The Trump Impeachment Inquiry

[Gyrate]

@UltraVires

I swear I think that if someone said Trump was guilty of genocide and I pointed out that he really wasn’t, someone else would come along and said that I was nitpicking because Trump really is the worst person ever and should have been removed from office yesterday and that I must be Trump’s whipping boy for wanting to defend him.

For this analogy to apply to the discussion in this thread, you’d have to be arguing that Trump didn’t commit genocide because strictly speaking not all of the hundreds of people he killed belonged to the same ethnic group. But your attempt to once again pretend that this is about partisanship and personal opinion rather than Trump’s actual behavior is noted.

If it helps, we can break the relevant alleged actions down as such:

1. Trump withheld aid allocated to Ukraine by Congress without sufficient justification. This happened. There is no question that this happened. And the GAO* et alia* have indicated that this rises to the level of an actual crime. There is certainly scope to debate that point in a trial setting - oh, but that would require the submission of evidence, which for some reason isn’t allowed.

2. Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate (or at least to announce that he was going to investigate) Joe Biden, a political rival and likely Democratic frontrunner for the 2020 election. This also definitely happened. Trump has admitted it, and the transcript released by the WH confirms it. Is it a crime? Possibly not. But it transgresses the normal law enforcement investigation protocols (i.e. to report the “corruption” concerns to the FBI) and deliberately involves a foreign power (again!) in the US electoral process. And the rationale for him doing so is extremely weak and involves quite a lot of other suspect activity at the behest of the President (see the Lev, Igor and Rudy show). Alan Dershowitz, in his correct-but-not-as-correct-as-now days, argued that corruption (and this is corruption) in the President is impeachable even if a clear crime hasn’t been committed. At the very least, it’s something that the President should speak to under oath…oh, but that would require calling him as a witness, which for some reason isn’t allowed.

3. Trump made release of the Ukraine aid conditional on the announcement of an investigation into Biden. Not explicitly stated by Trump, although Mulvaney did openly admit that there was a “quid pro quo” and the testimony of the few people who weren’t actively blocked by the White House supports that view. Is it a crime? Very likely, given that the delivery of allocated assets was being leveraged to provide a personal political benefit to Trump.

You can quibble whether 3. constitutes bribery, extortion, general malfeasance or something else, but there was at least one actual crime identified in the above list and possibly more than one.

Now add on top of that:

4. Trump and Barr refused to comply, and directed their staff members to refuse to comply, with Congressional subpoenas. Done openly, repeatedly and unapologetically. Is it a crime? Definitely. Barr prosecuted Susan McDougall for the exact same thing during the Clinton impeachment hearings. The problem is that when the law enforcement mechanism - which is this case reports directly to Barr - is fundamentally corrupt, there aren’t really many other options. But the crime was still committed.

Personally I find the argument that Trump and Barr are committing crimes to cover up the fact that Trump is innocent rather implausible, although your opinion may vary. But please - keep picking at the minutiae and I’m sure the whole case against Trump will suddenly crumble. Perhaps you could doublecheck to see if the flag in the Senate chamber has a gold fringe on it .

[Hamlet]

@UltraVires

If Trump is guilty of bribery or extortion, then every politician in the history of the United States is guilty of it. You want that farm subsidy included in next week’s spending bill? You really should vote for my health care bill today. We are going to put sanctions on you unless you stop trying to build nuclear weapons. We will invade you unless you let us inspect your weapons dismantling program. It happens all of the time and has happened throughout history.

Trump asked another country to investigate a possible law violation by the Bidens. That’s his job.

Ah, here’s where we get to the bullshit. That’s not his job. It wasn’t his job for the entirety of his Presidency until he could politically gain from it. He didn’t do it for any other reason than his own political gain, which, as we pointed out, isn’t his job. His job is to protect the US, not his chances of re-election.

But you know what would help. If we could hear testimony of that from people in the executive branch. If it was a matter that he wanted to fight corruption in Ukraine, by all means, lets have people testify to that so we can determine the veracity of the claim.

But nope, this administration has chosen to simply try to hide all the evidence, claim executive privilege, and obstruct the investigation. Instead they rely on their lackeys (cough, cough) to throw out claims that, if actually subjected to cross examination or intelligent probing, would be shown to be the bullshit excuses they are. But we can’t. Because this adminstration knows they’re bullshit.

@UltraVires

This is a big bunch of nothing cooked up by a party that has hated him before he was elected, have made fun of everything he says or does, and have believed that almost every action he has taken is impeachment worthy.

Just so I understand your position, if President Trump withheld Congressionally approved aid in a blatant attempt to get Ukraine to announce an investigation for purely political motives and then had people lie and refused to cooperate with the investigation or respond to lawful subpoenas, it would still be unimpeachable.

Is that right?

PS: I edited out the parts of you ranting about TDS because I think it is a disservice to you to have you so blatantly reliant on partisanship rather than a factual, rational discussion of what actually occurred and what should be done about it.

[Ravenman]

I don’t know why anyone is trying to challenge UltraVires on the facts. He doesn’t even show an interest in understanding what the law says, yet feels confident that whatever the law is, Trump didn’t break it but every other politician in the world did.

[Crane]

Bribery is a noun that covers the categories of offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting for both the giver and receiver. There is only the term briber. There is no additional term for ‘bribee’.

So, by soliciting a favor for his personal political benefit, Trump is guilty of bribery.

[Ravenman]

Moreover, his contention that what Trump did is perfect normal foreign policy is at odds with the sworn testimony of Trump’s own ambassadors and foreign policy advisors who testified, under oath, that the policy (as well as the phone call) was so troubling that they contacted lawyers, threatened to resign, and were publicly critical of it.

