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Impeachment Hearings


MigL

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There is an interesting article in The Atlantic has made an interesting argument regarding constitutionality of the senate procedure (esp. with regards to prevention of witnesses). It hinges a bit on this bit here:

 

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McConnell has created the mistaken impression that the Constitution does not provide any guidance about the impeachment process, and that the procedures for the trial—including motions to call witnesses—can be determined by a majority vote. Although the Senate has broad discretion to set the rules for the trial, Supreme Court Justice Byron White, in a concurring opinion in Nixon v. United States (1993), a case involving the impeachment of federal Judge Walter Nixon, found in the impeachment-trial clause of Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution a limitation on the method by which the Senate can conduct an impeachment proceeding. The text of the clause states, “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” Justice White interpreted the word try to mean that the impeachment proceeding must be in the nature of a judicial trial, and concluded that “a procedure that could not be deemed a trial by reasonable judges” would be unconstitutional.

 

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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-voters-increasingly-back-the-gops-move-to-block-impeachment-witnesses/
 

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a solid majority (58 percent) of Americans continue to think that Trump committed an impeachable offense.

As in our poll released three weeks ago, more than half of Americans also believe there’s enough evidence to remove Trump from office for his actions relating to the Ukraine scandal (52 percent) and for his refusal to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry and efforts to block witnesses from complying with subpoenas (53 percent). Similarly, a majority (54 percent) of Americans say they would approve of the Senate voting to remove Trump from office. Almost exactly the same share (55 percent) oppose the idea of dismissing impeachment charges entirely.


And similar results for desire to hear from additional witnesses:

bronner-atd-IMPEACHMENT-POLL.png?w=1150

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55 minutes ago, CharonY said:

The decrease in support by Republicans is interesting. Considering that there have been no revelations that put Trump in a better light (quite the opposite, actually) it does appear that party loyalty a constant barrage of propaganda from outlets like Fox and Breitbart wins out.

There. FTFY

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This quote from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff tonight during the final night of House manager presentations in the Senate impeachment trial resonated with me quite a bit:

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigues of supporting it. 

~Thomas Paine

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I can't help but feel that, had the House held on to the articles of Impeachment a few more months, all this crap would be fresher in voter's minds come the November election; although I don't know if that was a possibility.
D Trump will not be removed by the Senate, and, after the summer, all of his supporters will have forgotten all about the Impeachment proceedings, and will be back behind him 100 %.
Politics seems to have a very short memory.

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9 hours ago, MigL said:

I can't help but feel that, had the House held on to the articles of Impeachment a few more months, all this crap would be fresher in voter's minds come the November election; although I don't know if that was a possibility.

... giving the WH and the Republicans ample evidence that the Dems are trying to manipulate the election. I'm sure they're itching to use their favorite tactic, accuse the other side of doing what you're doing.

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10 hours ago, iNow said:

This quote from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff tonight during the final night of House manager presentations in the Senate impeachment trial resonated with me quite a bit:

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigues of supporting it. 

~Thomas Paine

As long as it's the other side who's undergoing the fatigue. As soon as it's their turn, suddenly they're no longer so willing to say stuff like that.

 

9 hours ago, MigL said:

I can't help but feel that, had the House held on to the articles of Impeachment a few more months, all this crap would be fresher in voter's minds come the November election; although I don't know if that was a possibility.

(This isn't targeted at you specifically MigL. I'm commenting more against the people who keep pushing for this on news networks, facebook, forums, etc. It seems like you just heard the idea and mentioned it)

People wonder why the republican voters feel this is a political stunt to influence the election.

A part of it is because people keep repeating stuff like this. 

The purpose of impeachment should NOT be to influence the November election. Two wrongs do not make a right. The idea that the House should have held the impeachment papers for the explicit purpose of making sure the memory is fresh in voters mind is a bad one. It's counter to democracy. It's counter to the original intent of impeachment.

 

By all means. Impeach the person. Is he guilty? It sure looks like it. Should he be removed? I believe so. Should impeachment be executed in a particular way for the purpose of influencing the November election? NO! And spreading ideas like this simply feeds the confirmation bias that Republicans have that this is just a political stunt.

Edited by Raider5678
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12 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

The purpose of impeachment should NOT be to influence the November election

The purpose of Foreign Aid should not either; but it was.
And then the POTUS attempted to obstruct the investigation.

The purpose of Impeachment is to remove him from office.
The election would be a valid way.

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19 minutes ago, MigL said:

The purpose of Foreign Aid should not either; but it was.
And then the POTUS attempted to obstruct the investigation.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

19 minutes ago, MigL said:

The purpose of Impeachment is to remove him from office.
The election would be a valid way.

The purpose of impeachment is to remove a corrupt president from office via impeachment. It's purpose is not to drag them through the mud so they lose an election.

And you may say it's perfectly okay now, but if the Republicans turned around and did it as well, I'm sure there'd be hell to pay for anyone claiming that it's a perfectly valid use of impeachment.

