Now, now…let’s not get all chicken little about all this.
N/m
I don’t exactly get why the Trump/Barr telling the DOJ to start investigating random democrats is that scary (in terms of the dems chances in 2020). The Russia investigation had staying power in the American consciousness because Mueller’s team was constantly getting convictions, guilty please and there was seriously incriminating allegations coming out in court. If the DOJ decides to investigate Warren for saying she had Native American heritage 30 years ago, they’re going to get their cases thrown out of court because they have no crime to charge her with and no witnesses to call.
And since people are going to bring up Hillary Clinton, the problem with her is twofold: for one the public already connected her to Bill Clinton who actually did try to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinski, and for Whitewater they at least brought witnesses (although I don’t think they could ever prove anything). For another she was working in the whitehouse when there were legitimate FOIA ethics concerns that the GOP could use to blow out of proportion. Most of the 2020 dems will be more like Obama where the GOP will have to completely make things up to try to blow out of proportion, which has the problem that you can’t ever actually get any kind of PR win in court if you’re completely fabricating wrongdoing.
Did a little digging and can’t turn up any suggestion of that being true. Regular oversight hearings or investigations work the same as if you labeled them as “for impeachment purposes”. Except maybe people infer that you’ve taken impeachment as a foregone conclusion, which might not be good.
I think that’s what Democrats are going for. Any effective impeachment would require the House to hold hearings and investigations well before the vote (as they did with Nixon). It would be stupid to run a process like the Republicans did around Nixon.
I think we all know there are going to be hearings and oversight. I think we know the endgame is to bring Trump to account so he’ll be out of office as soon as possible. I think we know impeachment articles are ultimately a dead letter in the Senate. So there’s a valid discussion to be had on when, or whether, we start characterize this as an impeachment process.
If we use the Nixonian process as a guide, the House will need 3-4 months of its own investigation and oversight. Add to that another 3-4 months of Senate investigation that the Senate won’t be performing this time around. Add to that another 3 months of investigate just for the sheer enormity of Trump’s shenanigans compared to Nixon’s, plus the added stonewalling from Barr, Senate Republicans, and the Republican-stacked Supreme Court. That puts the impeachment vote around January-April 2020, kicked over to the Senate for the summer.
I like that. Short enough to not be implausibly close to the election, long enough to be deliberate. I think Jan 2020 is a good time to force Republicans to choose whether they want to run a seriously wounded Trump or (as I keep repeating) a relatively unscathed Pence.
Pence is the wildcard here. Republicans love Trump, but if the odds are evenly split over 5-6 years of Pence vs 1-5 years of Trump, I think that could be really risky for Trump.
But according to that great legal scholar Bill Barr, you can’t have a coverup if there is no underlying crime. Unless receiving a blowjob is an offense, Clinton was well within his rights to lie about it.
If you brought the Bill Clinton situation forward to today, it would be DEMS impeaching him, not for lying, but for the BJ itself.
The convictions against Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI illustrate that you’re wrong. AFAIK, Attorney General Barr has never espoused the legal theory that you ascribe to him: that that lying to the FBI is ok.
Legal theory from Big-Deal Legal Scholar William Barr:
“If the president is being falsely accused, which the evidence now suggests that the accusations against him were false, and he knew they were false, and he felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents and was hampering his ability to govern, that is not a corrupt motive for replacing an independent counsel.”
Brilliant. Too bad Bill Clinton didn’t have *that *piece of insight available.
In that case, we’d have instituted impeachment proceedings on Trump months ago, given that something like 17 women have accused him of sexually assaulting them.
Since some of us have made some scary predictions, I’ll make one of my own: watch the US marshal service over the coming months - watch it closely.
That’s not a prediction, just a vaguely menacing suggestion. What are you afraid is going to happen or the US Marshals Service is going to do?
It’s not what the US Marshals Service is going to do; it’s what Trump is going to do to the US Marshal Service.
What are you afraid President Trump is going to do to the US Marshals Service?
You will see.
So, you’re not actually making a prediction. Shocking.
shrug alrighty then.
What role did he play in those convictions?
I don’t know about anyone saying that lying to the FBI is OK. Barr’s unique and stunning vision is that committing what would otherwise be obstruction of justice is OK if you are the President and you know that you are not guilty…then its totally hunky-dory. Presumably, it wouldn’t be OK if you are the President and you know you are guilty. But AG Barr sees into men’s soul’s and can ascertain the contents thereof. (See Cranston, Lamont)
You see, its all about “corrupt motives”. Which were previously thought to be about politics and power. And then came Barr!
And when it does go down, it will involve someone… I’m sensing the letter “L” or “R” or “J”… James, or John? Is there a John, Jim, Jane or Joan here? Someone here has recently lost someone very important to you… they have a message they want me to give you. Is the color blue meaningful? A blue house, or car, or maybe an article of clothing… possibly blue-green or green… maybe red…
:starts nodding violently, tears in my eyes: