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I think it is pretty clear that those with a left-leaning political bent interpret Trump’s comments in the least charitable way and just know that it was a criminal act. Those with a right-leaning political bent interpret his comments in the most charitable way and don’t believe it was criminal. It does no good to have more witnesses giving their competing interpretations of his actions. The best evidence is there: what he actually said. It is not unreasonable for any judge or other trier of fact to say, “We’ve heard enough on this line” let’s move on.
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Yes, it is a political trial, but not a political show trial. IOW, the trial is tinged with politics all around but that doesn’t mean that we lose sight of its purpose and allow it to be hijacked for purely partisan purposes that have no relevance to the underlying issue.
This isn’t actually what I’ve seen – what I’ve seen is that those with a Trump lean think this is fine, and those who don’t have a Trump lean do not. There are tons of conservatives who are really angry about the idea of the President pressuring a foreign government to announce an investigation into a political rival.
This appears to be complete bullshit in that we are being asked to assume that we already know what the full amount of testimony from these additional, higher ranking, witnesses will be. It might be exculpatory but it might include evidence of misdeeds by Trump that have not yet come to light. In any event, the American people need to hear it, regardless of whether Trump buttlickers in the Senate have already decided on their vote or not.
First, there are those who think the testimony given was false. That Vindman, et al, are never Trumpers and are just trying to take him down. Getting testimony from people that are CLEARLY not in that camp that corroborates the previous testimony will remove this argument.
Second, Trump is claiming there was no quid pro quo. But Mulvaney and Bolton could have had other conversations beyond just the phone call in which Trump explicitly said, “We won’t release the aid unless they agree to announce an investigation.” Hell, maybe Trump even used the exact words, “quid pro quo” or “blackmail.” We don’t know. We do know those two, at least, are going to be more credible witnesses for many and may have further information.
This isn’t a situation where the ones with the most knowledge have already testified and now we are looking to make lesser players back that up. If that were true, I’d agree there is little point in asking for more accounts of the situation we already know to be true.
This defence is incoherent in a number of ways, and really highlights what I was saying about cognitive dissonance required to defend trump.
Trying to get as many of the relevant people to testify and hear what they have to say, and wanting to gather relevant documents and transcripts is the exact opposite of “just knowing” the conclusion.
And yes, with all the evidence out in the open some degree of interpretation is still necessary: that’s supposed to be what happens in the trial. A feature, not a bug.
Yes, but:
- What Trump said is not limited to the partial transcript of the call…Which I do think is damning in itself, but Trump’s words should also include the full transcript, what he’s said during “chopper talk”, what he’s said to other members of the administration and the budget office and other references.
and
- Of course there’s a point where we will have heard enough testimonies. But that line has clearly not been arrived at yet, when key players like Trump, Giuliani, Bolton and Mulvaney have not testified. Whether people like Nunes and Barr also need to is more a matter of personal taste.
Sure; that’s a broad statement that everyone can agree on.
And I see no reason to believe that the Dems have done anything to make it a show trial at this point, even if they are considering the political consequences.
Mitch McConnell, clearly colluding with the far-left radical Democrats, is resisting The President in His demand for an open and thorough trial, with sworn witnesses and testimony. All right thinking Americans will resist this totally unfair development, and urge that the Senate allow an open and public trial, with voter participation.
The attendance should be open to voters at large, according to the Electoral College results, so that nine-tenths of the attending audience be reserved for MAGA enthusiasts, as is reflected in the overwhelming Electoral College victory.
The President deserves an impartial audience that can directly express their concerns and enthusiasms. Riff-raff, social justice warriors, and the technically American can have the remaining seats so long as they do not create a disturbance. If there are not sufficient numbers to fill the remaining seats, those seats can be offered to Real Americans with the proper and correct attire.
At least a couple of posters in this thread have said that these witnesses will either admit that Trump committed illegal activity or will perjure themselves. That contradicts your first sentence.
The issue is that Vindman et al are providing nothing but their own opinion that the July 25 call was a quid pro quo. That testimony would be thrown out of any other court because the finder of fact has the best evidence: the transcript of the call. They can judge for themselves if it is a quid pro quo. We can call 1000 witnesses and have 732 give one opinion and 268 give another. It matters not what Bolton’s or Mulvaney’s opinion of the call was. We have the call so that senators can then judge for themselves if there was criminal activity.
This is the definition of a fishing expedition. Maybe other people heard Trump say something incriminating. Maybe. We could call everyone that he has spoken with in the last year on that off chance. Trump doesn’t have to testify as neither Clinton nor Andrew Johnson testified. Giuliani is his lawyer and his testimony would be privileged.
It just boils down to “We KNOW he did something wrong and we will throw everything against the wall to make it stick.” The fact that the left has been trying to impeach him since day one makes it look like a political hit job and has cost them their credibility.
I just wanted to repeat this in it’s entirety, since I think it’s an excellent summary, and blows any argument by UltraVires out of the water.
