I wish I believed that was so. I believe that under those circumstances, Mitch will block any action, and the Republicans will remain a viable party anyway - temporarily reduced in power, but no more than that.
May events prove that you’re right and I’m wrong.
Why would they want to put all their eggs in one basket? It’s not like having a few more charges is likely to make the impeachment more likely.
Instead, I’d think they’ll do like they do in cases like multiple murders- they’ll impeach on one or two charges, and save the rest in case of a mistrial, procedural wonkiness, or just a jury of assholes. That way, if it fails, they can try again.
I don’t believe that impeachment should be attempted prior to Congress getting a final report from Mueller and/or the House investigation turning up actionable offenses. It’s my opinion that money laundering, racketeering, obstruction of justic, emolument violations, and improper quid pro quos with hostile nations will be shown to have occurred. If this happens, the House has the duty to impeach, regardless of the prevailing opinion of the Senate. Yes, we get talk of frivolous impeachment against every president. But that should not inoculate a real crook from impeachment and conviction. Now if the House impeaches and the Senate either ignores it or votes to acquit, then the Republican Senate will be held accountable.
It’s going to take twenty, or more, Republican Senators to impeach Trump. Obviously cannot happen as things now stand.
My guess is that only about half the current Democratic House membership favors “impeach the MFer” at this time.
My second guess is that Mueller is going to find ten or fifteen charges Trump could be indicted on.
If Trump is smart, he’ll work out a resignation deal where he is not prosecuted in exchange for resigning the presidency. (Remember Spiro Agnew?)
In that case Pence becomes president. What if he is also implicated? The GOP would absolutely block any successful impeachment action against him (because Pelosi) but would be happy to support his nominee for VEEP. (remember Rocky?) If the Democrats find that person to be reasonable, they’d go along with the nomination.
At that point Pence could resign under the same kind of deal as Agnew-Trump. The appointed VEEP (maybe Romney?) would then become prez and name another VEEP.
Absolutely. And I think that they throw the book at him (literally…I literally want to see a big ass book bounce off his orange haired head), not some sort of plea deal. We need to know, as a nation, that if a President steps out of line this far that someone is actually a check on that and willing to take him or her down all the way and send them to prison. While I think it would be painful for us as a nation, I also think it might go a long way towards healing the country of this cycle of partisan madness, as well as the insanity of putting this idiot in the White House in the first place.
I would point out that, unlike most presidential appointments, the appointment of a VP would need to pass the House as well and not merely the Senate.
That already occured with Bill Clinton. But yeah, if the Dems did it , it would start a spiral.
Wait for Mueller to finish his investigation.
So…Jimmy Carter?
YEs and no. What I see is that the question is - what will the great mass of voters see as a valid reason to remove someone from office? This is the judgement the politicians have to make - how will it play in Peoria if I vote yea or nay or avoid the vote?
Break-and-enter, bugging an election opponent’s office, and then escalating efforts to cover it up and obstruct prosecution of your minions and eventually yourself (best interpretation, a sense of misplaced loyalty to your people)? Yes.
Lying under oath in a matter irrelevant to the governance of the country? (NOT for blowjobs, for perjury)? Probably not.
So the question will be - what will they find on Trump? Much as I’d love to see him go I don’t think the average voter thinks exceeding campaign laws is a reason to impeach. Nor do they think paying off your large-breasted side pieces is so bad. If they are going to find something that even the more level-headed republicans (at least 20 senators) are going to support, it would be something like proof of collusion (“He’s a witch!”) or serious financial shenanigans. Even then the proof would have to be more explicit than “he-said-he-said”; they’d need serious undeniable proof like recordings, that for example, he sat in on planning sessions for getting Russian intelligence or that he was negotiating Trump Tower Moscow while president or somethin (or a Golden Shower tape, maybe).
I’m skeptical that even serious weird details in his tax returns would result in impeachment.
I think the only way he’s going is if he makes a slip so bad that everyone insists he get checked by a real doctor to assess his dementia.
That depends on Republicans perceiving it as such. Otherwise, this would be like America dropping atomic bombs on a nuke-armed Japan during WWII, saying, “This will prevent future Pearl Harbors and serve as a historical lesson”…when the Japanese will see it as an excuse to drop A-bombs on California in response.
[QUOTE=doorhinge;21416643. Bill was impeached for lying and getting caught trying to cover his tracks…[/QUOTE]
…about a blowjob. You can try to sidestep that point as much as you like. It’s still the center of the issue. :dubious:
This is a real potential consequence of an investigation that appears to be leading toward impeachment. Not so much the dementia part, but the non-zero chance that Individual #1 will be provoked into saying or tweeting something so inflammatory or self-incriminating that it’s game over.
You do realise that the Republicans - the politicians anyway - want rid of Trump, don’t you? They just need to do it in a way that saves their faces.
Trump’s rhetoric and behavior are only going to be more outrageous, and there aren’t any more speed brakes to stop him. What’s worse is that we’re still seeing how, in spite of the fact that the Republican party got beaten pretty soundly in the House, and in other races across the nation, Senate Republicans don’t seem particularly inclined to stop him. They will only stop him when they believe that the political peril is too great to allow him to continue, and they won’t come to that realization in time. They will be reacting to his disasters just like we will.
One of the consequences of polarization is that the Republican party - at least for now - has learned to live with the support of only 35-40% of the country. The other 60% mean nothing to them. Trump’s historically unpopular, but his popularity (or lack of it) is generally stable. The Republicans know that, which is why I’m skeptical they have any incentive to actually take any meaningful action against him.
If by “saving their faces,” you mean NOT tanking their chances of getting reelected, then yes. That’s why no one will bell the Big Orange Pussy–because they’re afraid the voters at home will punish them right out of office for being mean to their hero.
Donald Trump is not Bill Clinton or Andrew Johnson. Donald Trump is Richard Nixon.
I have no doubts that the Democrats in the House of Representatives will be able to demonstrate that Trump has committed some serious crimes that justify removing him from office. They will show this to the general public. Then they will have fulfilled their duty and will pass their findings on to the Senate.
At that point, the Republicans in the Senate will have to make a choice. Do they remove Trump from office? Or do they decide to ignore the evidence and refuse to remove him even though everyone can see he is guilty?
They have the power to do the latter but if they do, they will face the consequences in the 2020 election.
That’s the point I was making by putting Clinton and Johnson on one side and Trump and Nixon on the other. The public is able to tell the difference between a politically motivated impeachment and a justified impeachment.
Thelma Lou:
And by those means, he WOULD be willing and able to serve with a female VP. There’s nothing in the law saying the President must at any given time be alone with the VP.
You may not be aware of this, but when he was governor of Indiana, he had a female lieutenant governor, which is the state-office equivalent of VP. Doesn’t seem to have been a major problem.
Really, I get that people have concerns that Pence’s personal rules might put female employees or subordinates at some sort of workplace disadvantage, but there’s no reason to talk like he’s incapable of working with the opposite sex.