, there is a 15-year-old girl being terrorized online, there's a gay kid getting get hate emails from someone at school, an African American college student who is putting up with degrading stuff a colleague would never say in public but sends in private.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 23, 2018
Good thread.

Due process is clearly the wrong concept here. If it were, presumably Merrick Garland was entitled to due process too—having a hearing in the first place. There is no evidence that the Senate believes a nominee is entitled to anything as a matter of right.
If the Senate wants to establish norms and expectations about what it will and won’t do in nominations, I’m all for that. I wrote a whole book arguing for it, in fact. But you can’t refuse to hold a hearing for one highly qualified nominee and then...
...insist for another that the standards within a hearing that you reserve the right not to hold at all comport with the norms of a judicial proceeding.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 22, 2018
I don’t know the truth of #sarcasmgate and I really don’t want to see Rod Rosenstein get fired. But both @nytmike and @adamgoldmanNYT are excellent reporters. They are under a lot of fire today. Reminder that their job is not to tell you what you want to hear. That’s all I got.
Another thing: I don’t know how the Times got access to this material but I don’t believe it was White House leaks. I am unaware of the White House having access to the McCabe material.
Still another thing: this was a crazy time. Really crazy. I can’t fathom why McCabe would have memorialized a sarcastic joke—unless he misunderstood it as serious. That’s certainly possible.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 14, 2018
Boom!
lawfareblog.com/document-super…
Prior Lawfare Manafort coverage available here: lawfareblog.com/tagged/paul-ma…
I am going to refrain from commenting on this until I see whatever plea agreement, stipulation of fact, and other material gets released today. Anyone who is commenting before that is probably getting ahead of the game.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 8, 2018
These three threads from @DavidLat are very strong and worth your time. I would like to add a couple of points that apply to all three lines of questioning: Do you really think Brett Kavanaugh is so dumb—so mind-numbingly, idiotically stupid—as to lie under oath in this setting?
Even if you hate the guy, take a deep breath and consider: Kavanaugh is a very good lawyer. Very good. He was being asked about matters he knew were going to come up. He was being asked about prior testimony that took place more than a decade ago. He had time to prepare.
Any statute of limitations for that prior testimony is long passed. In other words, he could face no possible exposure for his prior statements—except if he doubled down on them in new testimony.
Read 14 tweets
Sep 3, 2018
I was surprised this morning to receive on Twitter from @EVKontorovich and on email from @jacklgoldsmith responses to my Twitter thread of yesterday that reflect a real misinterpreting of what I was trying to say. Here's the original thread:
I don't back off what I said yesterday but my regard for both Jack and Eugene is such that I assume that if they could misread me so completely, others no doubt did as well. So please indulge me a few words of clarification.
First, the tweet thread was not ever meant to be about millions of my fellow citizens or about the general Trump-supporting voter. I wrote it specifically in response to @Kasparov63's tweet of an article about Lindsey Graham. It was about leadership cadres figures.
Read 12 tweets

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