Are you asking if I think someone should/could be impeached on their first day in office based on the assumption they lying about the oath they are taking that day?
I can’t quite figure what you are asking. If it turns out someone has violated their responsibilities in office, then yes, there then comes the subjective decision if the violation rises to the level of impeachment. A public official that jaywalks and gets the ticket “fixed” doesn’t need to be impeached for that.
Nothing in those statements either directly or implicitly say that they would never change their mind no matter what additional evidence comes forward. Unlike a regular juror, these senators already have all of the evidence that the House has.
If it were permitted, it would be like a juror in a criminal case reading the entirety of the evidence in a prosecutor’s file and saying that he believes the suspect is not guilty before the trial. The juror would then know every possible piece of evidence that could be introduced at trial and could make a rational decision to acquit. That’s not saying that if a new piece of evidence is uncovered that the juror’s mind would not change.
It is possible to believe that Graham and McConnell would acquit even if smoking gun evidence arises, but that belief would not be a result of anything they have said or done.
They already are. This is in progress right now, as we speak. They’re remaking the federal courts right now, as we speak – loading them up with unqualified ideologues at every level. They’ve already made it extremely difficult for the next person who wants to take a shot at being a moderate progressive reformer. More than likely, if the next progressive wants to get anything done at all, they will have to either win a super majority in congress (highly unlikely) or impeach federal judges to do it (also not very likely without massive public support).
Guess what folks: that last election we had in 2016? It had consequences.
Perhaps I’m optimistic, but I don’t think the Trump experiment is repeatable. The whole thing is dependent on the personality cult built around him by the electorate (moreso than by the other elected Republicans or the party elite, like the Koch brothers). They’re riding the Trump train as far as they can (and are doing well so far, with all of those Federal judges appointed and the massive tax cut for the wealthy) but when it runs off the rails, are going to be in trouble.
Take a step back for a moment. Do you think if a president pressured a foreign nation to investigate a political rival, or at least say they are investigating a political rival for personal gain, would rise to the level of “high crime or misdemeanor”?
If not, we are done. There is no debate here. But if you think that is punishable by removal from office, we now need to determine if Trump did just that. We have more than the call to base that on, but the call certainly is a strong starting point. What it takes now is witnesses about Trump’s state of mind when he made the call and for experts in international negotiations to give their impressions of the call. Just like we call expert witnesses to interpret crime scenes and psychologists and other experts to testify about patterns and behaviors in other crimes. This is no different. So yes, it matters very much if Bolton felt this was a blackmail call. It also matters what other conversations he had with Trump.
The republican senators are saying they don’t see any reason to further investigate this matter. It is as if they walked into a room covered in blood and furniture tossed all about and reports of a missing person and said, “Well, no body here, so clearly nothing bad happened. Case closed.”
No real disagreement here, except that I think a lot of people are underestimating Trump and his impact on the party’s transformation. He may be a moron in myriad ways, but the one thing he excels at is manipulating people. There’s no need to wait until the fuhrer that follows Trump: this country is in very deep trouble already, especially when you consider that there will be a bloodbath in the civil service system should he get re-elected. There are already untold numbers of career civil servants headed for the exits now, but it’ll be nasty if he gets another term. The days of the neutral bureaucracy that functions as a public institution are coming to an end. They will be weaponized for political purposes. Those who don’t heel, will be eliminated from the system. That is how power works.
As I’ve said, the authoritarians are much further down the football field than people realize. It’s first and goal.
Impeachment doesn’t happen on the commission of an act. No one ever said it did.
It happens after investigation of reasonable cause events. There is a whole method to go forward with these things. What they are doing now in fact.
trimp started the crazy very early in his tenure. So maybe I think he should go based on lying about releasing tax returns, in Nov 2017, after 2 years of lies. You don’t think it’s serious enough. But the breach becomes more serious as time goes on. Everntually you have to decide whether he can do what he wants or you have to hold him responsible for the lie. When?
His supporters don’t care? So what? It’s a big country, what about the others? They are a vast majority and he is not defending their america. He is an offense againt any american who voted against him, and it’s been “almost” since day one.
As an aside, I’ve not asked anyone on the board their opinion of Biden’s earlier comments about how he told Ukraine that he was withholding $1 billion dollars unless they got rid of the prosecutor. That sounds like an outright quid pro quo and shouldn’t any subsequent president be permitted to ask Ukraine to investigate a potential crime? Now, you make think that I am hopelessly naive in thinking that Trump’s motives were pure in simply wanting to ferret out corruption, but doesn’t that at least give him cover? His job is to investigate these things and just because you are politically opposed to him doesn’t give you a free pass. So, if someone wants to field it, what was Biden talking about? I am not JAQ, I honestly don’t have enough information about that statement.