Essentially, the only argument in favour of Mitch McConnell et al at this point is: “The Senate process is political, therefore the Republicans will try to prevent witnesses from testifying and cover up for Trump as much as possible. They want to hold a show trial to please their Supreme Leader.” They will do this for the same reason a dog licks his balls.
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The main, senior level players have been PREVENTED from testifying. By Trump.
And now you argue that the testimony of the minor players “provides nothing but their own opinion”. And we don’t need to call the major players who have more intimate knowledge of what went on.
<church lady> “Well isn’t that convenient”
Wait, are you claiming that the right thought the left had credibility prior to this??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The right considering the left to not have credibility is the status quo since forever, so how is this news? You’re just reassuring yourself here I think.
Vindman testified that there was more to the call than was captured in the transcript. Others are saying he is making that up. Therefore, we need further testimony from others that heard this call to find the truth. As you said, we can have some that say one thing, others that say another thing. It will be up to the jury to decide who are the credible witnesses. Mulvaney and Bolton would be highly credible witnesses, yes? The Vindman testimony can be completely supported or utterly questioned.
I hope the “you” in your statement is not being directed at me.
Ha ha! No.
I think you have nailed it with an excellent summary.
No one is asking Trump to testify, just those who are very likely to have more knowledge of the situation than those who have already testified. Is that not obvious? We aren’t talking about calling every person Trump talked to in the last year. We are talking about his highest level advisors who are extremely likely to have additional knowledge.
Didn’t Guilani go on some Sunday talk show and say he was asked by the State Department to do work on their behalf? In that capacity he is not Trump’s personal lawyer and his testimony wouldn’t be privileged.
It’s truly remarkable how bad a strategist Trump is. If he had just kept his mouth shut about the Christianity Today article calling for impeachment, his supporters wouldn’t have even known about it. It’s not anywhere to be seen on the Fox news site. Instead he Twitter rants and alerts the world.
The guy who convinced (bullied) 190 out of 190 congresspeople to vote against impeachment when he is clearly guilty is a bad strategist? The guy who now owns the Senate and has 50% of the country believing he shouldn’t be impeached is bad at this? Not sure how that computes.
He hasn’t raised awareness of an article that belittles and criticizes him. He has made it painfully obvious that ANYONE who says anything against him will be crucified by him and his hoards. This is him sending a message to anyone else considering saying anything cross about him.
He alerted them that Christianity Today is a liberal rag.
Possibly that will work, possibly it won’t. We’ll have to see if any polling values shift in a couple of weeks.
You’re just repeating the talking points here.
We don’t need to say maybe, maybe: someone who was on the call has testified what he heard, and we have the partial transcript. The “hearsay” thing was never a good argument and certainly isn’t at this point. Let alone this making sense as an argument for blocking others who were on the call from testifying.
Doesn’t any part of you appreciate your argument is self-contradictory?
Nobody has to testify. The issue is of who should testify such that we all know what happened and whether the president indeed committed extortion / bribery as seems to be the case right now, but I, like others, would like to have as much information as possible to make such a judgement.
Remember? You were implying that there’s a point where the judge should not indulge the dems with pointless witnesses. So I am talking about the people who should testify before we can say we’re at that point.
Even if this were true (and it’s not), so what? Saying “You were trying to impeach him for X” is not a defense of Y.
That is reasonable. It is also reasonable to hold the House to its case as it went ahead and impeached without that testimony. It is up to the Senate, and I think that either way would be reasonable. But as this is a political event, the Dems should not have relied on the GOP to do them favors. If this testimony was so important, they should have done their due diligence and went to court to enforce the subpoenas. But, either way, I think, does not make it some sort of sham trial.
It’s a good point and I would have to think about it. The privilege is pretty broad and as the State Department is in the executive branch, it might be little different that if Trump himself asked him to do some work.
Analogies are always poor, but it would be something like if I was representing Bill Gates in an anti-trust suit, but one day his son asked me to draft some estate planning documents. While I’m at his son’s house, Bill Gates comes over and admits to hiding assets from his other son.
I’m not representing Gates Sr. in the estate planning for his son, but I am representing him on another matter, and he may have felt that because I was his lawyer, he was free to confess that crime to me. And that is really the gravamen of the attorney/client relationship; whether the person believed that they had such a relationship.
Good point, though.
As I recall it, on day 1, he lied to the American people about the size of his inauguration crowd - which is fair if we’re talking national security but is a betrayal of the public trust for things of this nature - issued an order to remove the sanctions against Russia in the face of clear evidence that they had attempted to subvert the election, and in the time since then the FBI has arrested a number of people associated with the inauguration for election finance crimes and forcibly searched the premises of a few others.
To say that it’s unreasonable for the Democrats or anyone to think about impeaching Donald Trump from day 1 ignores that Donald Trump was already committing impeachable acts before he was even in office and had already committed all new ones his first day in.
You don’t have to be politically opposed to Donald Trump to think he should be impeached, you just have to live in the real world and actually think for two seconds about what the job description is.