I didn’t see it. Could you please assume that it was an honest question and if you don’t want to answer, go right ahead and not fucking answer.
Sorry for the confusion. I read the letter, thought it was wacko, read it a second time, and decided that there are a couple points that I sincerely agree with. Then I extrapolated from those points a strategy that I would use, if I were defending the President’s actions, which I am sort of doing in this thread.
I rationalize with sincerity, if that makes sense.
So when you wrote,
That is an accurate representation of my honest opinion, despite my having reached it by building off select arguments from a wacko letter. If you challenge my opinion on grounds other than “that’s not what the letter said”, I will attempt to defend myself.
Sorry about that.
~Max
The impeachment inquiry is the process by which those facts are gathered.
I fully expect that if the Republicans are allowed to call witnesses, issue subpoenas etc, what we’ll see is the issues muddied and trampled on to such an extent that the entire investigation will be bogged down forever. Which is exactly their game plan.
If the Republicans are offered this olive branch, they will set it on fire and use it to burn down whatever they can find. I expect that most of the witnesses they call, and subpoenas they issue would probably be related to Benghazi or Hillary’s emails.
I believe I have since answered the same exact question in a more recent response to another of your posts. Unless you have an objection I’ll respond to that thread of posts.
~Max
A Ukrainian official wanted ambassador Yovanovich removed and Giuliani’s fixers are accused of giving money to “congressman 1” to put pressure on to get rid of her. Rumors are that the congressman may have been Rep Pete Sessions of Texas, who received $3 million from a pro trump PAC and wrote a letter to Pompeo to complain about the ambassador.
Things that make you go hmm .
Apparently these two fixers are Eastern European born but US citizens. Curious how they got citizenship when people who just want honest work are kept away.
We disagree on this point. I have a full explanation in the works in response to drad dog’s [POST=21898359]post #1877[/POST] from six days ago. The ball is in my court, so to speak.
~Max
That’s a nice layout of what you would do, but it doesn’t come close to answering my question of whether the Republicans should be allowed to turn the impeachment process into a proceeding about the Bidens.
Yes, sorry, when I wrote president I meant the executive branch.
Agreed.
~Max
If there wasn’t some sort of investigation going on by the U.S. I would need some sort of extraordinary defense from the President himself explaining why he shouldn’t be impeached for abusing his power.
~Max
So if the Dems call an FBI witness to ask if there was an open investigation, would that satisfy you? Or do you still need the Republicans to have subpoena power?
The whistleblower wrote a memo describing a conversation with a “visibly shaken” White House official who had listened to the call. According to CBS this is the full text of the memo:
But love corruption and incompetence? You might care to rethink the things that motivate you in the voting booth.
Definitely the executive branch should be doing the investigating. But it’s more specific than that. The FBI (and, to a smaller degree, CIA and NSA and other agencies) are responsible for conducting these investigations. There are really good reasons for handling them this way, and this is the statutorily correct way to handle such investigations. The president doesn’t have a role in initiating these investigations.
Now, there is a way that an FBI witness could exonerate the president. If it came out that Trump was asking for Ukraine’s help at the behest of the FBI, because for example they were having trouble breaking through a bureaucratic logjam, then that would cast the president’s actions in an entirely new light. We would want to see, of course, that it was legitimately initiated by the FBI, not something where Trump told Giuliani to tell Barr to tell the FBI to call him and ask him to talk to Ukraine.
So if you want Republicans to have the right to call that sort of exculpatory evidence, then sure.
But I just made that evidence up. I’ve seen zero sign that it exists, or that anybody thinks it exists.
Anything short of this would not be exculpatory, because it’s not just the executive branch as a whole that investigates. It’s specific agencies within the branch, and that’s by design, and violating that process is what’s gotten us to this point.
Edit: actually, I forgot about Giuliani. I cannot think of any evidence that would excuse the president’s involvement of his own personal lawyer in an international investigation of a US citizen.
I don’t know any non-extreme commentators who have absolutely supported the President and say he did nothing wrong, except maybe Lindsey Graham if you don’t want to call him extreme (ha…). There are some who say we don’t know for sure yet. That’s my position, and it is shared by at least some Republicans. There are many who say, not only does it look bad, but it is definitely bad.
~Max
Here is their authorization:
Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution:
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 5:
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings
Hell, there’s all the proof of illegitimately you need! “Chuse” ain’t a word! 
And thanx for the response Max. Graham truly confounds me. I recall him on the Daily Show, playing pool and drinking w/ Jon Stewart, going on about how HORRIBLE Trump was. To hear him now - really makes me wonder how he can have any self respect.
If I’ve understood the thread correctly so far:
As of now, only the majority party can issue subpoenas. Rs and Ds can both question witnesses and examine documents, but only the Ds can decide what direction the investigation takes.
In an official impeachment procedure, both parties will be able to issue subpoenas. Rs may attempt to derail by investigating the Bidens instead, or investigating the investigators, or whatever distraction they can think of.
It’s at least as good as covfefe!
I mean, I guessed there was some fear of triggering something like that but I see no reason why the “official impeachment procedure” is required to go that way.