 

 

It'd be like me bringing accusations against someone publicly. And then waiting months to initiate formal charges and bring it to trial until I know it'll hurt that person the most. And then, I go out and say:

"I waited until now to bring these accusations to this court so that It'd hurt the defendant as much as possible, regardless of the outcome."

If you heard someone say that in court, do you think it'd make you more inclined to believe their accusations, or do you think it'd make you more inclined to think they're just doing it to damage the person? And, I want you to put yourself into the shoes of someone who is friends/acquaintances with that person. If your friend had accusations brought up against them, you're probably skeptical of the accusations. But depending on what happens, you can still change your mind. Now imagine the person who brought those accusations went and said that in court. Any resemblance of skepticism of those accusations is now cemented into your mind as flat out lies. That's the position of Republicans.

It doesn't matter if you have the strongest case on earth. Going out and saying stuff like that is a ridiculous thing to do. It's taking a perfectly valid case, and then compromising the integrity of all of it.

I'm glad the Democrats took the high road and didn't do that. I think they realized how damaging that'd be to their cause.

Edited by Raider5678
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2 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

The purpose of impeachment should NOT be to influence the November election. Two wrongs do not make a right.

I tend to agree with you here. The harder question to answer, though, is what if the impeachment is happening precisely because someone is trying to cheat in that election?

Influencing the election is sort of hard to avoid in that case. If we take your stance at face value, the inescapable conclusion is that you support allowing the cheating to continue.

I feel that I know you well enough to know that’s not a position you’d ever support, that like the rest of us you don’t want cheating in our elections, but it does seem to be the logical outcome of what you’re saying. 

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I’d like to withdraw that previous post. I have a valid point that it’s hard to avoid affecting the election, and also that this impeachment itself is about cheating in that next election so is inextricably linked, but I think directing that to @Raider5678 was rather strained and frankly not appropriate given what he’s actually here saying. He’s right that gaming this out and making choices purely to benefit oneself in the next upcoming election seems inappropriate (though, inappropriate seems also to be par for the course in today’s senate, so who knows), but anyway... Mea culpa. 

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@iNow But yeah, a summary of what I was gonna say, just less pointed:

I agree with impeaching and removing Trump. I think the evidence is overwhelming. Therefore, I don't think the logical conclusion of what I'm saying is that I support allowing election cheating. But I think that basing how we go about that in a way that purposefully aims to influence the election, compromises the integrity of what we're trying to do overall, which is to have a healthy democracy.

As for the "Nice Guys" philosophy @MigL, I've never believed in it anyways. Cheers.

Edited by Raider5678
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Now there is a recording of Trump saying "GET RID OF HER!!  TAKE HER OUT...DO IT!!" about the former Ambassador Yovanovitch.  Because of Trump's mannerisms this sounds very much like encouraging SOMEONE, anyone, to KILL Yovanovitch.  That is exactly the way mob bosses talk.  "Take them out" means "kill them." 

Also Trump tweeted that Adam Schiff will "PAY A PRICE" for his performance in the Senate impeachment hearing.

 

Edited by Airbrush
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It wouldn’t surprise me if Trumps loose language resulted in some unhinged person deciding to take matters into their own hands and harm those he chooses to target (like his supporter who mailed pipe bombs to 16 people just over a year ago), but IMO it’s a stretch to suggest Trump specifically wanted the ambassador killed and not just removed from her post. 

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41 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

Now there is a recording of Trump saying "GET RID OF HER!!  TAKE HER OUT...DO IT!!" about the former Ambassador Yovanovitch.  Because of Trump's mannerisms this sounds very much like encouraging SOMEONE, anyone, to KILL Yovanovitch.  That is exactly the way mob bosses talk.  "Take them out" means "kill them." 

Also Trump tweeted that Adam Schiff will "PAY A PRICE" for his performance in the Senate impeachment hearing.

 

Oddly it was from a full year before she was removed from the ambassadorship. 

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4 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Now there is a recording of Trump saying "GET RID OF HER!!  TAKE HER OUT...DO IT!!" about the former Ambassador Yovanovitch.  Because of Trump's mannerisms this sounds very much like encouraging SOMEONE, anyone, to KILL Yovanovitch.  That is exactly the way mob bosses talk.  "Take them out" means "kill them." 

Another thing I would not be a fan of in this impeachment hearings is speculating on intent, especially when it's not explicit.

I wouldn't look at that conversation and think that Trump is saying to kill her. I think that's a jump(not a leap by any means, but still a decent jump) in logic to conclude that he meant to kill her. Also, I'm skeptical how you know mob bosses talk. From hollywood? Do you know them in person? In the court of law, I'm not sure that'd be an admissible piece of evidence.

3 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Oddly it was from a full year before she was removed from the ambassadorship. 

I haven't been following as closely due to being busy for the last few days. What's up with Trump wanting to remove the ambassador, and what does it have to do with the impeachment?

Edited by Raider5678
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