The Republicans would like to make it about Biden.
To expound upon this, Dershowitz was arguing that there were crimes at the founding: common law crimes for which people were prosecuted all the time. The founders had those crimes in mind for impeachment. It was only when the Hudson case was decided that it was held that there were no federal common law crimes as the Constitution only permitted such federal power that it granted.
I haven’t done enough research to say whether I agree with Dershowitz, but I thought he gave a pretty compelling presentation and he addressed all of the arguments in opposition.
His most powerful point was basically, fine, disagree with me, but tell me what your constitutional baseline is. It cannot be whatever the Legislature thinks it should be because that then makes the president removable at the pleasure of the legislature, much like a parliamentary system: something the framers explicitly rejected. So there must be some baseline, and if it is not a crime, then what is it? Words like corruption, abuse of power, etc. are so vague that they turn into service at the pleasure of a legislature.
Except the entire defense has been about lack of evidence because Trump doesn’t want them to use the “he did it but its not impeachable” defense, he wants to be vindicated completely.
How did the Framers “explicitly reject” that the legislature can remove the president?
Do you just ignore Hamilton’s writings then? When he wrote on the issues of a public official engaging in offenses that are “primarily political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself,” does Dershowitz’s opinion matter more than Hamilton’s?
Further, on Dershowitz bad arguments - the articles of impeachment specifically describe the crimes Trump is being accused of. Dershowitz pretends that stuff isn’t there.
- Committing a crime.
- Using the powers of the role for personal use, rather than for the people.
- Abrogating the role.
- Accepting foreign monies.
- Issuing illegal orders.
But that is exactly what Dersh said - “Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense, that is clear from the history. That is clear from the language of the Constitution”.
- Treason, as witnessed by two people
Abuse of power: Taking the powers of the President for personal use.
Bolton allegation: Used his power to control the OMB and to lead diplomacy to try and force a foreign power to help him in his personal political campaign.
Except in times of crisis. E.g., if habeas corpus has been suspended.
He addressed that. Short version because I have to run.
The original debates where about whether a president should be removable at all for any reason. These comments were made during that debate. There were also comments about how a president should be removable if he were incapacitated.
When it came time to write the actual reasons for impeachment, these other things like maladministration and corruption and incapacity were voted down when they were suggested to be included.
You are confusing a conclusion for a principle. You are just taking what you allege Trump did and retrofitting it into the text of the Constitution. Anyone with a beef against the President could do that. The GOP could have impeached Obama for DACA on rationale #3 and #5.
This is far too much like “whatever in the hell Congress wants.”
That wasn’t a statutory crime when the constitution was written. There were no statutory crimes. How could the founders have been talking about the burden of proof for treason when treason wasn’t illegal??
So, your position is that the Framers, hating monarchy, wanted the Present to use his powers for personal benefit, wrote emoluments and bribery into the Constitution as a joke, and talked about abuse of the public trust and injuries to the society, use of the office to protect accomplices, etc. purely as part of a very bizarre and specific hallucinogenic shroom trip?
I feel like you’re making my argument for me.
Yes, treason wasn’t defined as a statutory crime at the time of the inception of the Federal government.
So, either we must be able to prosecute the President for treason or we must ignore the very text of the Constitution because we have wrapped ourselves into a specific method of Constitutional interpretation that renders sections of the Constitution itself invalid, despite there being no amendment nullifying those sections.
If your interpretation of the Constitution invalidates portions of it, then that interpretation is incorrect.
I don’t particularly trust Bolton or Lev Parnas. I tend to think of them the way I thought ofJoe Valachi. Probably telling the important truths, but leaving out stuff that self-implicates. Unsavory people.
Just 20 months ago Lee Zeldin, one of the biggest Trump supporters, was tweeting out what great National Security Adviser John Bolton was. Love those 180 degree turnarounds.
WTF? The debate at the Constitutional Convention on impeachment occurred on July 20, 1787. Federalist 65, in which Hamilton wrote about impeachment, was published on March 7, 1788.
Your timeline is fucked up.
I’m sure there’s an interesting legal argument to be had here but as a layperson, it seems to lead to some ridiculous scenarios. Like, say the president gets elected and then decides he doesn’t want to president, and just fucks off down to Key West to sip Mai Tai’s on the beach. No bills get signed, no operational budget gets passed, the executive for all intents and purposes just shuts down. Let’s say furthermore that the president has installed a worthless cabinet of pool-boys and stoners who fuck right off to Key West with him, eliminating the possibility for a 25th amendment solution.
You’re telling me that somewhere in that complete abrogation of responsibility, Congress must identify a specific crime before removing him from office? Because I’m sure they could come up with something, but I’m also sure we’d spend weeks quibbling about whether or not it’s actually a crime to just abandon the presidency. It seems absurd that the alternative would be that we just have to wait 4 years for another election.
Certainly I can see the risk of a supermajority removing the president just because they don’t like the color of his suit or whatever, but that’s not the case here – the president has decided that congress actually has no oversight powers. He’s essentially “checked out” of the system of checks and balances, and congress’ recourse here for a president who’s unwilling to play by the rules seems to be the same as if he took a permanent vacation.
It’s my understanding that the book wasn’t given to the White House, as we might understand and colloquially call it while meaning the administration, but rather to a National Security Council official named Ellen Knight who is in the Records Management Division. She was to vet the manuscript to make sure no classified national security information was disclosed and was asked to keep it within the NSC. It was not (supposed to be) available to the regularly named players we think of as the White House. In fact, a spokesman for the NSC said no personnel outside the NSC had reviewed the manuscript. It’s entirely possible that the powers-that-be had no idea about the manuscript and it was some unknown drone in the NSC who thought America deserved to hear what Bolton had to say. There must be a few people still in the government who haven’t drunk the orange kool aid.