# The Trump Impeachment Inquiry **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 24, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771 "2019-09-24T20:23:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 319
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6361 "2019-12-19T18:48:04Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > It was the eve of impeachment when the Supreme Court forced Nixon to release the tapes, and he soon resigned. So something similar is remotely possible here before the Senate trial, but the circumstances are so different it doesn’t seem likely. If the Dems had begun an impeachment investigation over the Mueller Report findings, the Ukraine revelations might’ve played the role of the 1974 ‘smoking gun’ tape in breaking through the deadlock. But we’ll never know, will we? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6362 "2019-12-19T18:53:22Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > No, the ones who are tired of living the lie are retiring, but those who aspire to hold onto office going forward are giving fealty to Trump and McConnell. > > One might ask, “Okay, so if Republican members of the House are retiring, why don’t they now come out and oppose the president” – because they can’t. This is the dirty toe jam of American politics: they want to have political access so that they can make millions more out of office through political consulting and lobbying. They worry that if they cross the president and McConnell that they will get black balled – and then they’ll have to go out and get a real career. > > The right wing has created an ecosystem in which money and financial interests have corrupted the Beltway and state legislatures around the country. They’re going to go down with the president and Senate majority leader. This. Plus they’re also in the ideological borg that Rush Limbaugh created and Fox News perfected. Probably all their friends and most of their family have drunk deep of the Kool-Aid. So there’d probably be some pretty substantial fallout in their personal lives as well. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6363 "2019-12-19T19:39:16Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If the Dems had begun an impeachment investigation over the Mueller Report findings, the Ukraine revelations might’ve played the role of the 1974 ‘smoking gun’ tape in breaking through the deadlock. But we’ll never know, will we? If the Dems had begun an impeachment investigation over the Mueller Report findings, Trump might never have pulled this Ukraine crap. Wasn’t the famous phone call the day after Mueller testified? Supposedly all that “exoneration” emboldened him and his toadies into thinking they could get away with it again. On the other hand, I suspect we’ll find out over the next few years about all kinds of smoking guns that never came to light, and some of them will make the Ukraine thing look like a complete nothingberder. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6364 "2019-12-19T19:43:45Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I’m still wondering why this is 100% along party lines. I can see a D in a primarily R district going “across the aisle” and vice versa. Due to gerrymandering, there are very few Representives whom this would describe. As noted upthread, there were just a handful of Democratic representatives from districts which had voted for Trump in '16 (which may or may not truly be “primarily R districts”). Of them, one is changing parties to the GOP, and one voted against both impeachment counts, and one voted against one of the two counts. I don’t know how many Republican reps are from districts which went for Clinton in '16, but I suspect that they are vanishingly few. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6365 "2019-12-19T20:14:11Z")
asahi said “The right wing has created an ecosystem in which money and financial interests have corrupted the Beltway and state legislatures around the country. They’re going to go down with the president and Senate majority leader.” I wish I had your confidence but I have seen nothing to make me think this is going to be the case. I predict a Trump victory in 2020 followed by more Trump Supreme Court Justices. Once you have 6-3 (or worse) USSC and a King in the WH, its time to start looking for property in Nova Scotia. Cape Brenton is lovely. There may be a backlash some day but I don’t know that I’ll live long enough to see it. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6366 "2019-12-19T20:27:08Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Due to gerrymandering, there are very few Representives whom this would describe. > > As noted upthread, there were just a handful of Democratic representatives from districts which had voted for Trump in '16 (which may or may not truly be “primarily R districts”). Of them, one is changing parties to the GOP, and one voted against both impeachment counts, and one voted against one of the two counts. > > I don’t know how many Republican reps are from districts which went for Clinton in '16, but I suspect that they are vanishingly few. I always through gerrymandering was intended to give one party a slim majority in two districts rather than an unassailable majority in one. I would think gerrymandering would be creating more “mixed” districts, not fewer. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6367 "2019-12-19T20:28:12Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > She is brilliant. And one of the things she is best at is NOT TAKING THE BAIT. Trump is the kind of bully who provokes people into responding (like all trolls). Nancy will have none of it. That’s how she takes charge and stays in control. I say sit on this vote and let the Pubbies stew in their own juices. No point in sending it over to the Senate where it will quickly be put in the garbage can of history. Keep it alive. It also makes Mitch McConnell look like an ass if he tries to hold up legislation, and Pelosi can start sending over those funding bills and other bills that McConnell keeps burying. Pelosi is making it clear: the House intends to impeach Trump, but it’s going to be something that looks like a real trial, with as many of the facts on the table as possible; she’s not falling for that Merrick Garland bullshit. Does it fundamentally alter the calculus, and does it put the GOP in danger of losing the senate? Probably not, but it puts pressure on McConnell and the Republicans. It keeps them on their heels, which is good. It’s harder to play victim when the House is, in effect, showing a modicum of restraint by sitting on the impeachment. But I think an equal benefit is that her colleagues on her left now probably have no choice but to realize that they can’t just impeach for the hell of it. Their anger has to be tempered with reality. In this day and age of intense polarization, not only between parties but within them, what Pelosi is trying to achieve, and I think will achieve, is nothing short of extraordinary. A political Einstein. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6368 "2019-12-19T20:29:23Z")
