Many? Who has claimed there must be a vote as soon as possible without accompanying hearings and investigations? Can you name one?
McConnell has the power to decide whether to change the Senate rules to have the trial at all. He could do that, and it would cost Republicans mightily. Once the trial starts, it’s really not his ballgame anymore.
It seems like you’re determined to make me wear down your imaginary concept of the process while walking back what you actually said, so let’s save ourselves both the time and agree that the impeachment process is risky for all parties involved.
Thank you for the clarification and patience with my confusion.
I was 15 in early 1973 when the Senate hearings began. I paid attention but didn’t grasp the finer points of Senate and/or House committees as regards who was doing what. I just remembered Senate hearings on impeachment.
It’s not like we have a broad body of impeachment proceedings from which to draw experience. There’s Watergate, and there’s Whitewater. Each matter was handled in its own way. Neither is particularly instructive for what we’re dealing with today.
I have been trying to puzzle out why Pelosi has chosen what appears to be an unpopular track. My best guess: She does not want to cede the ground of impeachment to the Senate, where they can hold competing “impeachment” hearings while she simultaneously conducts “oversight” hearings. Once she loses control of the process, there is no coming back from her choice.
I am positive McConnell has some nasty trick up his sleeve to circumvent an honest impeachment/removal process. I suspect Pelosi is aware he does, too. And perhaps that explains her choices.
I wanted Trump impeached on the day he walked into the Oval Office because I believe he was already in violation of his oath of office. But I think I understand why Pelosi wishes to do it as she is doing.
So long as there is ultimately a vote to impeach, I’m ok with waiting longer and having as many hearings in the House as can be stuffed into the available time. I don’t care what they call those hearings.
On this we agree. There are the rules, and then there are the other rules. But rules are rules.
Yeah, right now what I’m thinking is an HJC select committee on the comprehensive misdeeds of the President, to include collusion, emoluments, and ongoing foreign influence, followed by impeachment hearings, followed by an impeachment vote.
And then… McConnell could simply decline to deliberate on the articles, but I don’t think he’d go that far. It would go to trial, which of course he’d sabotage and sandbag. Odds are he’d secure an acquittal, though I don’t think that’s a slam-dunk. But in this entire process, we’d see more evidence of Trump’s criminality, and of the GOP complicity in abetting the same. This would enter into electoral calculations in 2020. Some would think the Republicans would be better off trying 2020 with a relatively unscathed Pence.
I don’t know. There are too many variables to reckon with. But I feel like the scenario I laid out above is the Democrats’ only chance of achieving some accountability and control and sanity over the executive branch.
I could. I chose a few posts from the first 20 of this long thread, expression the ‘impeach now, so what about hearings’ idea. But I removed the names, as the point isn’t to call anyone out. (Well, my point isn’t, anyway.)
Have some of those people come around to the idea that ‘extensive hearings should be held FIRST, then talk about impeachment’…? Yes, they have.
As of today, there’s still a lot of pressure all over social media for House members to IMPEACH NOW and hearings be damned. I continue to believe that’s a mistake.
You’re just wrong about this. McConnell is the decision-maker; Roberts would merely be a non-voting presiding officer. Why not do some reading to educate yourself?
Here’s an official 1986 govinfo document, that shows how wrong you are about the idea that the Chief Justice will be deciding how the “ballgame” is organized, conducted, and carried out:
…for fucks sakes. “IMPEACH NOW” does not mean “hearings be damned.” Hearings are part of the process. Calling for impeachment means calling for hearings. “IMPEACH NOW” does not mean “this vote MUST take place as soon as possible”. Even the framing “IMPEACH NOW” is a gross mischaracterization of the position held by people like Warren, AOC and co. You cited only a single poster, not many posters, who fit the characterization of your statement, and that person was clearly being hyperbolic.
You are hearing one thing but imagining another.
Says the person who only realised how impeachment works a couple of days ago.
It’s fascinating to see the ‘anti-impeachment’ argument from someone who clearly feels that the entire question of impeachment is inappropriate in the case of the particular president being accused of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Those trying to argue that Trump is totally innocent of same, do not remotely have grounds for their position comparable to the grounds detailed by the Hofstra Law Review author (Michael J. Gerhardt).
Gerhardt concentrated much of his argument on the (in his view) overreaching powers granted the Independent Counsel. As has often been remarked in recent months, the demise of the I.C. Act that occurred as a result of a widespread alarm about those powers, had the unfortunate effect of leaving Mueller’s investigation overly vulnerable to interference.
The most telling portion of that article for the question of your misconception about how the trial would work,
…occurs in part III, “THE POSSIBLE LESSONS OF PRESIDENT CLINTON’S IMPEACHMENT AND ACQUITTAL” (all-caps in the article; bolding in previous quote mine.)
Look at the discussion of the question of Senators voting on a ‘finding of fact’ that begins about page 378 (there is some useful information on ‘censure’ as a tool beginning two pages earlier). In the recounting of how and why and who was deciding on such a vote, there is no mention of Rhenquist. Why not?
If he was—as you claim—in charge, shouldn’t the account detail his decisions and rulings on these trial matters? According to you, once the trial starts, it’s not the Senate Majority Leader’s ballgame anymore. Or as you wrote earlier:
Again, this fantasy of yours, that Roberts, not McConnell, would be the decision-maker, is simply wrong.
Your post demonstrates the weakness of your position.
An improvement would surely result if you would read the posts to which you reply. For example:
Your claims are contradicted by this post, which apparently you didn’t read. Or perhaps ‘understanding’ was your roadblock. In any case, you are making no headway with putting across your side of the argument.
…your inability to post a proper rebuttal demonstrates the weakness of your position. For example:
That post has nothing to do with your original claim which you were asked for evidence for. That original claim was:
This isn’t even broadly accurate. Its a strawman piled on top of strawmen because you can’t be bothered debating what people actually say.
And this?
Except people haven’t “come around to this.” Unlike you people advocating for impeachment actually know what impeachment means. Unlike you they know that extensive hearings are held first.
I’ll say it again: you are mischaracterizing what people like Warren and AOC are arguing.
My claim is **not **contradicted by that post. The first part of that post was a “bait and switch”, the second part of that post was what my post was directly rebutting. Its absurd to claim the rebuttal contradicted the post it was addressing, even if you disagree with the rebuttal.
… is a portion that you’re not going to quote or cite, just like the rest of the text you’re alluding to, because you know you’re wrong and you need to bang the table. Go ahead, bang on.
It can, has been, and will continue to be argued that “the right thing” is to annihilate the Republican Party, and that the “wrong thing” is to take an ultimately futile action that will result in a reinvigorated Republican Party.
The question seems to be “which of those two conditions will be advanced by impeachment?”
Well, you have a point, if the Pubbies can be relied upon to keep their traps shut and not step in front of the nearest microphone to “rebut” anything that comes out of the hearings. whatever dribbles out of their cakeholes in those “rebuttals” will be useful fodder in the campaigns against them.
Do YOU think they’ll be able to keep their traps shut? 'cos I don’t.