Not only them- the goobers who were arrested for “following Trump’s orders” should be suing him as well.
On the topic of the stipulation, here’s what was said by Trump’s lawyers in agreeing to allow Rep. Herrera-Beutler’s statement into evidence:
DONALD JOHN TRUMP, BY HIS COUNSEL, IS PREPARED TO STIPULATE THAT IF REPRESENTATIVE HERRERA BEUTLER, WERE TO TESTIFY UNDER OATH AS PART OF THESE PROCEEDINGS, HER TESTIMONY WOULD BE CONSISTENT WITH THE STATEMENT SHE ISSUED FEBRUARY 12, 2021 AND THE FORMER PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL IS AGREEABLE TO THE ADMISSION OF THAT PUBLIC STATEMENT INTO EVIDENCE AT THIS TIME.
That’s per C-SPAN.
IOW, Trump’s lawyers stipulated that that’s what she’d say if she were to testify.
Haven’t read through everything, so I don’t know if that’s already been pointed out, but if not, that should settle any question over what was stipulated.
I think this turned out about as well as could reasonably be hoped.
There was never a chance of conviction – getting 7 Republicans to vote guilty was as good as it gets.
But even though there was no chance, it had to be done. Kudos to the Democrats in the House for recognizing that there are some battles that need to be fought, for the sake of history and precedent, even though there is no chance of winning. The Republicans may have won the battle but they were forced to fight it, and by so doing will go down in history as shameful cowards.
And I have no fear of Trump as a potential candidate. Firstly, he’s not interested in holding office – he’s far too lazy. He wants to be a pundit and a kingmaker, having every Republican in the country come to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ring. Fine. By 2024 the odds are better than even he’ll either be dead or in jail; the odds of him being a viable presidential candidate are vanishingly small.
Ballotpedia, your cite, says Burr made this announcement in July of 2016. Given that people have been known to change their minds about such things (I remember Marco Rubio saying in early 2016 that he wasn’t going to run for re-election to the Senate that year), has Burr confirmed more recently his intention to retire at the end of his current term?
That’s your argument? I won’t waste my time.
Not how this works. Witnesses don’t testify in an impeachment trial or any other without counsel for both sides present.
Are you aware that every witness required a voice vote to be heard? So yes, Democrats could have had their witnesses, and rejected those offered by Republicans, witness after witness after witness, requiring Democrats to conduct a voice vote of 100 Senators for each and every witness Republicans offered. Want to do that 300 times?
I’m well aware an impeachment trial isn’t a regular trial. I’ve pointed that out in this thread at least twice. However, in an impeachment trial, GOP Senators could not have questioned the witnesses on behalf of Trump’s counsel and the fact that you think they can simply demonstrates your ignorance of the process. Prejudiced jurors are nonetheless still jurors. They cannot act as counsel for either party.
But feel free to keep swinging. It’s obvious you don’t have an actual argument to make.
Me, I’m mindful of how fast this 2 years is going to pass and that Republicans intend to do every single thing they can to continue foot-dragging into Biden’s term. This trial could have been yet another way for them to do that.
It was very important for Democrats to have the trial. In my opinion, much less so to have live witnesses when they got their stipulation into the record as to what the witness they cared about most would have testified to. McCarthy would have been nothing more than a slithering slime mold on the stand.
I don’t know if he’s specifically confirmed it, but news reports like this one consistently make reference to the fact that he’s retiring in 2022, and he’s never contradicted them.
That’s right, and all 43 now have provided Democratic opponents with ready-made campaign commercials against them.
Not to mention the money he, no doubt, believes he’ll collect from gullible right-wingers. (I think he WILL collect a lot in the first few months. But, gradually, the right will find a new bully to whom they can give their allegiance–and cash.)
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That’s right. Despite the Dems having the majority, the GOP could have made plenty of time-consuming mischief. And does anyone really doubt that Mitch McConnell would have hesitated to do so?
^ This. Going the witness route would have lost Democrats good will throughout the nation as the thing would have dragged on for weeks, and Republicans would have gleefully made much of the fact that Other Things Weren’t Getting Done.
And to top it all off, the same 43 GOP Senators would, in all likelihood, have voted the same way they did today. (Some of the 7 might have been lost to annoyance at the Dems for said dragging-out-for-weeks, too.)
The ONLY way this dynamic could have been changed, I believe, is if a weeks-long Senate trial might potentially result in public opinion polls that put Trump’s favorability in the teens. In that circumstance, the Dems would gain some votes from the GOP side…but even then, possibly not the seventeen needed.
It had to be done because the Democratic base insisted on handing DJT a likely victory.
In a free country, historians will disagree.
I’d say they will go down in most mainstream history as having voted as their constituents desired. This is normal behavior for a politician and has pluses and minuses fo society.
He had a strange way of showing it when he twice ran for office.
I’m leaning towards the idea he’s past his political sell by date. But it’s far from certain. Maybe he’ll be too frail to run in 2024, and Biden (or Harris) too popular to defeat. Or maybe not.
The surest sign that he’s done is that he’s raised almost no money since his last election. I suppose it’s possible he could reverse himself but extremely unlikely.
flurb, can you quantify almost none?
Some numbers for the first few weeks are here:
New campaign filings show Trump’s fundraising haul off claims of voter fraud
@Ann_Hedonia and @flurb are discussing Richard Burr, not Trump.
Yep. Should have clarified since this is a fast moving thread.
They shouldn’t have even fucking tried if they couldn’t get the votes in the congress to convict him, which they KNEW. Now instead of starting off Biden’s administration from a position of authority, the Democratic leadership has handed a demoralizing public loss of face to all their voters, AND handed a second wind to the Republican party which SHOULD be stewing in their loss in the election, but who will instead now double down on rallies and celebration, saying “we’re vindicated! yaaaay! MAGA!” the people in charge of this impeachment didn’t stop for two seconds to consider how a SECOND failed impeachment would make the Democratic base feel. They were so desperate to have the last word, they negated all the momentum from the victory of the election by broadcasting to the whole country just how impotent their party is.
The Trump fans are going apeshit crazy with elation tonight.
Maybe I’m just emotional because it’s been a long tiring day and this is a shitty way to cap it off. I don’t know. I’ve discussed this with many people today and everyone seems equally disguested with the result.
That’s cool, their guy lost the election.
Sometimes you try to do the right thing even knowing you won’t succeed, because it’s important to try (and be seen to try).
In the abstract, I will agree.
But when it comes to giving Donald Trump a trial victory, no.
Yeah, I thought of that but I’m not sure what the legal precedent is regarding suing someone for convincing you to commit a crime. It don’t think it would work well. It would be hard to convince a judge that it wasn’t your own damn fault.
He’s not to lazy to run. — he loved running. It means rallies and money. He’s too lazy to work at the job.
Is there any optimism to be found in that in 2021 “the news cycle moves a mile a minute”?
I mean, the scumbag still lost the election by a landslide, so maybe all this dancing and chest-bumping (speaking anecdotally / metaphorically, based on Facebook comments I’m seeing) will dissipate a week from now, when these morons realize that “being acquitted” doesn’t mean he gets to move his shit back into the White House?
No they didnt. At THAT time, it seemed like the repubs were gonna go along with it. Which is why Moscow Mitch closed the senate for a while.