Donald Impeachment

[Louis Gossett Jr]

 

[birdman]

The fact that they only have those who presumed or inferred is the reason for the second count of the impeachment.

Those with direct knowledge were prohibited from testifying.

I don't disagree with you and I definitely don't agree with them, but all I am saying is that if this is all the evidence we have on the case, reasonable doubt exists for the abuse of power charge.

 

[PhDeac]

I don't disagree with you and I definitely don't agree with them, but all I am saying is that if this is all the evidence we have on the case, reasonable doubt exists for the abuse of power charge.

Sure. Yet we know who can clear up that reasonable doubt under oath. We know conservative judges won’t enforce the subpoenas and Republicans won’t call them to testify.

 

[deaconson]

Re: conservative judges I'm just going to say that trump and Moscow mitch have destroyed the judiciary with their hyperpartisan appointments. When Roberts said there were no bush judges and obama judges that used to be true. Thanks to them we now have a shit ton of trump judges that absolutely will base their decisions on their patrons needs. Perceived or actual.

 

[birdman]

Sure. Yet we know who can clear up that reasonable doubt under oath. We know conservative judges won’t enforce the subpoenas and Republicans won’t call them to testify.

Yeah, it’s like a big spiraling vortex of circular bullshit. They may even win in the court of public opinion if they just suppress all the information because most people already think the obstruction charge is gratuitous. ‘If there is no proof of an underlying crime how could they have obstructed anything?’

 

[PhDeac]

That hasn’t been true at least since Roberts was appointed to the bench.

I haven’t seen much of the 2 hours of the WH lawyers today. I don’t know how many people did. I’m sure Senators we’re happy to get a bit of a break. I do know the 24 hour networks blocked off a day to watch and cover this. Anybody tuning in to see Trump’s defense is watching people talk about it. Could that be a tactical miss with the public?

 

[Newenglanddeac]

 

[Newenglanddeac]

 

[Newenglanddeac]

 

[Newenglanddeac]

 

[DeaconCav06]

I don't disagree with you and I definitely don't agree with them, but all I am saying is that if this is all the evidence we have on the case, reasonable doubt exists for the abuse of power charge.

Which makes it nice that they can vote to call witnesses and subpoena documents.

 

[ConnorEl]

Pretty much

 

[birdman]

Which makes it nice that they can vote to call witnesses and subpoena documents.

Which would be nice if they did vote to call witnesses and subpoena documents. So far it’s 47 for docs and witness 51 against with 2 maybe yeses.

 

[WFFaithful]

Democrats: "We want documents and witnesses! "

Trump: "You get nothing. "

Republicans: "Democrats don't care about finding the truth!"

????

 

[ConnorEl]

Democrats: "We want documents and witnesses! "

Trump: "You get nothing. "

Republicans: "Democrats don't care about finding the truth!"

????

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to WFFaithful again.

 

[DeaconCav06]

I could see Schiff saying something like, “If you don’t think we have the evidence to support the abuse of power charge then ask yourself why that is? Is it because we didn’t ask for the evidence or is it because the President systematically obstructed our ability to get access to that evidence.”

Probably won’t matter but it’s a good sound bite.

I think best case is there are witnesses and an acquittal and the backlash runs a bunch of them out of town.

 

[ConnorEl]

Trump’s lawyers are absolutely entitled to their own facts

For three days, impeachment managers presented the facts to the Senate. On Saturday, the president’s lawyers presented the alternative facts.

As outlined in two hours on the Senate floor, theirs is a world in which Ukraine interfered in the U.S. election in 2016; where the FBI and intelligence community are disreputable; where the United States, not Europe, gives Ukraine the bulk of its foreign aid; where there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine and where a “transcript” of President Trump’s call conclusively proves it; where the halt of military aid to Ukraine was routine, and where Ukrainian officials didn’t even know about it; where the president was barred from impeachment proceedings; and where Robert Mueller totally vindicated Trump.

The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Moynihan was wrong. Very likely a majority of senators will, with their votes to acquit, conclude that Trump and his lawyers are perfectly entitled to their own facts.

Saturday’s opening arguments for Trump’s defense were, by Trumpian standards, tame. Senators, perhaps caught off guard by the sober presentation, were on their best behavior; I saw nobody doing crossword puzzles or sending S.O.S. signals.

There was familiar invective from Trump’s lawyers (“fake,” “blind drive to impeach,” “staged public hearings,” “secret hearings in the basement bunker,” “shell game,” “they are here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history"). But their arguments were surprisingly lawyerly, and they at least attempted to mount a serious defense of the president — a feat that filled White House Counsel Pat Cipollone with pride as he completed the second of Trump’s allotted 24 hours of defense. “You’ve heard you’re not going to hear facts from the president’s lawyers,” he said. “That’s all we’ve done.”

