Why would he call for a 51-49 vote when he knows he could just say “This is just a bunch of politics. The AG said no collusion. Let the American people decide whether we need to impeach or not.”
Now if the economy collapses and people hate Trump, then that’s a game changer, but right now, if McConnell just nullifies the whole thing, what’s the consequence? Most Americans don’t want impeachment. I don’t know why this is so hard for libtards to understand.
My hypothesis, which the so-called “intelligent” netizens of SDMB laughed at me for, was that the president doesn’t get impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors; he gets impeached when the country is in a bad mood.
I think Congressional Democrats will launch impeachment proceedings in due course, since it’s their duty to do so, and as they are the adults in the room.
He would preside, but I think he would really only have authority on a particular matter if a majority of senators were prepared to back him up. AFAIK he would preside as an acting president of the Senate, not as a trial court judge, which means he would be extremely weak.
Of course Roberts would not decide what witnesses would appear. He would not decide whether witnesses would appear. But IF witnesses are allowed to testify on the floor of the Senate (do you think this will be a thing, really?), he would be the one to enforce both sides’ equal right to bring witnesses.
What Roberts would most likely do is more mundane. In the unlikely event that Mitch tried to keep the House team acting as prosecution from presenting the articles of impeachment on the Senate floor and stating fully their case for each article, Roberts would shut that shit down. If Mitch tried to give Trump’s defenders the bulk of the floor time, Roberts would shut that shit down too.
What exactly is Mitch going to do in an impeachment trial, other than that, that could rig the trial?
ISTM that it’s the other way around: in the matters I raised in my post to Sherrerd, he’d have authority until a majority of Senators voted to take it away from him.
It’s true that they could do that. They could vote to give the House impeachment managers only thirty minutes of floor time to make the case for each article, and give Trump’s defenders unlimited time to respond. But they’d have to vote to do that, with everyone watching.
I don’t think even this batch of Republicans has that much chutzpah. They’ll rig the rules if they need to when most of the public is paying minimal attention, like they did when they reduced the debate time per judicial nominee from 30 hours to 2 hours. Nobody except political junkies gives a shit about that. But let’s see them rig the rules of an impeachment trial with the cameras rolling and the nation watching.
I’m not sure why you’re optimistic about this. Why would you think there would be wall-to-wall coverage of procedural matters?
Wall-to-wall coverage of The Testimony of Ivanka Trump: sure.
Wall-to-wall coverage of votes on procedural rules–that I assure you would be expressed in the driest possible language–really? Seriously?
It’s the assertions I’ve highlighted above that I’ve been trying to get you and HMSI to support. All we have so far are your opinions.
Accounts of previous impeachment proceedings contain no content (that has been presented here) supporting the idea that a Chief Justice would say to a Senate Majority Leader, ‘you must allow the House managers another ten hours and another four witnesses’ (or anything analogous). And then, of course, enforcing any such instructions against the Majority Leader’s wishes.
If presiding over a Senate trial confers the authority to tell the Senate what length of time may be allotted to what witness testimony and similar matters, then the fact of that conferral must exist in written form. If it exists only in the imaginations of online posters, then it’s not particularly convincing.
Surely one of you can come up with something to support your claims…?
You’re the one talking about witnesses. I’m not. So you can say whatever you want about the zero witnesses I assume the House impeachment team will call, it doesn’t matter to me. Nothing into nothing, carry the nothing…
Has there been an impeachment trial where, when the House team made its case in support of each article of impeachment, the Senate cut it short and refused to give it the time it intended to use to make its case?
You must have found such a case, since you are so sure of what would happen if the Senate Majority Leader did such a thing. Please give specifics.
Ditto equal time: has there been an impeachment trial where the Senate refused to allow one side the same amount of time to make its case as the other side got to make its case? Tell me how that played out too, since you claim to have the support of the historical record here. Thanks muchly.
Do you have a better source? In terms of clarity, that is, not authoritativeness. I’m not at all clear about what CBS cut to the football game from.
Rather and Wikipedia agree that the House voted articles of impeachment against Clinton on Saturday, December 19, 1998. Rather seems to say CBS’ cutaway happened the next day, on Sunday, December 20:
‘The hearing’? *What *hearing, Dan? Hearings are held before the final vote, not after.
McConnell showed that when Obama had a supreme court vacancy to fill that sitting on one’s hands and doing nothing is acceptable. Today we have the white house simply refusing to cooperate with subpoenas, and there are no consequences. Even if the house does its impeachment thing, I would be surprised to zero degree if McConnell chose to sit on his hands again. It would actually surprise me if he chose to act in any way.
Yes, if you believe that re-electing Trump, who quite possibly will be largely ineffective in getting anything done due to House (and hopefully Senate) being controlled by the Democrats, is more dangerous to the future of this country than future presidents being sent a message that it’s okay, do whatever you want and you will not face any consequences or have to fear impeachment.
I don’t believe that. And I am taking into consideration that at the present time, it seems highly unlikely that Trump would even be convicted.
