The Impeachment Puzzle

[broncofan]

I don't mean to sound cynical but if you come up with more specific laws for Trump to break, you're only forcing Republicans to come up with more egregious lies to avoid holding him accountable. They're up to the task.

[Stavros]

Two things stand out: yet again the so-called President is breaking the law -the Federal Election Campaign Act 1971 by recruiting a foreign government to help him in his re-election campaign -at what point is this law breaking going to lead to an arrest -first, Ukraine, now China, and individuals joining this private State Department to break the law on behalf of their boss? In the UK a P45 is the form you get when you either resign from a job or get fired. Is it not time to fire P45?

Second, it is clear this man has a colossal psychological problem, that when someone says something or does something that he doesn't like, he doesn't let it go, he obsesses about it. And not just overnight or the week-end. It gnaws at him for years, just as he could never hide the rage and resentment he held, and still holds for Obama. He tells blatant lies about Joe Biden and he will not let go. My guess is that even if 100 governments helped him in his investigations to discover the Bidens did nothing wrong, he will not only carry on, but turn on those 100 governments, accuse them of collusion with Joe Biden, set up an enquiry and send Rudolph the Red-Nosed Oh-Dear to harass and lie to anyone who will listen.

Basically, your President is off his rocker. He is nuts. He is twisted -oh, and he barks at the camera 'Joe Biden is a stone cold crook' when the awful fact is that the actual crook who has broken the law calls himself President.

End it. And end it now.

[filghy2]

Graham is said to have written[/URL] to the prime ministers of Australia, Italy and the UK to request their “continued cooperation with attorney general Barr as the Department of Justice continues to investigate the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 election”.

The idea that Alexander Downer (foreign minister in a previous conservative government) was part of some deep state conspiracy against Trump is one of the most bizarre aspects of this nonsense. The Australian government has already promised to cooperate with Barr's investigation, though they are also saying Downer did nothing wrong and is not under investigation. Hopefully it was just a pro forma response to avoid antagonising Trump. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-...heory/11573476

[Fitzcarraldo]

https://theweek.com/speedreads/86957...themed-dessert

[Stavros]

“It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a US election,” said Ellen Weintraub, head of the Federal Election Commission. “I would not have thought that I needed to say this.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ryone-with-him

So arrest the people who have broken the law, and start with the Attorney General! Or is it the case that it is the people in charge of the law wh are breaking it?

The irony of this is that it has boosted the campaign of Joe Biden at a time when, for example, Kamal Harris is losing ground, even in California, and Bernie Sanders is surely too ill to carry on. Can't say much about the others.

But will Republicans now consider challenging the incumbent in the year ahead? Or have they decided it's over for them and they may as well see their tenures through to the bitter end?

[filghy2]

But will Republicans now consider challenging the incumbent in the year ahead? Or have they decided it's over for them and they may as well see their tenures through to the bitter end?

There are three challengers, but it looks like the party organisation is blocking primary votes. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/13/p...ies/index.html

They don't stand much chance anyway because the polls show that 85-90 per cent of Republican voters still support Trump no matter what he does. Unless that changes I can't see too many Republicans in congress turning against him. It's hard to see what could change that given the distorted picture they get from right-wing media - and most of them seem to love him because he is nasty and unscrupulous, as long as people they don't like are on the receiving end.

[Stavros]

I watched a fair amount of the Intelligence Committee proceedings when former Ambassador Yovanovitch gave evidence, and what came out strongly from her evidence was the 'dual purpose' diplomacy which involved her in her official capacity, and the 'privatized' foreign policy pursued by Rudolph Giuliani Jr, and the extent to which she thinks the State Department has been weakened by the determination of the new Government to reduce its personnel and its costs, and no longer rely upon department staff for professional advice.
But even though the Republican members of the Committee paid tribute to the former Ambassador's service record, none of them even attempted to challenge her on the issue that is key to the impeachment articles: the President's recruitment of a foreign government to attack Americans seeking election in the USA, and the use of bribery to force the Ukraine to attack American candidates in the 2020 elections in exchange for military aid to combat the Russian attempt to break the Ukraine into little pieces.
Former Ambassador Yovanovitch was able to describe the behaviour of Giuliani, but was not in post when the allegations of bribery took place.
Nevertheless, the Republicans were keen to describe the proceedings as a 'show trial' and then complain the rest of the session would be held in private, a mechanism which they created when they were in charge of the Intelligence Committee but which they now suggest is a Democrat tactic to deny the public their right to transparency!
That the President intervened in the day's proceedings by tweeting is par for the course, as is his degrading and insulting remarks about a woman who put herself in harm's way while serving her country, something the President has never done.
is it any wonder that Senator Graham has said he will not watch the proceedings or even read a word of any of the depositions to the Committee? If he did, he would have no choice when the time comes to vote to impeach -but as Graham is a monumental hypocrite what else can we expect?
And so much more to come, though John Bolton is holding back, either to make money from a book, or to wait until the Impeachment has crashed in the Senate before exposing the extent of corruption, lies and illegality in the White House -will he even hold back until after the 2020 election to protect his party?

