This appears to be an argument that the entire concept of impeachment is illegitimate.
Impeachment doesn’t disenfranchise anyone. It is essential if we desire to not live in a criminal dictatorship. I don’t think anyone voted for that. I don’t remember that being on the ballot.
Well he was pushing to initiate an investigation of Biden and his son by holding back public money. So he is committing the crime of extortion.
The “fighting corruption” defense would depend on his intent and how it was manifest. One good clue is that he did it in secret and hid the transcript.
If he is not “fighting corruption” in any other context or venue then he loses the benefit of the doubt. If he doesn’t mention “corruption” in the call, then he loses the BOTD.
I say this based on prior behaviors by all presidents. You are missing the forest for the trees IMO. The call was corrupt in it’s conception. Trying to engineer a hindsight explanation involving his concern about the world? Do you really think that deserves the benefit of the doubt? It’s too late for these explanations to have any weight.
My employer hires a bunch of kids straight out of college and, occasionally, it makes me feel a little old by comparison. Well, all I have to do to feel young is to drop by the SDMB for a few minutes every now and again …
I remember watching the hearings on the back porch, as my mom ironed. I was 13.
Would this thread be the right place to discuss the difference in public sentiment/congressional behavior between now and then?
As I recall it, in 73 Repubs in Congress were not so unified, expressing an unwillingness to even CONSIDER guilt. Not were the Dems unified in pursuing impeachment/conviction. I did not perceive and do not recall Americans being so clearly divided. It seemed as tho at least a good portion of citizens/reps respected the process and were interested in the evidence.
Not - not so much.
Am I correct in my recollection of 73? If so, ho how do people explain the change? It really is disheartening to think that so many of us have become so solidified in our beliefs/prejudices, and so disrespectful of our public institutions, but I’m hard pressed to find an alternative explanation.
The main population of disenfranchised in the US are those who voted against trump, for hillary, all 65,853,514 of us.
We get lectured about how it was our fault, about how if we don’t treat the trumpers with enough care, and concern for their feelings, they are going to bring the world down.
We have to invent ways to not alienate them, when they just want to see our tears?
I think that we have let this run too long without enforcing subpeonas and legal showdowns. We have given life to evil in the machine by letting this run on for so long.
PS: You sure like directing traffic around to these discussions.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) was asked at a public forum in Cleveland earlier today which I attended if there were any of his Republican colleagues in the Senate who might, given the evidence now before the public, vote to convict and remove the President from office in a Senate impeachment trial. He said he personally knew of only one who might, but said it was just possible, if unlikely, that others might also, if even more damning evidence comes to light. He didn’t sound confident of it, though.
I was wondering why I hadn’t noticed this, but apparently this is a brand new development. Anyways, going by the New York Times, I would have to concede the argument. Therefore I looked up the actual case.
Contrary to your assertion, and unfortunately contrary to the reporting of the New York Times, Judge Scarpulla takes care to note that Mr. Trump shall pay $2 million as part of the settlement for “allegedly improper use of the Foundation and distribution of the Funds received by the Foundation” (emphasis mine). Perhaps there really was an admission of wrongdoing in the October 1 stipulation, but I could not find a copy of that to read. Judge Scarpulla only references “factual admissions” that the Trump Campaign handled the money instead of the Foundation, but it was eventually disbursed to charities anyways. From what I can tell wrongdoing had not been established as a fact.
While I’m *expressly *not accusing you of anything whatsoever–let that be clear–I just wanted to make sure you were self-aware of this tropeand tactic, simply for your own edification.
Are you reading the stipulation? I can’t cut and paste, but read the factual stipulations, including about how he got his foundation to pay $10,000 for a portrait of him, which he had hung at one of his hotels, and then had his hotel pay his foundation $185 for rental fees. Trump stipulates that this is true.
Now, Trump is constitutionally incapable (and the lack of capitalization is deliberate) of admitting fault, so he doesn’t admit that this shit is illegal or wrong. But he admits he did it.
The question then becomes, “If you admit you did a thing, and if the thing you did is wrong, but you don’t admit the thing you did is wrong, is that an admission of wrongdoing?”
But that question is boring as shit. Why would I fret over whether a sociopath like Trump is once again incapable of seeing that shitting the bed is wrong?
OK so I get why Schiff wants to move forward with the impeachment and not wait for subpoenas of Bolton and other no-shows to work their through the courts, but I don’t understand why are they dropping the cases altogether? To do so basically establishes the Executive branches right to ignore any requests for oversight going forward. Even if the current investigation is going to probably be over by the time they could jump though the final appeal required to get administration officials to show up, continuing the process will get the wheels in motion so that when the next flagrant abuse of power from the administration comes down, the groundwork will be set to force compliance, rather then wait several months starting from scratch. If nothing else it will hopefully stop future administrations from following the Trump model.
Because they already have a case filed that’s much further along addressing the identical issue from the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena to Don McGahn. Once they have a ruling on that, it will apply to all these other Trump henchmen who are ignoring subpoenas, and it will be resolved much faster than any new cases filed by the Intelligence Committee.
There’s a Washington Post article from yesterday titled: “Charles Kupperman subpoena withdrawn by House as it asks judge to dismiss lawsuit over his testimony” [subscription needed]
Having now read about that tactic which you are not accusing me of, which I was unfamiliar with and only heard about in passing on these boards, I have formed an opinion of it that someone who thinks I am “sealioning” probably won’t agree with or appreciate.
I don’t know how else to respond except that I’m trying to argue in good faith.
This case is the one to which I’m referring, before U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Politico) There is a mention of Kupperman’s case and how the McGahn and Kupperman cases may interact toward the end of the piece.