In the absence of any better evidence that the President has committed “high crimes and(or) misdemeanors”, I do not support any attempt to impeach the President (let alone trying said impeachment in the Senate). Impeachment was marginally valid in the case of Andrew Johnson (and the Senate failed to convict him largely because not everyone in the Senate felt it was an appropriate action, despite being politically attractive), would certainly have been valid in the case of Richard Nixon (who most certainly DID commit “high crimes and(or) misdemeanors”), and was in no way appropriate in the case of Bill Clinton (and was thus seen as nothing but a cynical political ploy by the Republican Party to obtain retribution). These examples should inform and guide us as a nation.
If added evidence is adduced as a result of the investigations into the President, his campaign, etc., then impeachment might become a valid idea.
Impeachment cannot be allowed to become a political tool for frustrating the will of the people as expressed within the last four years. That way lies anarchy. For examples of this, I refer everyone to the sort of political theater that exemplifies “democratic” politics in many other areas of the world.
No, but I think Democrats are essentially resigned to not passing any significant pieces of legislation for the next three years unless they manage by some near-miracle to gain majorities in both the House and Senate. But fighting just for a stalemate is not a winning position by definition.
Only the Republicans’ trademark reflexive oppositionism prevents achieving anything. That could not be expected to change in any foreseeable near future.
I am old enough to remember the whole Watergate affair. The actual crime itself did nothing to sway the 1972 election, and, despite all the facts pointing otherwise, it appeared for a time that Nixon might escape, even though virtually all of his closest confidants either resigned and/or were indicted in the cover-up. Indeed, the initial vote to recommend the articles of impeachment against Nixon largely split across party lines. It wasn’t until Nixon released the infamous ‘smoking gun’ tape that it became obvious that he was indeed complicit in the crime and he was losing all support from within his party, and he resigned 3 days later.
My point is that unless there is an obvious ‘smoking gun’ against Trump, there will be no impeachment process. Only if there is that smoking gun, which makes it clear to America that he has committed a crime, will members of both parties have no choice but to bring impeachment charges against him. IMO, I don’t see this happening.
I will also add that Spiro Agnew resigned the vice-presidency ten months before Nixon resigned; Agnew resigned due to charges that he accepted kickbacks during his tenure as governor of Maryland, which was totally unrelated to Watergate. I don’t believe that there will be anything that will cause Pence to resign or be impeached.
It’s hilarious that almost all your posts are political potshots like this but you still have the chutzpah to say I’m projecting when I predict spiteful joy coming from you.
As to some recent comments, I think we’re all predicating this discussion on the assumption that Mueller’s investigation does turn up something sufficiently juicy. I mean, personally, I think that there are some things that are bad enough and proven enough to justify impeachment, but I also know that those things aren’t nearly enough to convince majorities in Congress, so I’d still wait for something better to start the process.
That was just one of the later straws. He resigned because of the Judiciary Committee vote that made it obvious he was going to be impeached and removed. If you’re saying that the “smoking gun” tape gave the committee members the backbone to do it, then that might be true.
Special Prosecutor Jaworski had named Nixon an “unindicted co-conspirator” before that, and that was unavoidable in shaping public opinion. The evidence of his obstruction efforts had been piling up for some time, including the Saturday Night Massacre that we may be about to re-experience, and his popularity had been eroding along with it.
Then too, the hearings had been on all the networks, live and uncensored, for months. Today, you’d have Fox showing a few cherry-picked highlights amongst all the usual commentary about how there was nothing to any of it etc. - and Trump’s base would remain unable to be convinced they’d been fooled.
It is a bug or a feature depending on whom you ask. For example, this billionaire is willing to spend big $$ to pressure congresscritters into promoting impeachment.
Why not just step back for a moment and, with a cool head, survey the big picture here. Why would a billionaire promote something that brings the wheels of Congress, if not American government, to a grinding halt? Should a single citizen have the power to make such a (bad) decision over the objection of a majority of his fellow citizens? Is it in our collective interest to create a power vacuum for corporations and billionaires to fill?
I don’t think absolutely everything in the Trump agenda is Rilly Bad, full stop. There has been talk of extending better broadband service into more rural areas. Supporting the oil and coal industries is at least potentially well-meaning, if sometimes misguided. In any case, I have sympathy for Trump voters themselves. They thought electing Trump would solve their problems- their lives must really suck!
