# 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:** 67
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1321 "2019-09-30T23:53:29Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > This is the weirdest case I’ve ever seen of completely understanding the situation and simultaneously claiming to not understand it. > . He didn’t understand it. Istm that he was under the impression that the only way to “own” Trump is to have blackmail/embarrassing material on him. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1322 "2019-09-30T23:55:37Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > There’s an interesting article on Slate addressing [whether Mitch McConnell can stymie a Senate vote on impeachment](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/mitch-mcconnell-impeachment-inquiry-in-the-senate-chief-justice-oversees.html). Walter Dellinger, a former Acting U.S. Solicitor General and current Duke constitutional law professor, had this to say: > > Without being quite as flippant as I was, he seems to agree that the Chief Justice controls the process - not the Senate. Argh. I was counting on that until I came across [this WaPo article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/25/democrats-beware-republicans-would-make-rules-senate-impeachment-trial/): > [@](#): > > The Senate has standing rules governing how impeachment trials are conducted. They do not establish many constraints on what the Senate can consider when sitting as a court… > > The fact that Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would preside over that trial does not prevent the Senate from drafting its own bespoke procedures and rules. The Senate’s impeachment rules provide that Roberts’s evidentiary rulings can be subjected to a Senate vote and overturned according to the Senate’s standing rules. > > Presuming motions to overturn such rulings are handled according to Senate Standing Rule XX governing questions of order, a simple majority of the Senate would be sufficient to overrule the chief justice. In other words, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), not Roberts, would be the de facto presiding officer if he so chooses. Now I’m back to biting my nails. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1323 "2019-09-30T23:57:02Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Trump is not owned by hostile foreign powers, I don’t think. Salon: [Donald Trump was impeachable the day he took office…](https://www.salon.com/2019/09/28/donald-trump-was-impeachable-the-day-he-took-office-two-and-a-half-years-later-were-finally-there/) **From the first day, Donald Trump has been an unhappy president. Because he knew he was engaging in treason**. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1324 "2019-09-30T23:59:28Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Trump (or any businessman) is owned by whomever he has significant debt exposure to. Trump is the self-proclaimed “king of debt”, yet he has enormous real estate holdings. Trump never divested his business interests or stopped running his business upon being elected. > > It’s simple and incontrovertible logic that someone owns Trump. . . . clumsy statements by his own children that he’s in hock to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, and parties yet unnamed. It’s not just that he’s in hock to them for money, he’s in hock to them for their silence. If evidence of Trump money laundering for the ‘Russian Mafia’ became incontrovertible, he’d face a lot more than debt. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1325 "2019-10-01T00:02:16Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > It’s not just that he’s in hock to them for money, he’s in hock to them for their silence. If evidence of Trump money laundering for the ‘Russian Mafia’ became incontrovertible, he’d face a lot more than debt. We can be rather certain that he’s in hock with someone. That he laundered Russian mob money is still only a Trump hater’s fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1326 "2019-10-01T00:12:11Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > That he laundered Russian mob money is still only a Trump hater’s fantasy. Is it a bigger or lesser fantasy to wonder whether Deutsche Bank was the middleman? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1327 "2019-10-01T00:21:57Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Is it a bigger or lesser fantasy to wonder whether Deutsche Bank was the middleman? That depends on how sweet and delicious you would find Deutsche Bank being the middleman. My gut tells me lesser. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1328 "2019-10-01T00:28:40Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > We can be rather certain that he’s in hock with someone. That he laundered Russian mob money is still only a Trump hater’s fantasy. “trump haters fantasy” is a very strange construction. turnp has equalled or bested anything anyone has projected on him, and we are only in the third quarter of this, say, if we’re lucky. He has no haters. No one is interested in him except that he is our president. He could resign and avoid whatever is happening. (Well, no, but it’s not my fault or yours) No one has to hate him to know he needs to be removed from public life and it is an emergency. It doesn’t make anyone a hater. the phrase is just not real. Does someone hate you just because they do not want you to be president? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1329 "2019-10-01T00:31:09Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I don’t believe the “informing function” of Congress supersedes the President’s foreign policy function until the Congress formally lodges articles of impeachment against the President based on his improper exercise of foreign policy powers. > > I do not mean to imply malfeasance on the part of Congress. My argument is in anticipation of calls for the public release of communications between heads of state. I don’t think there’s anything special about an impeachment investigation that should be needed for Congress to get access to any of these conversations. Like all powers, the making of foreign policy is shared between the branches. I have a fundamental problem with he government having secrets that only the White House and a foreign government have access to, but Congress does not. But in terms of making things public, if more conversations are being contemplated for release, I think the horse is out of the barn for this president. He has no standing to make a claim for privilege to obstruct the public understanding of what appears to be a pattern of corrupt behavior. Seriously, in a couple years, the term Nixonian is likely to be replaced. