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Impeach him for what specifically? The fact that someone on the internet identifying themselves as TriPolar doesn’t seem to like Trump doesn’t seem to qualify as treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
When you say “motivation”, are you referring to actual evidence of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, or are you referring to someone’s hurt feelings?
Being butt-hurt might be a motivation, as would a huge loss of seats in 2018. I mentioned an excuse as the evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, something the congress can define any way they want, but they do need something to hang their hat on.
He’s acting exactly in, or worse than, the ways that those who voted against him would predict.
The question is, is he acting in ways that those who supported him were expecting?
If the Senate so desired, they could vote impeachment based upon violations of the Emoluments Clause alone. Why do you think the Republicans have not pressed harder for Trump to divest himself of conflicts of interest? And if it turns out that Trump has facilitated or used influence to conceal the interactions of his campaign staff with Russian intelligence or otherwise obstructed investigation into Russian interference of the 2016 elections, the Republicans will basically have him by his shrunken testicles.
But it doesn’t matter; I’ll wager he doesn’t last long enough to even be impeached, and if noises started coming out of Mitch McConnell’s excuse for a face about impeachment hearings, Trump would resign faster than a Trump casino goes bankrupt, and if for some reason he tried to fight it he’d go down harder than Joe Pesci in a mob movie.
But that still leaves us with Mike Pence, the guy who believes that Pentecostals are too liberal and that “someday scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides even a remotely rational explanation for the known universe.”
Stranger
Mike Pence turning the United States into a Christian theocracy is pretty much an impossibility.
Donald Trump starting a worldwide depression or a nuclear war is perfectly likely.
Given a chance at a Supreme Court nomination or two, he’d try. I’m sure his nominee(s) will have a unique interpretation of the First Amendment.
I assume that’s a typo - impeachments arise from the House, not the Senate.
But assume that the unlikely happens, and the Dems take over Congress in 2018. And they decide to try to impeach. They are going to have to present a case that is convincing to, not only the nearly half of the electorate who voted for Trump, but others who did not vote for him, but have a strong interest in the rule of law. It’s not going to be enough to just say “under the Emoluments Clause” - what specifically did Trump do, and which law did he break? Or you want to say “because the Russians hacked the election”. Fine - how was Trump involved in that? Specifically.
Just saying “conflicts of interest” isn’t going to be enough. And also saying “high crimes and misdemeanors is whatever the House decides” is also not going to be enough. The Dems are going to have to prove to more than half the country that whatever they decide is enough to justify removing a President from office, especially if they don’t want impeachment to blow up in their faces as it did to some extent the last time it was tried. And the case against Clinton was a lot stronger than anything presented against Trump so far.
Sure, produce a tape where Trump says about the evidence of some crime “Let’s deep-six it, and throw it in the lake” or the transcript of a proceeding under oath where sex was explicitly defined to include oral sex where he said “Ah did not have sex with that woman”, and the Dems might get away with using impeachment instead of winning an election. Or they might not.
If anyone has acted to make Trump less impeachable, it’s the Dems yelling “Fire!” and then producing a burnt-out matchbook that used to belong to someone who worked at a Trump casino. Metaphorically speaking. What else have you got - that Flynn was on the White House staff for twenty minutes or so? That he issued executive orders that you don’t like? That he plays golf too much? His Twitter feed?
Look, I get it - Democrats hate Trump and want him out of office by any means, fair or foul. But if you haven’t got any fair means, it isn’t going to happen.
And all this stuff about how the GOP will cut him loose as soon as they feel like it is silly. They would blow their chance at keeping the White House in 2020 and probably in 2024 if they impeach Trump, especially on the kind of flimsy shit produced so far.
Careful - Bricker might take you up on that, and he doesn’t lose a lot of money on betting.
Regards,
Shodan
If the democrats take the house in 2018, and especially the senate, it will likely be on the back of Trump being a failure as a president, so it’s not going to take all that much convincing of the public to go along with his removal. The hard part would be the senate, as even if by some miracle, the democrats pick up all 9 seats that are available, that’s not enough to confirm an impeachment, so they would need to get republicans on board.
We don’t have to wait all that long, if Paul Ryan decides he wants to be president, and decides to impeach the entire administration, along with Pence. I can see no democrat voting against that, so he would just have to get his fellow republicans to go along with it. I am not betting on this scenario, in fact, if anyone thinks it is likely, I would be betting against it, but it is a possibility, one that I find amusing, if not likely.