This was true — if you subscribe to Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” theory of epistemology.

Alternative Fact: “President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and high-ranking Ukrainian officials did not even know — did not even know — the security assistance was paused until the end of August, over a month after the July 25 call.”

Actual Fact: Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper testified that the Ukrainians were inquiring about the status of the security assistance on July 25.

Alternative Fact: “They kept telling you it was Russia alone that interfered in the 2016 election, but there is evidence that Ukraine also interfered.”

Actual Fact: “We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered,” said Trump’s FBI director, Christopher Wray.

Alternative Fact: The administration fought subpoenas because “the subpoenas were not authorized because there were no votes” to start an impeachment inquiry.

Actual Fact: The administration fought the subpoenas even after the formal vote to open the impeachment inquiry.

Alternative Fact: “The transcript shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything.”

Actual Fact: The “transcript” is not an actual transcript but a partial reconstruction of the call by the White House. It includes the Trump phrase “do us a favor though” immediately following the Ukrainian president’s mention of military help and immediately before Trump’s request for investigations.

Alternative Fact: “They design[ed] a mechanism here where the president was locked out and denied the ability to cross-examine witnesses” in the House impeachment.

Actual Fact: Cipollone declined an invitation to participate in the House impeachment hearings before the Judiciary Committee.

Alternative Fact: “The Democrats’ allegation that the president engaged in a quid pro quo is unfounded.”

Actual Fact: Told that what he was describing was a quid pro quo, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said at a news conference: “We do that all the time.”

Alternative Fact: “The Mueller Report … after $32 million and roughly 500 search warrants, determined that there was no collusion.”

Actual Fact: “We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller testified.
There were other, innuendo-based arguments Saturday that will likely reappear in Trump’s lawyers’ arguments over the next two days: Trump had good reason not to trust the intelligence community, Ukraine is a mess, Adam Schiff is an incorrigible liar, and the whistleblower is in cahoots with Joe Biden. But Saturday was the factual portion — or what passes for it.

It was close enough to reality for Trump’s Republican defenders in the House.

Speaking to reporters after Saturday’s argument ended, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who previously said that, “when we start to look at the facts, everybody has their impression of what truth is,” declared that Trump’s lawyers had “annihilated” and performed a “surgical dissection” of the case for impeachment.

“Totally eviscerated,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.).

“Completely destroyed,” said Rep. Mike Johnson (La.).

“Completely shred[ded],” Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) contributed.

In the alternative-factual world they call home, this is probably true.

 

[PhDeac]

That makes sense. Also the standard for remaining president should be higher than “maybe didn’t commit a crime.”

 

[PhDeac]

It doesn’t trivialize impeachment. It protects impeachment. There’s no such thing as impeachment if a president cannot be held accountable due to “privilege.”

 

[birdman]

Meh. The house withdrew the subpoenas. Yes, that was in response to an assertion of executive privilege, but they didn’t get a court order compelling compliance. They didn’t check the boxes they should have, despite the fact they were already litigating the McGahn subpoena.

In any event, are we really going to conclude that the assertion of executive privilege to congressional subpoenas is an impeachable offense? Clinton and Bush invoked executive privilege on multiple occasions (as have many presidents throughout the years), and Obama did it once (that I know of) in response to a congressional subpoena in connection with fast and furious. Why wasn’t that impeachable? Yes, Obama’s assertion of the privilege wasn’t in the context of an impeachment inquiry, but without a SCOTUS opinion holding that executive privilege doesn’t apply in that context (US v. Nixon didn’t decide that question because it involved a judicial subpoena), I don’t really see much difference. They both obstruct congress’s oversight function.

Plus, we don’t normally hold the assertion of a privilege against someone. In an obvious sense, the attorney-client privilege obstructs justice, but we don’t indict people for merely invoking that privilege. Doing so would vitiate the privilege.

In my view, the way the house should have done this was to force the subpoenas, get a ruling from the SCOTUS on the scope of the privilege, and, if Trump exceeded that scope, then include that act as an article. As it stands, they didn’t see this through, so it is premature to conclude that Trump’s invocation of the privilege was for the purpose of impermissible obstruction vs the permissible obstruction inherent in the assertion of a privilege. Including it as an article was a trivialization of impeachment and a terrible precedent for future presidencies.

I thought one of the points was that the president never actually asserted executive privilege but he just instructed everyone to not cooperate.