Impeachment inquiry

Impartial_Observer · December 5, 2019

If both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were to fall into a giant sink hole, would anyone care?

Muda69 · December 5, 2019

1 hour ago, Impartial_Observer said:

If both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were to fall into a giant sink hole, would anyone care?

Not I.

Muda69 · December 5, 2019

Nancy Pelosi Calls for Articles of Impeachment, Citing Need To Curb Trump's Overreach, Abuse of Power: https://reason.com/2019/12/05/nancy-pelosi-calls-for-articles-of-impeachment-citing-need-to-curb-trumps-overreach-abuse-of-power/

Quote

....

This momentous occasion demands that we think outside of our partisan affiliations and the current hyperpolarized scene. Impeachment is always and everywhere a political act. As Gerald Ford, then a Republican congressman from Michigan, said in the years before Watergate brought down Richard Nixon, an impeachable offense is "whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history."

So it's good to see Pelosi invoking the Constitution's call for a balance of powers among the branches of the federal government. There is no question that the executive branch has been too powerful for decades and it's long past due that Congress assert its role as what Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) has called the "first among the federal government's three co-equal branches." Not surprisingly, Lee and other Republicans seem less interested in reining the president when the White House is occupied by a fellow representative of the GOP.

But precisely because it is so fully a political act, impeachment is one of the worst ways to rebalance the branches of government. For all of the 21st century and much of the 20th, Congress has abdicated its role in all sorts of ways. It has not passed timely and balanced budgets; it has not insisted on a declaration of war before U.S. troops go into battle; it has given the executive branch carte blanche to create an unaccountable administrative state in which bureaucrats write and enforce their own rules.

Whether or not Donald Trump is removed from office—and whether or not he deserves to be—the impeachment process is likely to exacerbate partisanship and the worst sort of short-term thinking. In the current climate, results will be less about enduring structural reforms than how to get payback in the next election cycle. When George W. Bush was president and flouting any restraints on his power, the Democrats were up in arms—until Barack Obama was elected, and then the sides switched. For a brief, shining moment after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, liberals fretted that the executive power they lauded when Obama wielded it was a terrible, terrible thing. As they sniff victory in 2020, those concerns have once again faded.

There is a strong, principled, libertarian case that we don't impeach presidents as often as we should. In fact, Gene Healy of the Cato Institute made that argument in 2017 and will be making an expanded version of it in an upcoming issue of Reason. But that is not the case that is being made now by House Democrats.

Even as she invokes George Mason to defend impeachment—the founder asked "Shall any man be above justice?" while making the case to include a means of removing presidents who acted like kings—it's hard to believe that Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats aren't simply engaging in mere politics to remove an opponent who they fear will win reelection. For god's sake, some Democrats were talking about impeaching Trump before he even took office and Hillary Clinton still can't admit he won. Similarly, it's impossible not to accuse Republicans of bad faith when they rush to defend actions by Trump that they denounced under Obama. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) was the guy who famously said that his party's only legislative goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president (as with budget restraint, the GOP failed miserably).

Until congressional leaders can credibly show that they will enforce the same standards of behavior on their fellow party members, I think impeachment and similar actions will only pour gasoline on the dumpster fire that has been American politics for all of the 21st century. Rather than extinguishing the flames, it will turn up the heat. And those of us who stand outside of the lowest form of political tribalism will get burned.

Mr. Gillespie is right. Uni-party to the max.

Howe · December 6, 2019

Democrats are worthless. Libtards can't see past the hood of the car. A retard has more common sense than a libtard.

Image result for impeachment memes

swordfish · December 9, 2019

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/09/politics/judiciary-committee-impeachment-hearing/index.html

The House Intelligence Committee's Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman walked through the committee's investigation during his presentation, laying out the Democratic case that Trump directed the effort for Ukraine to investigate his political rival while withholding US security aid and a White House meeting. Goldman said that senior officials were all "in the loop" about the effort, as US Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified, and he argued Trump's "determination to solicit of foreign interference in our election continues today."

"It did not end with Russia's support for Trump in 2016, which President Trump invited by asking for his opponent to be hacked by Russia," he said. "And it did not end when his Ukrainian scheme was exposed in September of this year."

Republican counsel Steve Castor laid out his own pattern — one that he says shows the Democrats were working to impeach the President since the day he took office. Castor pointed out all of the Democratic investigations into the President across the House committees, from the testimony of Michael Cohen to the lawsuit to obtain the President's tax returns, to argue the impeachment inquiry has been long in the making.

"The record in the Democrats' impeachment inquiry does not show that President Trump abused the power of his office or obstructed Congress," Castor said. "To impeach a president who 63 million people voted for over eight lines in a call transcript is baloney."

Castor argued that Democrats provided "no direct evidence that President Trump withheld a meeting or security assistance in order to pressure President Zelensky to investigate former VP (Joe) Biden," pointing to testimony from special envoy Kurt Volker to argue witnesses did not testify to a quid pro quo.

