The Trump Impeachment Inquiry

New arguments that the GOP is trying out now.

  1. The inappropriate behavior is not impeachable because Trump does this stuff so frequently.

“Not really anything the President said in that phone call that’s different from what he says in public all the time.”*

  1. The inappropriate behavior would be impeachable, but it was Giuliani and Sondland acting on their ownwithout Trump.

"Evidence of the emerging Republican approach was on display this week in transcripts of the impeachment testimony delivered by the stream of diplomats and national security officials in a secure hearing room in the Capitol basement.

They indicated that Republicans would portray figures like Mr. Giuliani as working in his own interests, not at Mr. Trump’s behest; and that they would argue that Mr. Sondland, a political megadonor with little diplomatic experience, was a braggart who exaggerated his relationship with Mr. Trump and essentially freelanced on his behalf."*

The Republicans asked for witnesses related to 2016 and Burisma, neither of which has anything to do with Trump’s defense story, which is that he had a general aim to fight corruption and merely used Burisma as an example.

The defense for that would be, fire example, to show period documentation that shows Trump’s personal interest in anti-corruption measures in general.

Schiff should have explained that in his rejection letter.

Unfortunately for Donald, Walmart has discontinued the door greater position (not that he would be qualified). He would be out of a job.

When people are able to lie to get into the white house, it kind of puts a strain on the normal processes of elections. Lies are one thing, but the treatment of them by the media and commentators has been one of triumphalism and winner take all, we deserved to get lied to becuase it worked, and it might work again. The implication of this is post-truth.

The winners are OK with the lies. But the losers are also part of democracy. It seems like they have been forgotten. To me he has to release his tax returns or else resign. Why would anyone have a problem with that transparency and his promise around it? Actually he needs to come clean on dozens of things now, or else resign. That’s fair for US voters no matter how they voted.

Ah yes, the old, “They made me, the President of the United States, call the President of Ukraine and ask him to open an investigation into my political opponent. I didn’t want to, and it was all their idea, but they forced the phone into my hands and made me say those words.”, strategy.

A nice article about corruption in Ukraine, by the way:

He shot someone on Fifth Ave every day last week. Today he shot someone else. So what?

I would presume that the FEC is barred from charging Trump with a crime - even though they have declared this sort of activity to be illegal.

What all can they do without the cooperation of the DOJ? Can they deny application to be a contender? Levy fines? Send an angry letter?

I think that the states are looking at the power they have over candidates by the way they conduct primaries and elections too. Maybe there are options for the S.of S. of these states for prosecutions.

Because they need him to make the brown people go away so America can be great again.

Republicans need to pretend they’re on the side of the angels. It’s not enough for them to support what the Republican party does, they need to believe the Republican Party are the Good Guys and whatever they do is just fine. This is why they claim waterboarding isn’t torture, global warming is a massive hoax, they aren’t really concentration camps and there’s nothing wrong with using the power of the office of the Presidency for personal political gain.

It would be more honest of Trump’s supporters to just come out and say they are happy with the way Trump’s running things and will continue to support him even though he repeatedly violates his oath of office and continually proves himself unfit to be head of state.

Hmm… Apparently, the FEC is unable to do anything because they need a quorum of appointees from both sides of the aisle in order to take any punitive actions.

I feel like that’s a pretty giant issue that the press needs to quickly be slamming their klaxons onto.

Some in the administration would try to talk him out of it. If they failed and he testified, they would deny anything he said proved anything, or that he even said those things, and even if he did, those things are not crimes, and not impeachable offenses, and he says stuff like that all the time. Also he may or may not be too dumb to have done those crimes. So the Demcrats are just engaged in a witch hunt, and fake news, and Biden is a crook, and Trump 2020, MAGA! And the 75% of Republicans who think Trump is honest and trustworthy (I recently looked this up – narrowly escaped my head exploding) will believe him when he says his testimony was “perfect. The best testimony ever in the history of the US.”

As has been indicated already in the thread, these are two bad arguments. They are easily countered:

  1. So every crime that is committed “frequently” becomes not-a-crime? When will the imprisoned serial bank robbers, muggers, and drug dealers be freed, then?

  2. Please name the benefit to Gordon Sondland of having the Ukrainians announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. Same question for Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney [who has also been named as one of those Forcing Poor Trump into this situation]. What is their motive for extorting Ukraine into announcing “investigations”?—be specific.

But these are only two of the myriad of Bad Defenses of Trump’s extortion of Ukraine that will be offered at his Senate trial. eschrodinger offered a good preliminary list:

My point is that the number one strategy of Trump’s defenders will be to throw so much excrement at the wall that:

a) Democrats will be scrambling every second to refute each absurd “excuse,” and
b) Republicans can proudly point at the shit-covered walls and say “it’s all way too complicated for anyone to understand, so we should just acquit him and call it a day.”

For this reason I’m on the “keep the articles of impeachment short and simple” side of the argument. I know that it’s dismaying to think that so many of Trump’s outrages would not appear in the articles; I realize that feels like he’s getting away with them. But I do think that the only way to get Americans to stay tuned, instead of throwing up their hands and agreeing with Trump’s defenders that “it’s just too complicated,” is to limit the articles to the Ukraine extortion/bribery attempt.

You’re absolutely right. That would have been a clear and convincing refutation of the bad argument behind that disingenuous attempt to make the hearings About Biden. Schiff should have included it.

He’s probably a great lawyer, but he falls short in the ‘political instincts’ department sometimes. Still, we can hope that he listens to wise counsel as this process moves forward.

Not worth the hassle of being in one more thread. Judiciary Committee in 1974 went with “clear and convincing.” I’m OK with that.

Vindman fired by Trump.

Faux News outs the whistleblower on air:

ETA: never mind.

Not if Vindman decides he’d rather stay.

Funnily enough, I just brought up Vindman’s testimony from the House Intelligence Committee. Nearly the first thing said by Schiff in the document was, “Congress will not tolerate any reprisal, threat of reprisal, or attempt to retaliate against any US government official for testifying before Congress.”

Bravo, Schiff. But talk is cheap, my friend. What are you going to DO about it?? (Or are you already doing it?)

What do you suggest, other than leading the impeachment of a President?