It could be either general or specific, I don’t mind either.
But in this case I might disagree with you on whether the president did the things he’s accused of, those accusations being bribery/abuse of power. As I just mentioned in [POST=21984395]post #100[/POST], and as eschrodinger explained in posts [POST=21964661]#82[/POST] and [POST=21965876]#87[/POST], there are elements to such charges that may be disputed such as intent or authority.
~Max
I apologize for the delay. I just addressed this in the previous [POST=21984418]post #101[/POST].
I don’t think that’s an accurate depiction of me. If there was radar evidence that could definitely bring me to the officer’s side. If there was no evidence at all - just the officer’s word versus yours - then I would be hard pressed to vote guilty. It could still happen if your testimony sucks though.
~Max
I don’t believe the Senate has announced trial rules yet. I doubt they will do so before articles of impeachment are approved by the House.
Regarding your objection to my original post, I think I anticipated this is/ought objection:
I’m interested in debating the ‘how ought the Senate…’
~Max
“Ought” is easy. I “ought” to take better care of myself. PG&E “ought” not cut off power again. A Senate trial “ought” to be concerned with facts. Santa Claus “ought” to bring me a pony. Shall we debate what “ought” to happen in all cases?
The realities: I’ve been sloppy. PG&E has been negligent. The Senate is political. And Santa brought me a Cherokee language course that I can’t really use. 
Okay, fantasy time. The filed articles of impeachment include low crimes such as obstruction (of which Tramp has bragged) and witness tampering; conspiracy to violate election laws (which he’s admitted); bribery and emoluments; destruction of official records; perjury; mopery and dopery, etc. Major high crimes include abuse of power, and revealing security secrets to US enemies, which heads into the realm of treason.
Now the fantasy part. Prosecutors detail the facts of the above. Defenders claim a POTUS is above the law. Senators consider the case: Are those “facts” true? Ream after ream of docs bolster the prosecution. Yes, true, so GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.
I’m not holding my breath on the last. GOP Senators still face political suicide by bucking Tramp. And Santa still owes me a pony, or a llama at least.
wait - wait - — mopery AND dopery ??? Holy shit - the duo!
Pretend you are a Senator in fantasy-land where Senators have principles and put those above political pressure and being re-elected. What do you think ought to be the standard of proof by which you determine whether or not something is a fact? Something like mens rea?
~Max
I don’t think a question of mens rea needs to be examined to the same degree in the question of impeachment as it does for a criminal trial. Whether we’re talking murder or manslaughter isn’t terribly relevant for whether a President killed someone illegally.
In my view, there are separate questions about what mens rea might suffice, vs how convinced you have to be that the president had that mens rea.
So, one person might think that for impeachment, you would have to show knowing or intentional mental states corresponding to the president’s actions. And then there would be the question of how convinced a senator would need to be that one of those was actually the president’s mental state when he took the actions.
Another person might say, it’s also sufficiently bad if this whole scheme happened on the president’s watch and he was unaware, because he should have known what was going on. So the standard could be knew or should have known (negligence), and then a separate question about how convinced a senator would need to be of the president’s at least negligent mental state.
(Sorry – I haven’t followed the homicide hypothetical, so this is framed more in relation to current circumstances.)
As I was saying in response to Sage Rat, intent is a critical element when determining whether the charge is bribery or malfeasance. And while official authority is no defense to a charge of bribery, it is a defense to malfeasance. If a President is charged with bribery but you can’t prove intent, then I vote against the bribery charge. If a President is then charged with the lesser offense of malfeasance, but has the authority to do what he has done, then I vote against that charge, too. So yes, it’s relevant IMO.
~Max
I disagree. One aspect of the system of criminal justice is that it is preferable for the guilty to go free rather than the innocent be punished, because the principle of liberty is at stake.
Liberty is not at stake in an impeachment proceeding. The issue boils down to the integrity of government, and whether or not continuation of an official in office brings that into question. We elect someone to take the President’s place in case of removal from office due to natural or legal reasons – and then have another nearly two dozen officials standing behind him to take his place just in case.
Presidents are replaceable, years lost to erroneous criminal convictions are not. That why they are different processes, carried out for different reasons, and shouldn’t be viewed as interchangeable.
