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Impeachment inquiry


TheStatGuy

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Not guilty: Senate acquits Trump of impeachment charges: https://apnews.com/93c85dcfb0e6b2185391965e77ebea51

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President Donald Trump won impeachment acquittal in the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close only the third presidential trial in American history with votes that split the country, tested civic norms and fed the tumultuous 2020 race for the White House.

With Chief Justice John Roberts presiding, senators sworn to do “impartial justice” stood and stated their votes for the roll call — “guilty” or “not guilty” — in a swift tally almost exclusively along party lines. Trump, the chief justice then declared, shall “be, and is hereby, acquitted of the charges.”

The outcome Wednesday followed months of remarkable impeachment proceedings, from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House to Mitch McConnell’s Senate, reflecting the nation’s unrelenting partisan divide three years into the Trump presidency.

What started as Trump’s request for Ukraine to “do us a favor” spun into a far-reaching, 28,000-page report compiled by House investigators accusing an American president of engaging in shadow diplomacy that threatened U.S. foreign relations for personal, political gain as he pressured the ally to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the next election.

No president has ever been removed by the Senate.

...

On the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, the vote was 52-48 favoring acquittal. The second, obstruction of Congress, also produced a not guilty verdict, 53-47.

Only one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, the party’s defeated 2012 presidential nominee, broke with the GOP.

Romney choked up as he said he drew on his faith and “oath before God” to vote guilty on the first charge, abuse of power. He voted to acquit on the second.

All Democrats found the president guilty on the two charges.

...

Roberts, as the rare court of impeachment came to a close, wished senators well in “our common commitment to the Constitution,” and hoped to meet again “under happier circumstances.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had been drawn into the Ukraine affair, signed off on the Senate judgment later Wednesday. “Tonight, it was my pleasure to sign President @realDonaldTrump’s full acquittal,” he tweeted.

Can we close this thread now?

 

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Instead of Removing Trump From Power, Remove Power From the Presidencyhttps://reason.com/2020/02/08/instead-of-removing-trump-from-power-remove-power-from-the-presidency/#comments

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Now that Democrats have failed in their attempt to remove the president from power, it's worth asking why they haven't seriously considered the reverse: removing power from the president.

We have seen, over the 33 months since Donald Trump took the unusual step of firing FBI Director James B. Comey, any number of behavior-specific explanations for why the 45th president must go: For coordinating with the Kremlin, obstructing the Russia investigation, making "racist comments" about four congresswomen, saying he would accept "dirt" from foreign governments about his domestic political opponents and finally the House's two impeachment articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

But what we have not seen is anything like a structural critique of ever-accumulating executive branch power itself. Democrats don't like the way Trump uses his authority, but that doesn't mean they want any less of the stuff in the White House, particularly when they get back the keys. To the contrary.

In his response to Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night, leading presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) lamented that the tariff-happy president wasn't being punitive enough toward American companies. "The NAFTA 2.0 deal that he recently signed," Sanders said, "will not prevent a single corporation from shutting down factories in the United States and moving them to Mexico."

In her official Democratic Party response, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer focused not on Trump's monarchical gestures during the speech — granting a scholarship, promoting a veteran, presenting a Medal of Freedom on the spot, theatrically reuniting a military family — but rather, on all the things Democratic governors are accomplishing by executive fiat in defiance of their legislatures.

"Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers unilaterally increased school funding by $65 million last year," Whitmer bragged.

The Democratic presidential field, with the notable exception of faltering front-runner Joe Biden, has been engaging in a race to see who can make the most elaborate promises of immediate executive action. Forget 100 days; we're now talking 100 hours to see what that magical Oval Office pen and phone can do.

On Day One, President Elizabeth Warren would wipe out student loans for 42 million people, ban fracking "everywhere" and block any future fossil fuel leases on public lands and offshore. We are still awaiting the full Day One list from a future President Sanders, but we know it includes an executive order to "legalize marijuana in every state in this country."

Legalizing marijuana is a wonderful and long-overdue idea, but Sanders' way of getting there is not. Federal law, including the odious Controlled Substances Act, is constitutionally required to originate from or be struck down by either Congress or constitutional amendment. A presidency with enough power to legalize Activity X irrespective of Congress or the desires of states is a presidency with enough power to criminalize that same activity when the other team wins. It's a seesaw of authoritarianism, and we should all want to get off.

What's remarkable about the personal response to Trump's imperial actions is how completely different it is compared with the structural reaction against President Nixon's. Democrats (and some Republicans) in the wake of Watergate went on a spree of pruning back the runaway executive branch.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution reasserted the legislative branch's authority to declare war and approve emergency military actions. The 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act — which, fun fact, is the law Trump violated by withholding appropriated aid to Ukraine — sought to reestablish congressional power of the purse. The 1974 upgrade of the Freedom of Information Act was designed to prevent governments from hiding their activities. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was supposed to block warrantless snooping of U.S. citizens.

Even reciting the names of those reforms helps explain why anti-Trump animus has not translated into renewed skepticism of executive power. Presidents of both major parties, particularly during this century, have fought doggedly to break free from their institutional shackles. George W. Bush, with his high-ranking veterans from the Nixon administration, made rolling back the Watergate reforms a key philosophical aim. Barack Obama, after campaigning as a constitutionalist, made a mockery of war powers in Libya.

And the more tribal Congress has become, the more willing it has been to forfeit anything like the consistent application of constitutional prerogatives, particularly concerning the wielding of life-and-death military power.

For anyone who would like to once again see an independent legislature, the 99% partisan impeachment process in both chambers of Congress is cause for despair. As is the Democratic presidential field's will to executive power. If ever America is to get off the populist seesaw, we're going to need to root less for politicians, and more for the rules and mores than can restrain them.

Agreed. Mr. Welch is spot-on.  The power of the Oval Office needs to be drastically reduced,  along with the overall power and scope of the federal government.

 

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