Well, they’re no less citizens for it, and if they collectively represent “the forgotten man”, at last they have some tangible representation in Washington. I don’t want them to not receive their help because of a top-level partisan squabble, even if I think I have better ideas about how to help them than their representatives.
But sympathy for people with compromised lives isn’t even my top motive. Sure, this sympathy seems largely missing in our billionaire friends, the ones who seem to prefer a Dickensian world of smoke and dirt, orphans, beggars, junkies, pickpockets and squalor, with the occasional Scrooge or Shkreli occupying the stone mansion on the corner block. I mainly think it will just prove useless. And, the whole world is watching. Dudes in foreign countries can tell you, right now, that the Senate will never vote to remove Trump, not in the absence of the kind of smoking gun described above.
Every regular guy who is paying attention already gets it. An impeachment attempt will fail. The consequent clusterfuck will benefit all the wrong people. America will look (more) stupid.
By all means, impeach. It’s not like a split Congress is going to be tremendously productive anyway. Impeachment may not result in conviction, but even so, it’s an important and consequential act in that it puts a black mark by Trump and every legislator who abetted him. Get all these jerks on the permanent record.
The topic of Watergate keeps coming up and it is certainly an apt analogy, but we have an even more recent example in the Iran-Contra Affair, in which several of the Reagan Adminstration and the National Security Council clearly conspired to circumvent the clear prohibitions of the Boland Amendment and fund the Contras by the also prohibited arms dealing which indirectly supplied weapons to Iran. There was never any question of culpability of many of the players in a well-documented violation; several high ranking members in the administration including National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, and others were indicted and convicted of crimes (admittedly, ‘only’ perjury and obstruction).
Reagan avoided taking legal culpability in the infamous videotaped testimony in which he claimed that he “did not remember” or “do not recall” over one hundred times in regards to questions about activities occuring by his Cabinet and senior staff in the West Wing of the White House, and George H.W. Bush claimed to have not been briefed despite copious indications to the contrary including notes in his own official diary. Bush, near the end of his successive presidency, pardoned six of the indicted individuals, and others were given probation or immunity for testimony (Oliver North’s conviction was overturned on the basis that his indirect testimony was presented in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights), and the only person to actually serve any time over the incident was a minister named Bill Breeden who stole a sign from Odon, Indiana to a street named after John Poindexter and held it for a $30M ransom (the equivalent to aid provided to the Contras via the Iran-Contra Affair).
Does anyone really think that the current Republican party, which is even more partisan and extremist than it was twenty-five years ago is actually going to let Trump be removed from office unless there is some very clear electoral reason why it would be to their clear advantage to do so?
Sounds like zero sacrifice. And it’s more than record keeping… by keeping legislators accountable via their votes, they will have to take a position and answer for it every time they seek re-election. It’s time to stop letting these jerks play a double game and talk about how Trump is concerning, but their hands are tied.
I don’t think it is zero sacrifice. Congress gets obsessed with it for a year, nothing gets done and everybody shares in the national headache. And we look stupid to the rest of the world if we go through all that for no result. And further undermine faith in institutions.
And I think Congress critters are already on the record. Everybody knows who supports Trump already. The GOP has a divided caucus, with Flake and Murkowski opposing at least most proposals. To get most things passed, Dem support will be required. How about we work on accomplishing some results instead of having a big procedural logjam?
“It’s time to stop ______” is good rhetoric, but not really a good reason for storming down a foolish path.
So, let me get this straight. You’re claiming that there wasn’t reflexive Republican opposition in Congress during both the Clinton and Obama administrations?
And the facts in this particular case are that Republicans have done everything possible for decades to prevent any Democratic policy from passing, not because they necessarily disliked the policy, but because it came from Dems.
Look, Stranger said “the only good thing about impeachment is that it’ll bring R legislation to a halt”. Shodan said “wouldn’t it also halt D legislation?” Elvis hops in and says “the only thing stopping anything is the Rs!” How is that not a useless potshot?
If crushing evidence against Pence emerges, Republicans might prefer to have the administration replaced by Paul Ryan in 2018, rather than Nancy Pelosi in 2019.
It’s difficult to see the path to such a scenario. But stranger things have happened, eg the 2016 election.