I dispute that this is like an expert in a criminal trial. An expert in a criminal trial possesses knowledge that a lay person does not have. For example, if you or I look at blood spatter at a murder scene it doesn’t make much sense. An expert can say that this pattern or that shows that a knife was used and the person held it in his right hand and stabbed at such and such angle, for example. Experts are helpful to a juror to make such a conclusion.
That isn’t what we have here. We would have people giving their opinions that everyone else can equally have by simply examining the call.
Let’s say that Mulvaney was in the room when the call took place and after getting off the phone Trump said, “If that sonofabitch wants his military aid, he better give me Biden’s head on a platter.” Smoking gun, right? Well, not really. Because if he didn’t communicate that threat to Ukraine then by definition no pressure was applied.
I think it is nearly exculpatory that the Ukrainian President stated that he never felt any pressure. If you are blackmailing someone, it is essential to let the blackmail-ee know what cards you are holding. As that never happened, I have a hard time believing that any quid pro quo occurred.
Nov 2017 is at least 10 months after taking office. That isn’t day 1. The question is if he should have been impeached on day 1. Don’t move the goal posts.
We can go down the myriad of other paths you brought up, such as whether lying about whether he would release his taxes or not, but the original question was if Trump should have been impeached on day 1.
You may not have asked, but I’ll answer it. It IS a quid pro quo - for the United States. Said prosecutor was corrupt as fuck, and literally EVERYONE wanted him gone. Trump’s quid pro quo? That was for Trump. It’s one thing to do something for the nation, which is the entire point of elected officials, and another to do something simply to help the President, personally. Get it?
Of course, you could always read the countless times it’s been explained right here on the SMDB.
I’m not taking as fact the statement of someone whose country’s independence from might absolutely rely on US military aid. To think that’s a complete exoneration is naive, at best.
So we agree that IF Trump tried to pressure Ukraine into such an act that would be impeachable?
Good.
That just leads to the question of whether or not he did or didn’t do such a thing. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. The call, as many have noted, is surely indicative of that. It leads to a reasonable suspicion that is exactly what Trump was doing. But, as you said, maybe there are other interpretations. MAYBE Trump was pure of heart and wanting to stamp out corruption. Maybe. But it is important we know and find all the facts to determine the true motives, because this is a huge deal.
The R senators seem uninterested in finding more information. As you said, based on what they know, there isn’t proof Trump did anything wrong. But they don’t seem open to the idea this sure does look bad to a reasonable person.
Maybe Trump DOES do things differently. So what? If he did put pressure on Ukraine, even unknowingly, he needs to be gone. Ignorance of the law and all that. This is where expert testimony comes in. Trump could be completely blind to how this was putting pressure on another country. Now we bring in the experts who can testify, “Yep, that is definitely going to be putting pressure on them.” It matters. I don’t expect a member of the committee on aging to be an expert in international relations and they will need the guidance of experts to determine if these acts were, in fact, a quid pro quo.
I’m not trying to weasel out of what I said, but it should be impeachable only if Trump did it with knowledge that Biden Sr. or Jr. did nothing wrong, or didn’t have a good faith basis for believing so.
I mean, let’s say that there was undisputed evidence that an American citizen murdered someone while travelling in Ukraine. Let’s not fight the hypo, the American citizen is guilty of murder. Suppose Trump said that we are withholding military aid until you prosecute that American citizen because we don’t want to give our citizens the idea that they can travel and commit crimes with impunity. One might disagree with that, but it wouldn’t be impeachable would it? I think we can agree, no.
Now change that unnamed American citizen to Hunter Biden. Does that change anything? Again, I think not. What if the crime is not murder but corruption to get a family member of an influential politician a job? Does that change it? Again, I think not.
So just because something has two purposes and both are served, do we just look at the improper purpose and assume it controls? And I know that you all are going to slam me for saying all this and call me a partisan whore, but I think it is a good question. Can’t a president use his influence to get an investigation done of things which violates U.S. law, even if it has the incidental effect of hurting his political opponents?
I mean, Trump did not ask for any untruthful findings; he asked for an investigation. If the investigation comes back that neither of the Bidens violated any law, who is harmed? If they did violate the law, then they shouldn’t get a pass just because they are Trump’s political opponents.
I’ve said before that I do not like Trump personally and I only like him politically because, judges. But I am concerned about the logical extension of impeaching him for this conduct
Moving from the theoretical to the real, the House confirmed today that there are additional articles of impeachment under consideration and that McGahn’s testimony is instrumental in drawing them up.
This 18-day gap is delicious. Decomponsating grandpa is raining misery on his GOP ‘allies’ and they are powerless to shut him up and/or get the articles delivered. And now the House is admitting to considering new articles, which will make Dotard even crazier.