[Stavros]

As above, I watched as much as I could of the Impeachment proceedings in the House. What has struck me is this:
First, there is no heckling in the House, as there is in the House of Commons here -people get up, speak and then sit down. It all sounds and looks mechanical, there is no drama.
Second, the Republicans complained that the impeachment was motivated by sore Democrat losers of the 2016 election, but as I recall, from the moment Bill Clinton was elected the Republicans did everything they could to impeach him from the Whitewater investigations through to the gift he gave them of the lies he told about Monica Lewinsky. So for the Republicans to complain about their lad being targeted in the same way is simple hypocrisy, not least when some of the men defending their leader were involved in the impeachment of Clinton.
Lastly, evidence: Republican stated as if it were a fact that there was no evidence on which to impeach, but never discussed the evidence that was presented to the House Committees in order to rebut it, it was just dismissed, as if the statements by experienced civil servants and other members of the government were worthless when they were dismissed precisely because they were true.

In an extraordinary moment yesterday, Rudolph Giuliani Jr stated as if it were a fact that Marie Jovanovich was a corrupt Ambassador to the Ukraine, I hope she sues him for that, but it sounds desperate, because Giuliani appears to be even more arrogant and indifferent to the law than his boss. How long can this insult to reason continue?

The one issue, discussed time and again, is why the Convention that a sitting President cannot be indicted has not been ended. From the start it is clear this man decided he was going to do anything and everything he could that the lawyers have said cannot result in an indictment, it has damaged the Presidency, which may be one of the aims, and as we already know, will not result in the eviction from the White House of its most foul-mouthed and plain stupid occupant.

Mitchell McConnell who is legally obliged to be impartial in the Senate trial, has already said he will not be, as clear a violation of his oath of office as one can find. Ultimately one wonders if these people care, that maybe their whole purpose is to detach the Senate and the House from the Government of the USA because they no longer believe in a project that began in 1776 if it means sharing, or rendering power to people who are not White, and Christian, and mostly male.

This is not about a man, this is about the survival of the Republic, and it doesn't look robust from this side of Atlantic.

[yodajazz]

The president cannot claim, "executive privilege", if the investigation is related to him breaking the law. Congress is given the right, to investigate the president, for crimes, directly in the US Constitution. Of course Trump's attorneys argue otherwise, and then keep appealing. I think the request for Don McGann to testify, took 6 months, to resolve.

Another issue is the Justice Dept ruling, that a sitting president cannot be indicted. This is not a law, but a department ruling. I think it was for a good purpose, originally to keep others from harassing a president for non job related acts, especially those actions, that may have happened, even before they assume office. I felt this was the case, with Bill Clinton. However Trump's attorneys have taken this to new heights. They claimed in court, that the president could not be investigated, for any reason, even in the infamous example, of Trump shooting someone in the middle of 5th avenue. Trump's team did lose that case. But it took months, and Trump is collecting tens of millions each month, for his re-election.

By the way, did you know that Attorney General Bill Barr's son-in law, is a White House attorney. I joke that, if Trump is removed from office, his son-in-law will be out of a job, and perhaps he, Barr's daughter, and children(?), will have to move into Barr's home. No wonder Barr is working so hard to keep Trump in office. lol

[Stavros]

But is Barr a wind-up monkey for the President, or does he have his own agenda? It seems to me that one of the key reasons why McConnell, Graham and Barr protect and defend a man they know to be corrupt, is that they also know they are smarter than the President, and that their knowledge of procedure in Congress and the law means they use the President to get what they want, tax cuts, the abolition of environmental regulations, and so on. In Barr's case, it is a plea to replace secular and immoral politicis -because if it is secular it is immoral- with his Roman Catholic version of morals and truth, and a President who doesn't believe in anything other than himself and is too stupid to know what procedures are, gives Barr enormous power to do what Barr wants, with not one reference to his actual job as Attorney General of the USA. This is from the article that concerns the speech Barr made to Notre Dame not so long ago- full article in link.

Prominent liberal Catholics have warned the US attorney general’s devout Catholic faith poses a threat to the separation of church and state, after William Barr delivered a fiery speech on religious freedom in which he warned that “militant secularists” were behind a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rvative-speech