What I do think to be likely is Trump resigning. He has already complained that being president isn’t as fun and easy as he thought it would be. He is under constant fire, not just from the left, but from the right, and the far right especially. He is probably making a decent amount of money off of being president right now, but if he continues to represent himself in this poor light, president or not, his brand will suffer enough that it is not economical to continue in the current fashion. He is also an old man, in not so great of health, and so the unexpected stress of the hardest job in the world is not making his health get any better. I don’t know that I want to wager money on it, but this seems a fairly likely scenario. Especially if he is convinced by Pence and co. to resign for “health reasons” before his scandals damage the entire administration and party.
I believe I mentioned a LIST…
I agree with your entire assessment; if the 2018 midterm election polls start indicating that GOP candidates are being kneecapped by their association with Trump, it will suddenly start being very important to the leadership to see that Trump goes. And I agree that a “resignation for health reasons” is the way it will go down (rather than an impeachment, which could harm Republicans in Congress).
He will be assured, privately, that he can keep all the loot he’s amassed so long as he doesn’t fight the decision to oust him. And he has amassed a lot already, between the mysterious record Inauguration fund (over $106 million–where is it?) and his takings from those wishing to curry favor with him at his resorts and condos-for-sale-at-inflated prices. And that’s not even touching on all he is probably getting under the table in the form of ‘pay for play’ that we never hear about.
It’s a lot. And the GOP leadership has, to hold over him, the prospect of actual prison time, if Mike Flynn has just the right story to tell.
Trump will resign, keeping all the loot (a few billion at least). The wild card is, as you mention, Paul Ryan and his personal ambitions. Will he want Pence out, too? That’s the unknown at this point.
Well, what’s not going on is the criminal activity necessary to bring impeachment proceedings. Kind of a major component, there.
I fervently hope for a Democratic and left-wing landslide so that this entire corrupt administration is brought down.
I think Ryan’s plan was that Clinton would get elected and he’d spend four years as the leader of the opposition attacking her. Then he’d challenge her for the Presidency in 2020 if she looked vulnerable or wait until 2024 if she looked secure.
Trump’s election caught Ryan by surprise and threw off his schedule. But now that it’s occurred he’s linked to it. Ryan can’t undermine Trump or Pence without weakening the party and Ryan doesn’t want to weaken the party he wants to be a candidate for.
The broader categories are Corruption, based mainly on his business dealings flouting the emoluments clause, and Treason, based on his dealings with and subservience to Putin. Yes, those are criminal activities.
Sherrerd is right, btw.
Treason? When has anyone been charge with, let along found guilty of, treason for dealings with a country we are NOT at war with. Even if the worst of the alleged Trump dealings with Russia are true, it’s simply not treason. Plus, it’s such a rare charge that it has very little precedent AT ALL. That would be a sure loser in the impeachment game.
If the Democrats come to power, there is enough going on with the emoluments clause and general “corruption” that a High Crimes and Misdemeanors impeachment could be easily put together. Adding in “Treason” puts it out in the loony area.
Of course, the most likely finale would be an acquittal in the Senate, so it would be fairly futile exercise, not unlike the one involving Clinton.
It probably wouldn’t fit the constitutionally defined crime of treason, but coordinating in any way with Russia to influence the election would be a “treasonous” behavior, as most people view treason (i.e. as a deep betrayal of country.) The constitutionally defined crime of treason requires a whole waging war element that wouldn’t be met in Trump’s case, but if the Russia probe shows a link between Trump and Russia conclusively showing Trump knowingly worked with Russia to influence the election he’d be in deep trouble politically and in terms of impeachment possibility.
An easy out for the GOP would be legislation that requires his tax returns. They can pretend to (finally) be taking a principled stand, but there is no way he will release those and he will resign first.
Good point; it’s a measure that wouldn’t necessarily enrage Trump voters in and of itself, as the decades-long rationale for Presidents releasing their return, as a way of revealing potential conflicts, is well-established. So it would be a relatively safe way to nudge Trump out. The measure wouldn’t have to be unanimous, either–those Republicans most vulnerable in 2018 could probably sit out the vote.
There’s also the question of information garnered in briefings, either during the transition or after inauguration, which might have been exchanged for cash or considerations.
I’m not saying that there’s evidence that such occurred. But given the personnel involved, it’s not impossible to believe that Trump was recorded agreeing to tell Turkey so-and-so at Turkey’s request, in exchange for ‘help’ on problems with Trump’s cash flow from his business concerns there (for example).
Depending on US relations with a hypothetical nation that might tell Trump that a bit of information he could easily give them would be to his advantage, something of that nature could be construed as “adhering to their [‘their’ being the States of the United States] Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” At the very least it would be sedition, in the sense of undermining the national security.
Again, I make no claim that this has happened. But I doubt that anyone can be entirely confident it has not happened.
Right - and if I had some bread, we could have a cheese sandwich, if I had some cheese.
Trump won the election. Get over it.
Regards,
Shodan
As soon as he accepts he won and stops campaigning.