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1330 "2019-10-01T00:36:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > [https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/28/mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-007689](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/28/mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-007689) > _Sure, it would be an unprecedented move in U.S. history for Republican leader Mitch McConnell to table Trump impeachment proceedings without allowing any significant debate or a vote to convict a president from his own party, thereby removing him from office. But it’d be well within his power._ > > To be sure this other article disagrees, but only just a little: > > \*But it’s not clear to me that it’s Mitch McConnell rather than John Roberts, chief justice, who decides to commence the proceedings. Now, political friends tell me that Majority Leader McConnell would wish to avoid a roll-call vote. He’s got too many members who might be exposed that time either to say, “What is clearly established to have happened didn’t happen,” or to acknowledge that it happened, but say, “It’s OK for a president to do things like those that are detailed in articles of impeachment.” I don’t think the majority leader can make motions. It has to be that the president’s lawyers could move to dismiss without any further proceedings and avoid the Senate trial. > > So, on that motion to just simply dismiss all the charges—which I believe they could make—if it were carried by a majority vote, I believe that’s the end of the matter in the Senate, as a matter of the Senate’s sheer power to try impeachments. But I think that the chief justice would call the question and listen to the ays and nays, and almost certainly they would be close-enough ays and nays that the chief justice would say, “The voice vote being inconclusive, the clerk shall call the roll.” Senators would have to vote without hearing any evidence, or testimony, or briefing, or presentation, and I think that would be a tough vote, particularly since the chief justice would have the vote to decide whether to proceed or not. The framers didn’t contemplate that there would be a political party that had one member that could control how every member of that party voted—that is the present system where McConnell controls his caucus. But with the chief justice in the chair, I am not at all confident that the majority leader of the Senate can successfully make this go away without having at least an initial vote.\* > > So, apparently the experts here disagree with you. [But the Senate doesn’t](https://www.senate.gov/general/Features/votes.htm). > [@](#): > > A roll call vote must be taken if requested by one-fifth of a quorum of senators. That’s 11 Senators. And did you see the word “must”? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1331 "2019-10-01T00:36:19Z")
The whistleblower’s attorney is Andrew Bakaj, who was fired from the CIA for standing up for CIA whistleblowers. After his firing, it was determined by an external review that his firing was retaliation and not a valid firing. Bakaj, unfortunately, has contributed to the Biden campaign. > **[Andrew P. Bakaj, the Whistleblower’s Lawyer: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know](https://heavy.com/news/2019/09/andrew-p-bakaj/)** > > Andrew P. Bakaj is the lawyer representing the whistleblower who brought on President Trump's impending impeachment inquiry. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1332 "2019-10-01T00:36:36Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Seriously, in a couple years, the term Nixonian is likely to be replaced. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1333 "2019-10-01T00:44:45Z")
I see that Giulani is claiming attorney client privilege as regards the subpoena? Two things… 1. Didn’t he previously say he was acting as an agent of the govt and not an attorney? 2. Doesn’t attorney client privilege exclude illegal behaviour? 3. If he can indeed claim the privilege, doesn’t this prove that he was acting personally for Trump, which is proves the case that Trumnp was using foreign policy for personal gain? ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1334 "2019-10-01T00:46:53Z")
Clarification on hostile foreign powers “owning” Trump: No person from any foreign government is telling the president what to do due to previous agreements of some kind, or by using blackmail, or any thing else of the sort, or even anything not of that sort. Trump, to the extent that he make any decisions at all, are his and his advisers alone, as are his actions. My “I don’t think” was put there for a reason. If any one has evidence to the contrary, please do show it. I am open to it. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1335 "2019-10-01T00:48:33Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > He nailed them as much as he was allowed to. Mueller could have chartered a gold-plated fishing expedition to go after Trump just as Ken Starr went after Bill Clinton for concealing a blowjob. It’s not the most egregious display of Republican situational ethics, by far, but it is about the thousandth example of an increasingly tiresome series. Nothing required Mueller to pretend to be a politically aloof balls-and-strikes centrist, but make no mistake, he did so by choice. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1336 "2019-10-01T00:49:08Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Clarification on hostile foreign powers “owning” Trump: No person from any foreign government is telling the president what to do due to previous agreements of some kind, or by using blackmail, or any thing else of the sort, or even anything not of that sort. Trump, to the extent that he make any decisions at all, are his and his advisers alone, as are his actions. > > My “I don’t think” was put there for a reason. If any one has evidence to the contrary, please do show it. I am open to it. And you know this how? ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1337 "2019-10-01T00:52:52Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Salon: [Donald Trump was impeachable the day he took office…](https://www.salon.com/2019/09/28/donald-trump-was-impeachable-the-day-he-took-office-two-and-a-half-years-later-were-finally-there/) > **From the first day, Donald Trump has been an unhappy president. Because he knew he was engaging in treason**. I do thank you. I’ve got other links and things I want to get through now,although I did scan this quickly. Please quote some relevant passages if you don’t mind, to the extent that the article shows foreign control over Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1338 "2019-10-01T00:53:55Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > And you know this how? I guess I’m not being clear. I don’t “think” it’s true, because I haven’t seen any evidence of it. I don’t _know_ it’s not true. See last sentence in that post. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1339 "2019-10-01T01:02:53Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > With regards to impeachment, I don’t think private diplomatic communications should be released (without the other state’s permission) to the public until the Congress actually invokes said evidence in an article of impeachment. Even when that happens, only the communications absolutely necessary to support a conviction of “high crimes or misdemeanors” should be made public. Tell it to team Trump. The only diplomatic communications that have been released have been released by the White House. Congress had sweet fuck all to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1340 "2019-10-01T01:02:54Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [Like this.](https://themoscowproject.org/collusion-chapter/chapter-1/) Thanks. Same thing I said earlier though. What is the relevant passage(s) that show a foreign power is controlling/directing/however you want to phrase it, the president now? **ETA: I could drop this though, since it’s not directly related to the thread. My original post was rather off-the-cuff.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771.md?page=66) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771.md?page=68)