To put it another way, its totally fine to lawyer someone out of a criminal conviction on a technicality. It isn’t fine to keep someone with an extreme amount of power bestowed upon them based on the same technicality. The essence of representative democracy is that our leaders are replaceable.
Sure you can. Learn how to say “Can I have that pony?” in Cherokee. Then all you have to do is find a Cherokee with a pony and ask him.
Of course, he might say “No.” You maybe ought to find a few Cherokees with ponies, just in case. Also, learn the Cherokee words for “No,” “Yes,” “Fuck off,” “Sure thing buddy, anything for you!” and “Say WHAT?”
This goes with what we were discussing a couple weeks ago, in that removing an elected President is disenfranchising the states. So if we are to weigh potential outcomes here, there are four:
[ul][li]Impeach and convict a guilty president, and justly disenfranchise the states[/li][li]Impeach and convict an innocent president, and unjustly disenfranchise the states[/li][li]Acquit or fail to press charges against a guilty president, abandoning justice[/li][li]Acquit or fail to press charges against an innocent president, which is just[/ul][/li]If we strike out the positive outcomes to look at the worst case scenarios, one the one hand we disenfranchise the states, and on the other we let a criminal run the government. A standard of proof has to strike some sort of balance between these two undesirable ends of a spectrum, and the question is how much we prefer one outcome over the other.
It is my opinion that I would rather have a criminal run the government than (unjustly) disenfranchise the states, most if not all of the time. Just because the President is criminal doesn’t mean our nation ceases to function. There are checks and balances, which I trust, including impeachment for more overt acts or patterns that may arise in the future. But disenfranchising the states is like a penultimate evil; second only to disenfranchisement of the people or perhaps mass murders.
Consider this: a conviction for treason requires a very, very high bar. The framers could have written in an exception, to say that treason has a lower bar for impeachment. They didn’t do that. You need two witnesses to an overt act of treason, there can’t be any doubt as to the treasonous nature of the act. Something like assembling a force of men with the intention of overthrowing the government, or actually joining the ranks of an enemy on an actual battlefield, or knowingly providing material aid such as a car and travel documents to an known spy. If a President does all of that, but you don’t find two witnesses, you can’t impeach him for treason. If there is a credible accusation that the President literally joined the Nazis in the fields of Europe, but you don’t find two witnesses, you can’t impeach him for treason. Let that sink in. That’s the burden of proof.
~Max
States have no absolute claim to a President when a lawful process is carried out. The states ought to be ashamed for electing a criminal.
That’s ridiculous. The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. You need two witnesses to criminally convict someone of treason. The idea of keeping a threat to the nation and its people in office because of a technicality of only having one witness to the President’s misdeeds is literally insane. I mean this respectfully, but I think you’ve lost touch with the real world here.
Yes, I agree with you. But that second sentence is assuming the conclusion isn’t it?
I didn’t say the Constitution is a suicide pact and I don’t believe it is or can be. But I still apply the treason clause to cases of impeachment. You see a contradiction here but I don’t. If you want to keep discussing this we can, or we can agree to disagree. Your call.
~Max
Yes, you may wish to apply the treason clause in ways that the clause does not direct – but let’s be clear here on what it actually says: “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
The Senate trial of impeachment charges is not a court and this clause clearly relates to a criminal conviction. Your argument here is sort of like pulling an Arlen Specter voting “not proven” in the Clinton trial: you can have your own unique legal theories, but that’s not the way things actually work.
This is not a lifetime appointment.
He is not a judge.
And that is largely a political decision
It puts democracy ahead of what is ultimately a political question.
Next time try winning an election.
Max S. is a Trump voter?
Or do you just accuse people of that if they disagree with you?
Or it was in defense of democracy.
This sort of behavior and hyperbole is how Trump won in 2016.
People like you did more to get Trump elected than all the moderate liberals combined.
yawn
“to steal my vote is impeachable”
This is the important part. We bribe and extort governments all the time.
Trump is trying to fool me into thinking that Biden is corrupt by coercing an foreign nation to launch an investigation that they knew would not go anywhere and would exonerate the Bidens sometime after the November election.
I don’t think you understand how impeachments work.
Nixon also did tons of other shady shit: