This made me chuckle. Quite a few times I’ve watched the president bluster about his “executive privilege” and “presidential immunity” means that Congress has no power over him and been reminded of sovereign citizens raging about how the US government has no power over them.
The white man’s version of the Ghost Dance.
OK, so there’s the prospect of uncovering some more crap, tax avoidance, shit like that.
Won’t matter, I hear the cry. They are absitively posolutely committed to complete and utter vindication and acquittal. 'Course, that gets somewhat harder as the evidence piles up. (I’m assuming it will, the possibility that there isn’t any ranks about the same level as my really being the Queen of Romania…)
So, what if some moderate *menshevik * Dem offers “censure” instead, a Congressional “tut-tut” and “tsk-tsk”. Cat meets pigeons. Il Douche is not thrown out of office, but is firmly scolded. A bit of political judo. Will the Forces of Darkness remain utterly solid in their rejection of this repulsively moderate action? The pro-censure side could say, Hey! This works, gets the shit off the screen, over and done, time to move on.
The absolute Trumpiviks will reject it out of hand, natch. Nothing less but total purity and exoneration will do for them. Even more crunchy goodness if the Dems promise to line up behind a motion of censure and drop impeachment if enough Pubbies openly declare their support, enough to ensure passage. Might need quite a few, some of our guys in the Sane Caucus are pretty pissed off…
Confusion to our enemies, as the old toast has it… Not the best civics, being crafty, cunning and insincere. I’ll get over it.
The absolute Trumpniks will see censure as total exoneration. ‘See? See? They couldn’t prove The Messiah did anything wrong! That’s why they gave up trying to get Him out of office! They couldn’t do anything, so they just scolded Him for things He didn’t do! TOTAL EXONERATION!’
The idea is that with the information they get, there’s a chance that it will all come out that Ukraine is just one part of Trump owned by the Russians and completely compromised. The actions of more than a few Republican Senators make it very possible that they are Domino’s that will fall as well.
That’s a lot bigger than simple tax evasion or the like.
Also, nobody should care what Trump supporters feel about this or anything. If we listened to that Minority, there would be no impeachment hearings. And Donald Trump would be made King. Pandering to that group of people who will never be swayed no matter what is a Fool’s errand.
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Actually, the plan pretty much depends upon them. Sensible ones will be tempted, even eager, to accept such a plan precisely because they would fully intend to present censure as exoneration.
The truly deep-dish batshit pizza Trumpists will not, of course, just as you say. Even the hint of disapproval carried in the word “censure” will set them off.
I accept that this is not in the finest traditions of civic virtue. If this sets the Republican Senators into internecine rage and fury, I will be repentant. I stand ready.
Why doesn’t Biden just let them investigate if there’s nothing to hide? Back when Clinton was president we signed a special treaty with Ukraine to allow investigations for this exact thing.
Biden is just using his ‘presidential run’ to protect himself from investigation. The investigation into Hunter Biden had started before he announced his candidacy. Joe’s not even in the top 5 democratic hopefuls.
Investigate what? What allegation?
This is like when Republicans got the chance to finally repeal and replace the ACA. When the time came they were like: Huh? Now? What?
(ETA: and let WHO investigate? Ukraine? Jay-sus already.
(ETA ETA: And about this: Have Biden “let them” investigate? Biden is stopping “them” Jay-sus Jay-sus already already.)
The GOP did use the Benghazi hearings to “investigate” the Clinton Foundation, Media Matters, the private email server and any other thing they could try to use to drag things out. It was a successful strategy because they had no individual thing they needed to hammer home to the public because nothing they were investigating was actually a crime, and because the main goal was just to sow doubt, not to actually convince most of the public that Clinton or Obama were criminals.
The Dems have the opportunity to convince some independent voters that Trump committed a crime. The witnesses they’ve called gave as crystal clear an explanation as we’ll ever get that Trump directed a straightforward abuse of power. In a normal criminal trial in front of a jury, it would be all well and good to prove your most solid case, and then spend a bunch of time using other charges to reduce the chances of the defendant getting off. However in this case the goal is to get the distracted public to have the best chance possible of focusing on something simple enough for them to see Trump’s wrongdoing. If the impeachment trial is also about Trump paying off Stormy Daniels, his knowledge of Russia’s hack on the DNC in 2016, his extortion of other countries, etc., all of which are serious charges that would make a great case in a normal trial, the public will just get more confused. If the Dems put everything in their impeachment articles it just allows the GOP to muddle the issues together and the most of the public will think (as I think they already do) “something sure seems fishy but I don’t know who to trust.”
Additionally, court cases involving Trump’s hiding of his tax returns and financial statements and other related matters will continue to go on regardless. I think the Dems definitely need a media strategy for late in the election to try to tie some of these things together at the end as well as a strategy to make it look as bad as possible for GOP senators who vote to acquit, but making the thing that a lot of people tune into on C-SPAN now needs to be as simple as possible for the public to grasp IMO.
None of that changes the fact that this is not at all remotely close to Benghazi what the Democrats are trying to do. Taking articles impeachment to the Senate that are not Ironclad, or at least as close to Ironclad as they can be, is foolish. They will not get a second chance. Do this right.