If Trump were really interested in finding out if a crime was committed, he would have referred it to US law enforcement agencies. He didn’t do that - he asked a foreign country with a history of corruption. It’s not credible that he was asking a country known for corruption to investigate a political rival for legitimate reasons. At some point we have to stop being silly and accept the obvious. This was obvious, and the idea that this was just about Trump’s supposed concern with corruption is silly. Ludicrous, even. If you’re willing to believe this, or that it’s anything other than the most cynical and pathetic kind of lie, then you’ll accept absolutely anything that Trump and his team want you to.
UV, let me clear this up: no matter who you are in the government… dogcatcher, mayor, senator, woman @ the DMV, President, whatever… once you invite a foreign government to intefere with my vote, you’re done. Period. There are no backsies, no oopsies on violating the sovereignty of the United States of America, no matter what your position is.
And, generally speaking, if I get caught bribing the refs to improve my teams chances to win the Super Bowl, and confess… even if my team is completely unaware of the situation, I don’t get to participate in the contest in which I admitted rigging! The very idea is preposterous!
Hence, he must be impeached, and the nature of the offense is so grave that he cannot be allowed to participate in the 2020 election as a candidate, incumbent or not.
I don’t think anyone wants to hear Bolton’s opinion concerning the call – everybody’s got an opinion. No, he’s on the witness list because he can provide first-hand information concerning Trump and the actions he took and orders he gave before and after the call.
Nope. McConnell for example has explicitly said he is not going to make any attempt to be impartial, and will move to acquit as quickly as possible.
I don’t know how in your mind that becomes McConnell acting in good faith and just waiting for the case to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Where do you get these ideas?
Do “any other litigants” have the right to prevent others from responding to subpoenas?
And again, is it a legal process or a political one? It seems you describe the process as political when we’re condemning republican ethics, but then switch to legal when describing the democrats and all the ways you think their hands should be tied.
Firstly, as you yourself have alluded, the full call has not been released yet.
But secondly and more importantly, the alleged wrongdoing goes beyond the call now. It’s irrelevant whether the call was the only thing the whistleblower reported.
I don’t know where you got the idea that we only want Bolton called to hear his opinion. I want to know if he can corroborate certain key events and shed light on any conversations with the budget office.
He asked for the announcement of investigations. And it seems he went to special measures to keep the request quiet rather than go through the normal security channels for such a request.
You said that you aren’t interested in getting in the weeds and I see no value in trying to force you down that road since such a statement is pretty clearly a sign that you won’t give two damns and won’t read anything, let alone think about it. Ergo, I am making no argument and putting forward no evidence.
But let’s say that you’re at a table with someone and recommend that they try a particular dish. They reply, “Sorry, I’m a vegetarian.” So you point out that it is a vegetarian dish (it really is).
Now, if at this point, this person looks at it and it just doesn’t look appealing to them, they’re perfectly in their rights to say something like, “Nah, I’ve got enough.” Or whatever. No harm, no foul.
But if they instead spend the rest of the meal making snide comments about how you’re trying to torture animals and mutilate their corpses, then:
a) It doesn’t really matter whether they say that they’re not talking about you each time they make a snide comment about the one vegetarian dish, it’s still clear that they’re making an assumption about you that’s bizarre and outlandish. (I mean, unless you have some history with them of kicking puppies before their eyes, or whatever.)
b) Making that sort of show, completely out of the blue, based on nothing, is how crazy people behave, not rational adults.
If Trump is such an unmitigated idiot that he believes an insane conspiracy theory told to him by Putin, over his own intelligence agencies… Then I guess he “acted in good faith” by asking Ukraine to investigate Biden.
However, If Trump is such an unmitigated idiot that he believes an insane conspiracy theory told to him by Putin, over his own intelligence agencies… Then he is a complete idiot and a danger to the country, and must be removed before he makes an even bigger idiotic error.
I’m not trying to twist your words, but all of this seems to me to come down to the belief that we just KNOW that Trump is a bad guy. We KNOW it. Anything he does cannot be for a good or proper motive. It HAS to be bad because, you know, he’s Donald Trump and he’s an asshole. It seems to me to be question begging.
I am not in any conspiracy with the Trump campaign. In fact, I believe that your side’s interpretation is the most plausible, and if I was forced to bet my savings on one side or the other, I would bet on yours. But is that enough to remove a president from office? I’m having trouble with the inference after inference after inference to arrive at the conclusion that those on the left seem to see as obvious. And I further believe that the reason that you all believe it is so obvious stems from your previous dislike of Trump, so it is a sort of a bootstrap.
I just don’t see the evidence in that call nor do I think a third party’s interpretation of the call is controlling or even relevant.