"Witnesses who testified in the inquiry have denied having awareness of criminal activity or even an impeachable offense," he said. "On the key question of the president's state of mind, there is no clear evidence that President Trump acted with malicious intent."

In other words - There is no "There" there.......

swordfish · December 10, 2019

How is it that the witness for the Democrats on Monday then gets to cross-examine the witness for the Republicans? What a Circus!

https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/09/judiciary-democrats-witness-berke-impeachment-gohmert/?fbclid=IwAR1m-S_Gdw-Th-jVgcWCZCfuHDiCfQMrWirQWIq-VHVgWfWfoIk8ydN5U3o

BARRYOSAMA · December 10, 2019

When you elect a clown...

swordfish · December 10, 2019

9 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

When you elect a clown(s)

FIFY - (referring to congress.......)

Image may contain: 1 person, text

BARRYOSAMA · December 10, 2019

Abuse of power

Obstruction of Justice

Response....tantrums and outbursts. (The INFOWAR guy was especially beneficial to Trump's cause) And memes that don't address the crimes but only serve to distract.

Sad

swordfish · December 10, 2019

3 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

Abuse of power

Obstruction of Justice

Response....tantrums and outbursts. (The INFOWAR guy was especially beneficial to Trump's cause) And memes that don't address the crimes but only serve to distract.

Sad

SOUNDS horrible.......

Where's the evidence? Oh, that's right........There is no "there" there........

Just a headline is all this will ever be.........

Image result for schiff clown posters"

BARRYOSAMA · December 10, 2019

The there is there. Some are blind to abuse and obstruction

Muda69 · December 10, 2019

Do we really want Mike Pence as POTUS for the remainder of the current presidential term? I guess he couldn't do that much damage.

Muda69 · December 10, 2019

House Democrats Unveil 2 Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/10/786569843/house-democrats-expected-to-unveil-articles-of-impeachment-tuesday

Quote

House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Tuesday morning, charging him with abuse of power in the Ukraine affair and obstruction of Congress.

The text recounts the findings of the House's investigation into Trump's dealings this year with Ukraine and, among other charges, says Trump "has betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections."

Those actions, the document says, "were consistent with President Trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections" — an allusion to the earlier imbroglio over Russia's attack on the 2016 election.

Democrats evidently decided to reference what they called this pattern of behavior and relevant prior events without making them the focus of the charges.

Instead the impeachment case centers on Trump's desire for concessions by Ukraine and what Democrats call his stonewalling in response to Congress' investigation.

The articles appeared 77 days after the House launched a formal inquiry into Trump's freezing of assistance to Ukraine and request to investigate his political rival. It marked only the fourth time in U.S. history that articles of impeachment have been introduced against a president.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said Trump "consistently puts himself above the country" and the president's actions in the Ukraine affair left the House with no choice but to resort to the remedy prescribed in the Constitution for the most egregious wrongdoing by a president.

"We must be clear: No one — not even the president — is above the law," he said.

After it completes work on amending the articles, the Judiciary Committee is expected to send them to the full House for a vote on whether to impeach the president. Democrats control the majority.

If the chamber votes to impeach Trump, that would trigger a trial in the Senate — which is controlled by Trump's allies. Republicans in the upper chamber are expected to acquit Trump and permit him to keep his office.

...

In other words the whole affair is a huge waste of time and taxpayer money. And only serves as a political ploy to weaken Mr. Trump's 2020 reelection effort. Now which side of the uni-party is abusing power for political gain?

Edited December 10, 2019 by Muda69

Impartial_Observer · December 10, 2019

Not the most timely of things for Dem Senators running for prez.....

swordfish · December 10, 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/07/house-judiciary-committee-report-president-can-be-impeached-for-motives-without-breaking-law/

The House Judiciary Committee released a report Saturday in which it argued that a president may be impeached for “illegitimate motives” even if his actions are “legally permissible.”

The 52-page report, written by 20 members of the staff for the Democratic majority, attempts to provide a legal and constitutional basis for the Democrats’ ongoing effort to impeach the President. The report states: “The question is not whether the President’s conduct could have resulted from permissible motives. It is whether the President’s real reasons, the ones in his mind at the time, were legitimate.”

That novel theory is only one of several questionable features of the report.

1. The report ignores all of the “expert” legal scholars who testified three days before. The report does not bother to cite any of the testimony from Wednesday’s lengthy hearing, with three witnesses called by Democrats and one called by Republicans. That suggests the report was written well in advance of the hearing. The report does cite published works by one of the witnesses, Micharl Gerhardt, but ignores those of his writings unhelpful to their case.

2. The report uses the same misquote used in the hearing, and by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The Democrat staff cite President Donald Trump as saying Article II of the Constitution means can do whatever I want as president.” As Breitbart News explained Friday, that is a misquote (backed by deceptively-edited video in the hearing), because Trump was talking specifically about his power to fire the Special Counsel (which he did not).