Now, who knows more how foreign policy works: professional national security advisers with collected professional experience that easily exceeds 100 years, or some guy on a message board comparing the law to cleaning a kid’s bedroom?

[BeepKillBeep]

@Ravenman

Moreover, his contention that what Trump did is perfect normal foreign policy is at odds with the sworn testimony of Trump’s own ambassadors and foreign policy advisors who testified, under oath, that the policy (as well as the phone call) was so troubling that they contacted lawyers, threatened to resign, and were publicly critical of it.

Now, who knows more how foreign policy works: professional national security advisers with collected professional experience that easily exceeds 100 years, or some guy on a message board comparing the law to cleaning a kid’s bedroom?

Yeah, but you’re forgetting that Sondman et al. are deep state anti-Trump moles or something. Trump barely knows them!

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Trump tells the Senate one thing and the courts another when it comes to witnesses: Trump tells the Senate one thing and courts another when it comes to witnesses | CNN Politics

[kaylasdad99]

@squeegee

@UltraVires

I mean, if I don’t give my daughter her allowance unless she cleans her room, is that extortion?

If you don’t give her allowance until she punches some guy she doesn’t even know, what is that? Or - more on point - if she lies to the cops that this guy she doesn’t know committed a crime?

Leaving it at cleaning the room, let’s extend the analogy in the other direction: if your daughter’s allowance is drawn from a fund set up for the purpose by someone else, and you have been empowered to dispense it when conditions defined by the fund-setter-uppers have been met, withholding the allowance until certain OTHER conditions (not imposed by the fund-setter-uppers, but only by you) have been met, you are guilty of extortion.

[Ravenman]

The issue of how you treat your daughter is wholly irrelevant, because public officials are not subject to the same rules as families.

For example, anyone is allowed to give UV’s daughter $10,000 in cash. Generally speaking, a public official is very limited in receiving gifts of cash. There are many more examples, but talking about daughters has literally nothing to do with the topic.

[drad_dog]

@Gyrate

I like how you think this argument somehow exonerates Trump.

This should really be written somewhere where everyone can see it, like on Rushmore or something.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@UltraVires

*snip. Respectfully, this is both wrong and really too much. The harm in extortion is a direct harm: If you (not you a hypothetical you) do not pay me $1000, I will kill you. Extortion. Trump didn’t threaten to invade the Ukraine or conduct airstrikes if they didn’t investigate.

What is not extortion is a refusal to provide a third party benefit. Under your scenario if some bad guys are after me, it would be extortion for a private security company to refuse to protect me unless I paid them.

The extorting party must be the one that will cause the harm.

So, if I say —“ if you don’t give me money my brother will kill you” - that’s isn’t extortion? Cool, I’ve got some calls to make.

[Ravenman]

Apparently, “You have a nice fruit stand here; would be a shame if anything happened to it” is also not extortion. It’s just too hypothetical.

[Fiddle_Peghead]

@UltraVires

Explain how Trump is guilty of bribery. When did that happen?

I never said he was guilty of bribery. Back in post #6943 I said

Now, a bribe is when you offer money to someone to do something. By this standard, what Trump did may not have been technically a bribe, but certainly withholding money already promised legitimately unless something new is done (the investigation) is essentially the same thing, and thus rises to the level of a bribe, and is a perfectly acceptable article of impeachment.

I am claiming that what he is accused of doing is *akin *to a bribe, which fits Dershowitz’s standard as to what is impeachable, and thus he is being disingenuous when he just uses the phrase “abuse of power”, and ignores the actual, underlying abuse.

[jsc1953]

Does anyone know why the House didn’t write the articles of impeachment in terms of bribery and/or extortion? It certainly would have eliminated an entire line of argument.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@UltraVires

But throughout history we have conditioned foreign aid on another country doing or not doing a certain thing.

Do you really not understand the difference between something that is in the National interest and something that is in his personal and political interest and actually hurts our national interests?

I still don’t understand bribery, though. Who took money or another thing of value?

It may be difficult to put a specific price tag on what it means to the president of the United States, but are you honestly saying you feel there is no value?
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[enipla]

I don’t get it. There has been overwhelming evidences for years showing what a corrupt person Trump is. Yet people voted for him. And now, when the spotlight is on him, and the evidence is once again clear, people still defend him.

Unbelievable, but it’s the con man’s secret. No one wants to admit they got conned. And in this case, conned by such a moronic obvious crook.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

You’re also forgetting what a joy it is for them to stick it to the libs. Honestly, they would have no problem fiddling while Rome burned as long as Rome was the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco or some other similarly liberal enclave.

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[Red_Wiggler]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

You’re also forgetting what a joy it is for them to stick it to the libs. Honestly, they would have no problem fiddling while Rome burned as long as Rome was the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco or some other similarly liberal enclave.

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Dirty rotten libs who keep forcing us to be fair and polite to minorities.

[Sage_Rat]

@enipla

I don’t get it. There has been overwhelming evidences for years showing what a corrupt person Trump is. Yet people voted for him. And now, when the spotlight is on him, and the evidence is once again clear, people still defend him.

Unbelievable, but it’s the con man’s secret. No one wants to admit they got conned. And in this case, conned by such a moronic obvious crook.

If anyone asks you about Trump’s success tell them that his dad owned about a hundred buildings, most in high property value areas. Trump owns about five buildings, most on the edge of town, which he bought after dad died, using his money.

The secret to success: Be in the will of someone who’s good with money.

[Johnny_L.A]

@Sage_Rat

If anyone asks you about Trump’s success tell them that his dad owned about a hundred buildings, most in high property value areas. Trump owns about five buildings, most on the edge of town, which he bought after dad died, using his money.

The secret to success: Be in the will of someone who’s good with money.

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