I haven’t seen it discussed elsewhere, but what constitutional significance does a formal “delivery” of the articles of impeachment serve? He was impeached. So if the Senate said, “Trial starts January 7. Everyone be here and be ready. Attached are the rules” then what happens next? Is Pelosi going to deny that the House impeached the President? Millions of people saw it. This attempt by the House to negotiate terms of the trial violates the constitutional command that the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6369 "2019-12-19T20:30:37Z")
You think Trump should try to arrest pelosi then? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6370 "2019-12-19T20:33:21Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Pelosi is making it clear: the House intends to impeach Trump, but it’s going to be something that looks like a real trial, with as many of the facts on the table as possible; she’s not falling for that Merrick Garland bullshit. That would work if the House only “intend[ed]” to impeach Trump, but now that it has, she has no say whatsoever as to how the Senate conducts its trial. The articles of impeachment and the approval of them are a matter of public record. It is an absurd formality that the Senate must be blind to them unless a messenger boy hands them to the clerk. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6371 "2019-12-19T20:34:51Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > You think Trump should try to arrest pelosi then? Where did you get that from? No. The Senate proceeds with the trial regardless of what Pelosi does. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6372 "2019-12-19T20:54:15Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > That would work if the House only “intend[ed]” to impeach Trump, but now that it has, she has no say whatsoever as to how the Senate conducts its trial. The articles of impeachment and the approval of them are a matter of public record. It is an absurd formality that the Senate must be blind to them unless a messenger boy hands them to the clerk. Congress is built on absurd formalities. And it’s funny that McConnell didn’t mention this bulldozer approach to a trial when he commented today on Pelosi’s gambit. Are you a congressional parliamentarian by trade, or did you just pull this opinion out of your ass? ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6373 "2019-12-19T20:54:45Z")
LOL, oh, yes. I do hope Moscow Mitch makes the trial in the Senate even more rigged than he already has by announcing he will not be impartial and will not allow witnesses – even though a significant majority of Americans believe he should. That should serve him and his caucus well in 2020. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6374 "2019-12-19T20:55:29Z")
How do they have a trial without the prosecution presenting its case? That isn’t a trial. The public will not be fooled by that. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6375 "2019-12-19T20:59:16Z")
The Republicans want a quick acquittal so their Dear Leader can claim total exoneration. Fuck that. Either Moscow Mitch allows witnesses or they can shove that phony trial up their collective ass. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6376 "2019-12-19T20:59:30Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > That would work if the House only “intend[ed]” to impeach Trump, but now that it has, **she has no say whatsoever as to how the Senate conducts its trial.** The articles of impeachment and the approval of them are a matter of public record. It is an absurd formality that the Senate must be blind to them unless a messenger boy hands them to the clerk. My bold. “…she has no say whatsoever as to \*\*how \*\*the Senate conducts its trial.” Yes, but she has a say over WHEN. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6377 "2019-12-19T21:04:33Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > My bold. “…she has no say whatsoever as to \*\*how \*\*the Senate conducts its trial.” > > Yes, but she has a say over WHEN. Under what authority? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6378 "2019-12-19T21:10:25Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > Under what authority? She’s the Speaker of the House. The rules give her the say on who to pick to send over. You’re basically asking, “That judge sentenced that man to 5 years of time in jail! Under what authority does he think he can do that!?” Er… It’s the part of the job description? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6379 "2019-12-19T21:12:26Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > IThis attempt by the House to negotiate terms of the trial violates the constitutional command that the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments. The Constitution has already been well fucked. People aren’t noticing. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/6380 "2019-12-19T21:13:59Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > She’s the Speaker of the House. The rules give her the say on who to pick to send over. > > You’re basically asking, “That judge sentenced that man to 5 years of time in jail! Under what authority does he think he can do that!?” Er… It’s the part of the job description? My point is that she has authority because the Senate gave it to her. They can vote to change the rules any time they desire. I’m certainly not an authority on this, but my understanding is that the rules can be changed with a simple majority. And if these particular rules can’t be changed with a simple majority, the rule that governs what it takes to change the rules are likely governed by a simple majority rule. So we’ve seen in other areas. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771.md?page=318) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771.md?page=320)