I think that the foucusing on Trump having “bribed” Zelensky as a strategy for proving its impeachable is probably not helpful. When the framers put that in the Constitution, it think its much more likely that they wanted to prevent government officials receiving bribes, not giving them.
As Walken said, its really all about the abuse of power for personal gain.
What I’m amazed at is that Republicans know Trump and his ways very well. They know he’s guilty as hell. Yet these supposed “noble Americans” are willing to lie, cheat, falsely accuse. All selfishly for their careers. This is shocking.
I don’t claim to be any sort of federal budgetary expert, but if I understand correctly, apportionments can be made in one of two (or a combination of the to ways):
You can correct me where you think I’m mistaken, but my (very basic) understanding of the procedure is that: very early on in the fiscal year, the OMB lays out how a particular appropriation is to be spent via an “apportionment” (this doesn’t appear to mean that all the money must be spent within 30 days, in fact there seem to be some constraints in place to make sure that it doesn’t all get blown too early in the year). The OMB can choose to direct that money be spent by time period, or by “activities, functions, project, or objects”. This latter option seems to be most appropriate for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (because of the requirements for SecDef certification). So rather than saying something like “1/4 of the USAI money most be spent in Q1, another quarter in Q2, another quarter in Q3, and another quarter in Q4”, the OMB apportionment might say something like “half the money will be released only after SecDef makes the initial certification and the other half only after he makes the second certification”. This sort of apportionment, as long as it was made within “15 days after the date of enactment of the law by which the appropriation is made available” (31 U.S.C. § 1513 (b)(1)(B)) should fulfill the requirements of Anti-Deficiency Act, correct? The law doesn’t say the money has to be spent in 15 days, only that an apportionment has to be made, in accordance with one of the methods laid out in § 1512 (b)(1).
I didn’t overlook it. I read it. I couldn’t find a copy of the letter online either. Given that we both looked, and neither one of us could find it, I’m thinking maybe it doesn’t exist, and the Obama administration violated the Impoundment Control Act. Of course, if the remedy for that is impeachment, that’s no longer relevant to Obama.
Which is all academic because the delay in apportioning the funds caused $35 million of the $250 million intended for Ukraine to lapse. It walked, talked, and quacked like an impoundment. Had the hold on the funds gone on for longer, much more of the $250 million would not have been spent.
(However, the Congress stepped in at the last moment and extended the $35 million.)
No certification letters like that are routinely released to the public, they are just normal work product within the government. Your assumption that Obama broke the law is utterly devoid of fact. You might as well be saying that you heard it from QAnon.
I promised not to argue, so take this as requiring clarification. This seems to be an acknowledgment that the issue is entirely irrelevant to the facts of the case. Correct?
It does seem incredibly disingenuous to simultaneously claim that we are not hearing from witnesses with firsthand knowledge, and that the witnesses with firsthand knowledge shouldn’t be heard.
First off, I think your scenario is a poor analogy for the impeachment inquiry on at least a couple of fronts:
Zelensky wasn’t aware of the OMB hold during the 7/25 phone call. To relate that back to your scenario, it would be like the council member being unaware that his mortgage was in arrears.
Anyways, with that said, now to get to your questions:
No.
IANAL, and I’m not clear on all the legal rules of discovery (for example, are statements of probable cause used to obtain search warrants generally available to the defense).
IANAL, and my understanding is that obstruction of justice laws vary widely from state to state. I don’t know. For example, I don’t think if I’m walking down the street and I see the police interviewing someone, that telling that person “you shouldn’t talk to cops” amounts to obstruction of justice. If the CEO tells his employees, “you shouldn’t talk to cops” that strikes me as sharing pragmatic advice. If he tells them “I’m forbidding you to talk to the police and will fire you if you do”, that probably amounts to some wrongful termination civil violation in non-RTW states and amounts to a hill of beans in RTW states. I don’t think it’s a crime in either one, but again, IANAL, and so I’m open to being corrected on this point if I’m mistaken.
No. The Police Chief, and his entire agency, probably should have done whatever the police version of recusing themselves is right from the beginning to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
I think it’s a relevant fact that the decision-makers (both the Reps that will vote on articles of impeachment and Senators that will decide guilty or not, assuming Pelosi gets her ducks in a row) ought to bear in mind when deciding.
So it is entirely irrelevant to the facts of the case then? I notice that you did not address that, which was the central question of the post you responded to, so I can only assume that you do not dispute that?
To the first one, yes, it’s an interesting discussion and Max S. has put considerable time into framing it, so I thought it merited a significant amount of time considering it and a serious, detailed response (or at least as close to that as I can muster).