3. The report invents an absurdly broad standard for “bribery.” The report, backed by selective and misleading claims about the Framers’ intent, declares: “Impeachable bribery occurs when the President offers, solicits, or accepts something of personal value to influence his own official actions.” That standard would implicate every elected official in the United States, all of whom accept campaign contributions in return for policy promises.

4. The report cites radical left-wing activists committed to impeaching Trump. The report cites “scholars” such as Zephyr Teachout, who is on the advisory board of a group called “Impeach Trump Now.” It also cites Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, who declared in December 2016 that Trump’s impeachment should “begin on Inauguration Day.” It ignores contrary views, even by left-wing sources like Cass Sunstein, whom it quotes selectively (see below).

5. The report invents an absurdly broad “abuse of power” standard. Sunstein wrote in 2017 that “abuse of power” was, by itself, too vague: “Almost every American president has, on more than one occasion, passed the bounds of his power, in the sense that his administration has done something that it is not lawfully entitled to do.” (They cite his book on impeachment, but ignore that point.) Notably, “abuse of power” is not in the Constitution.

6. The report actually defends the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson and cites it as precedent. The Johnson impeachment is almost universally regarded as an error. Yet the report, after conceding that a president “cannot be removed” simply because of “unpopular policies,” argues that Johnson should have been removed for exactly that, because he had “illegitimate motives.” This astonishing claim, citing Tribe, is worth quoting in full:

Rather than directly target President Johnson’s faithless execution of the laws, and his illegitimate motives in wielding power, the House resorted to charges based on the Tenure of Office Act. But in reality, “the shaky claims prosecuted by [the House] obscured a far more compelling basis for removal: that Johnson’s virulent use of executive power to sabotage Reconstruction posed a mortal threat to the nation—and to civil and political rights—as reconstituted after the Civil War … [T]he country was in the throes of a second founding. Yet Johnson abused the powers of his office and violated the Constitution to preserve institutions and practices that had nearly killed the Union. He could not be allowed to salt the earth as the Republic made itself anew.” Viewed from that perspective, the case for impeaching President Johnson rested on his use of power with illegitimate motives.

7. The report bends over backwards to justify impeachment without any crime being committed. The report spends a great deal of space arguing that a president does not have to commit an actual crime to be impeached — a claim hotly debated among scholars. It notes that previous impeachments have included charges of “non-criminal” acts, but ignores the fact that no presidential impeachment has ever proceeded without any criminal acts alleged.

8. After saying crimes are not necessary, the report cites the criminal grand jury process. Immediately after arguing that impeachment is not a criminal process (see above), the report cites the criminal grand jury, in which the accused has few legal rights or protections, in an attempt to justify the House’s bizarre impeachment process, in which President Trump — unlike Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton — has been denied basic legal rights.

9. The report claims that Trump has more rights than Nixon and Clinton did. That false claim ignores the fact that unlike his predecessors, Trump has not been allowed legal representation in the key fact-finding stage of the process, which Democrats — for the first time — moved to the secretive Intelligence Committee. Moreover, it ignores that Republicans have been denied the ability to object to witnesses called by the Democrat majority.

10. The report claims that hearsay evidence is sufficient to impeach the president. After noting that the usual rules of evidence do not apply in the House, the report ignores that the only witnesses with direct knowledge of the president’s intentions testified that there was no “quid pro quo” regarding aid to Ukraine. One, Gordon Sondland, said he believed Trump wanted a “quid pro quo” for a White House meeting but had no direct knowledge to show it.

11. The report claims the president is “obstructing” Congress by appealing to the courts. The report claims that Trump can be impeached for denying requests for witnesses and documents, ignoring the fact that the president is raising constitutionally permissible defenses that await adjudication by the courts. Notably, the House itself has decided not to pursue key witnesses, apparently because it wants to rush to impeachment before election season.

The report states its conclusions “do not necessarily reflect those of the Committee on the Judiciary or any of its members.” The committee will hold its first evidentiary hearing toward articles of impeachment on Monday.

12. The report suggests that President Trump committed “treason.” The report expands the definition of “treason” beyond the constitutional definition, arguing: “At the very heart of “Treason” is deliberate betrayal of the nation and its security.” Democrats have repeatedly alleged that Trump “betrayed our national security” in his dealings with Ukraine. The report echoes that language to make it possible to charge Trump with the ultimate crime.

13. The report says impeachment is a “last and most extraordinary resort,” but does not treat it that way. The report correctly cites a standard for impeachment but fails to show that the impeachment effort against Trump meets that standard in any way. It ignores the fact that many Democrats — including some of the scholars cited in the report — have pushed for impeachment since before Trump took office — as a first resort, not a last resort.

So the Congressional Democrats want the American people to believe they are mind readers? Maybe that's why Schiff wouldn't allow the defense to call witnesses.

What is sad, is that even though Schiff's committee AND Nadler's committee overtly rigged the rules to benefit their side unilaterally, they will not get the final act of removal from office they so desire. So these clowns in the House will have just wasted their time for naught......

swordfish · December 10, 2019