The only people who want to rush are Republicans and you. There’s a reason for the Republicans wanting to rush things. Not so sure about you.
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I don’t actually know what the GOP wants the Dems to do. I think they’ve said that the Dems should make this quick, but obviously no one should believe them.
Making an expansive case maximizes chances of conviction in a normal trial, but when someone is basically being tried in front of the public in can just further muddy the waters and make the clear reality that Trump has committed extortion beyond a reasonable doubt unclear to voters with low information and a low attention span.
Investigate possible kickbacks Biden and others have received from Ukraine.
Biden has taken $900,000 from Ukraine lobbyists. Is that no concern to you?
Im sure you have heard Biden tell the story of how he used a billion dollars in taxpayer aid to get a prosecutor fired. That would be fine if it were for American interests, but they seem like personal interests when it happens to be the prosecutor investigating his son’s company in Ukraine.
There should be a joint investigation between the FBI and Ukraine federal police. That’s beyond my understanding of the treaty, but you can’t avoid the situation just because logistics of the investigation are difficult.
There are more politicians involved besides Biden.
Your posts are so full of Russian/Fox “News” propaganda talking points, they’d be amusing if they weren’t so sad. I’d personally be embarrassed to display such ignorance.
It’s a concern for the FBI as Joe Biden is not immune from prosecution and anyone having evidence of such a crime should and probably will have already delivered that source material to the FBI to investigate.
At that point, the FBI would tell the person who brought them the information to be quiet about the matter.
If the FBI then determined that Joe was guilty, then they would arrest him.
At no point would any of this render Donald Trump innocent. Finding a different guilty person does not make you innocent. Trying to track down criminals, when you’re not a professional and impartial investigator, is called vigilantism and it is a crime. Using political force to make a foreign party conjure up allegations and evidence of criminal activities by people who you hate is called extortion and that is a crime. When you extort someone into “generating evidence” it is fair to say that the evidence is not trustworthy. You have just made the job of an actual, professional investigator more difficult by convincing a nation state to manufacture possibly false information - these are people who can make fake passports and stuff. And if your chosen method of extortion is to withhold funds that your job description says you had to give to that foreign person, and you choose not to do so because it wouldn’t serve your personal interests, then that is the solicitation of a bribe - which is a crime.
And let’s not forget that we currently have 5? 6? different people affiliated with fundraising for the Trump campaign and Trump Inauguration Fund who have been legitimately arrested by the FBI. That ain’t no conspiracy theory. If you don’t know their names then you might want to ask yourself if you’re reading news sources that you can trust. The President regularly calls one guy who was arrested and convicted for taking Russian-backed Ukrainian money and who tried to launder it back into the United States. Does that not concern you that the President gives no flying fucks that he’s taking advice from a convicted felon, in jail, who factually committed the crime that Trump is blaming his political opponent of committing? And you believe him when he tells you that he’s really really concerned about stopping people from doing the same thing? Do you want to add in the people in Trump’s circle who have been arrested for acting as foreign lobbyists as well?
Maybe Biden took money that he shouldn’t have. I don’t know. I leave that to the FBI.
Yeah, as it stands, if, on the extremely slim chance that law enforcement did announce that they were indicting Biden on something related to Ukraine, it would be extremely difficult to take their allegations seriously.
How about we start the investigation with Rudy?
Oh wait, real U.S. Attorneys are already investigating his criminal acts with respect to Ukrainian mobsters.
Serious question: how long do you think it will be before Trump’s personal lawyer is indicted?
Burisma paid Joe Biden $900,000 for lobbying – Ukrainian MP
Adam Schiff Implicated in Bursima Investigation
Mitt Romney’s 2012 national security advisor on board of Bursima
I am only trying to get the facts. Your words are hollow and worthless if all you have is to call me sad and embarrassing without presenting anything besides bullying.
Trump, chief law enforcer of the U.S., has tried to get an investigation underway but the democrats all cry Trump is only targeting political opponents. Biden is using running for office to shield an investigation.
If Trump was truly concerned that Biden might have broken the law, he would have referred any evidence to US law enforcement officials. He didn’t - he asked another country to do it. That’s because he had no evidence and is only worried about politics. If he had evidence, he’d present it, and law enforcement would be investigating.
Sure thing, comrade.
Your first link is from Interfax. From Wikipedia:
Your second link, Investment Watch Blog, appears to be nothing but click bait.
Your third link, California Political News, operated by Stephen Frank, who hopes to be California’s Republican party chair, caused my virus protection to warn me off it.
Real great news sources you got. I presented you with facts. You responded with garbage.
Your first two cites come from Interfax, a Russian news source headquartered out of Moscow; literally Russian propaganda.
And your third link cites “ American Thinker”, a right wing conspiracy blog.
There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet. It’s not all reliable.
And, as has been pointed out, it is incredulous to believe that the US President had to go behind official law enforcement channels in order to investigate an American crime, instead needing to require “questionable” foreign governments to initiate an investigation to demonstrate “that they were sufficiently anti-corruption” as a condition of receiving congressionally approved military funding while fighting against Russian invasion.