That Third Rate Burglary

I don't remember a constitutional issue being involved in the Watergate scandal, unless it was the argument about executive privilege, which was kind of a fringe issue.  The main issue was the coverup of that third rate burglary.  Everybody knew about the burglary before the election, but I guess it was assumed that Nixon himself was not directly involved.  It was later revealed that Nixon at least knew about the burglary and ordered his people to "stonewall", which I guess meant to pretend that they knew nothing about it.  This would have made him guilty of obstruction of justice, or something like that, which is a crime, but not a violation of the Constitution.

I agree with Uncle Ken about that Kurdish thing.  I understand that the animosity between the Kurds and the Turks goes way back, but the presence of US troops had kind of put a lid on it.  The Kurds were not likely to renew hostilities and risk losing US support, and the Turks were not likely to attack the Kurds with our soldiers standing among them.  The speed at which the Turks did attack suggests that they had advance knowledge of the US pullout.  It could be said that Trump tipped them off in exchange for some business or personal favor, but that would be just paranoid.

I asked Cortana about Joe Swallow, since she is a much better searcher than I am.  It seems that he is still practicing law in Alpena, Michigan, at least his law firm is still listed as being active, although I didn't see any reference to any recent activity.  I did find an email address and plan to contact him this weekend to see if he remembers that welfare case that I mentioned in 2013.  The more I think about it, Uncle Ken didn't doubt the existence of the judge himself, just the existence of the case in question.  The way I remember it, Judge Joe represented a young girl who had been denied welfare benefits, claiming that the only reason for the denial was that she was White.  I think the case was history by the time I heard about it, and I never did hear how it turned out.