Any Senators who sit there during the trial and say, “Well, on the one hand what Trump did was very, very wrong, but on the other hand Biden is not technically a political opponent so I’m going to acquit” are bad people.
More than that it will not look good for Biden either. Regardless of what Trump did wrong having the son of a sitting Vice President get rich off of foreign business deals with a country as entangled as Ukraine when his only qualification was getting kicked out of the Navy for cocaine does not look good. If Trump were smarter he would have just saved that for the campaign ads. And Joe is not handling it well as it is.
I think the outcome is as predetermined as Wrestlemania. Most Senators, at least on the GOP side, already know they’re going to vote to acquit. Some may quibble with the rationale, but they never really have to say anything beyond something like “I don’t think the evidence was sufficient to remove him from office.”
2/3 is a purposely difficult bar to hurdle. No one, including Trump, was more deserving of the boot than Andrew Johnson and they couldn’t even get rid of him.
Hunter Biden’s life seems to consist of an almost-endless array of bad decisions. I suspect President Trump realized that he’ll almost certainly produce additional material for his campaign ads between now and the commencement of the general election season.
There are exactly 0 Senators for which that would matter. Republicans might use that as a fig leaf excuse, but the real reason they’ll acquit is because he’s their leader and “fuck you, that’s why.”
Johnson was an exceptionally poor President, without question. But the articles of impeachment against him were utterly ridiculous. That was the one and only true political impeachment we’ve seen.
Can the President ignore the will of Congress? That is fundamentally what the charges are about. Does Congress have the power of the purse, or does it not? Does Congress have the power to investigate, or does it not? The Senate will be forced to choose between upholding over two centuries of its own authority and being nothing more than a President’s lapdog.
Johnson fucked the country for the next century or more with how he purposely mishandled Reconstruction. Trump is going to be a blip in history by comparison.
Probably, but the complete abandonment of rule of law or pretense of caring about ethics or fact could be the start of a very bad path. If Trump just loses re-election, sure, blip. If Trump wins and then the GOP starts down a road to enshrine themselves permanently because they can’t win with the demographic shifts… that could be dark.
And so they were equally bad arguing over when a president’s term ends or with Clinton’s what “is” is and whether the standard of impeachable offences is different for presidents and judges?
Or is it bad because you think Trump should be convicted regardless of how the Articles of Impeachment are guilty? Would you convict a guy of murder if he did not violate the letter of the law?
The thing is that they will vote to acquit and not give any reasons. The majority of their constituents won’t care and they have no obligation to explain the rest of the world.
Honest question: was A. Johnson deserving of the boot for violating a law*? For disparaging Congress**. For being a bad President?
*That many Senators said under the letter of the law was not actually broken.
** Saying laws Congress passed were invalid since they did not allow the former Confederacy representation? Incidentally, the House thought this charge would be the one to win.
I don’t think it would work in Trump’s favor to bring up how the unqualified children of other elected officials benefited financially from the parent’s office. If his opponent has a single hair on his (or her) ass the rebuttal commercials would be glorious to behold.
So he’s getting impeached over executive privilege?
Maybe I’m missing something, but what exactly do Hunter Biden’s decisions have to do with Joe’s candidacy? I mean, if someone has a ne’er-do-well child, that shouldn’t necessarily disqualify them or even have anything to do with their political viability.
And really, how weak is it to dredge up some dumb stuff Hunter Biden did to discredit his dad? Especially when your own (GOP) candidate is a walking laundry list of crookedness, unethicality and sex scandals?
Absolutely. I’ll grant you there are a lot of lost causes who will vote for Trump regardless of what happens.
But most people aren’t that stupid. A lot of people voted against Trump in 2016 (more than voted for him) and even many of the people who voted for him in 2016 aren’t hopeless. They’ll vote against Trump if they see the evidence that he is a crook. And some people who voted for him in the past will drop him if they think he’s losing support. So Trump is very vulnerable, even in places where he won in 2016. And the Democrats know this and will come out fighting.
Check what you quoted, I said if someone thinks that what Trump did was very, very wrong (that is, if they recognize the corruption evident in his actions) but are A-OK with a corrupt president continuing on because someone wasn’t careful with their words in the impeachment articles, then what’s point of taking an oath to defend the constitution? You defend it by removing someone who’s wiping their ass with it, full stop.
If you or they don’t think that Trump is wiping his ass with the constitution, then fine, but that’s not what I was addressing.
No, he’s getting impeached for committing crimes. Executive privilege is the defense he’s claiming allows him to commit crimes.
Who’s disagreeing? But a President should not be impeached over differences of policy. That’s something I thought everybody understood regarding impeachment.