The Impeachment Puzzle

[Stavros]

From the evidence Schiff gave today one thing stands out: military aid to the Ukraine sanctioned by Congress was delivered without interruption every year until 2019, and that the only explanation for the delay is that in April 2019 Joe Biden announced he was seeking the Democrats nomination for President in 2020. The following month Giuliani began scheming, looking for a way to discredit Biden, presumably something he discussed with the President. Everything connected to the Ukraine and the Bidens dates only from May 2019, not before.
Giuliani has become more prominent in this part of the trial, but it seems to me that neither he nor the President can extricate themselves from this 'privatization' of Foreign Policy. Giuliani has claimed he was not acting in a way that affected foreign policy, but I don't see how he can be seen to be doing anything else, because the relations between the US and Ukraine as well as the President's relationship with either the Ukraine or President Zelensky or both, cannot be detached from the fact that the President is who he is. I don't believe any President can have a 'personal' relationship with another head of state because, for example, the President of the US might play golf with the President of Mexico but even then policy might be discussed, however informally, and it then becomes a matter of state. The added irony is that if this was not foreign policy, it was still illegal, as Giuliani was seeking to influence a foreign government to aid his bosses election bid which is against the law.
Also there is something I read in either the Post or the NYT that if Giuliani is working without a fee, the President must declare it a gift, but must then admit Giuliani was working on the Ukraine for him. If Giuliani is working 'pro bono' what is the fee for what legal outcome? And if he was being paid, again, what was he being paid for?
It seems to me that if Giuliani and Bolton are not brought before the Senate in this trial, it will be a mockery, which is what some fear it might become.

[filghy2]

It seems to me that if Giuliani and Bolton are not brought before the Senate in this trial, it will be a mockery, which is what some fear it might become.

It seems unlikely, based on the procedural votes so far. The joke is that the Republicans are complaining that there is no new evidence, even though they have voted to block any new evidence - and one of them admitted that virtually none of them had read the House transcripts previously. These people don't even bother to make their arguments consistent, knowing that they can rely on Fox News to spin a bunch of lies which their supporters will lap up.
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/23/210789...s-new-evidence

[broncofan]

Alan Dershowitz is the legal equivalent of a scientist who is a climate change denier. His arguments are pure sophistry. He seems to take the misconceptions of first year law students and use them to construct his arguments which is convenient since he teaches 1L Criminal Law. Take this example: "Even if a President were to demand a quid pro quo as a condition to sending aid to a country, that would not by itself constitute an abuse of power."

It's true Presidents can negotiate foreign policy but the negotiation has to be on behalf of the country and not one's self. If you state a general category of activity and remove any reference to the incriminating elements of course it sounds harmless. Imagine describing murder in the following way: "one should not be locked up simply for retracting their index finger on a metal trigger while pointing an object at someone."

He also continues repeating the argument that Congress shouldn't question the President's real reason for doing something while simultaneously arguing the President's conduct needs to be criminal or "crime-like" to be impeachable. Here's the problem. Every major crime except for statutory rape has a mens rea requirement. The difference between guilt and innocence given a particular act will depend upon what the person knew and what they intended. Here are two acts:

1. President Trump bombs a country because he has been provided incontrovertible evidence the country is planning an imminent attack and has a genuine subjective belief they are planning such an attack.

2. President Trump bombs a country because they did not give him a permit to build a hotel and he wants to punish them.

One can perform the same trick with nearly every category of major crime since they all require an act and a particular mental state. If one cannot make judgments about the real reason someone did something and instead has to accept the President has an official purpose we might as well dissolve the republic.

[Stavros]

Thanks, Bronocfan for that sharp rebuttal of Dershowitz, a man so consumed by his self-regard one wonders how he manages to shave in the morning without cutting himself.

One can despair at the way in which the President's team ignores the news and reality, pretending John Bolton has not written a book when it was the White House which leaked its contents to the New York Times. One can gasp at the remarks made by Ken Starr about impeachment proceedings become 'normal' when almost as soon as Clinton took office, Starr was tasked by the Republicans and spent years digging for dirt on the Clintons and came up with nothing until Lewinsky gave him the golden bullet he yearned for.

Look closer at the Ukraine, which few people do, and you see the contours of this scam. It is critical to note that Viktor Shokin was not just regarded as lazy, useless and corrupt prosecutor in Ukraine, hand-picked by corrupt President Poroshenko. When in late 2015 Vice-President Biden issued his 'ultimatum'- fire Shokin or you won't get any aid, it was a sentiment supported by the IMF, the British Government, the EU and numerous aid agencies, some of them in the US, concerned their dollars were being dumped into the river of cash flowing out of the Ukraine into offshore accounts. By the time Poroshenko lost the elections in Ukraine, it is estimated two-thirds of the country's wealth had disappeared into the black hole of offshore accounting, aided no doubt by expert Russian oligarchs some of whom funnelled their wealth into the loans made through Deutsche Bank to the man who now sits in the Oval Office- surely no connection here?
Shokin was not fired in 2015 but in March 2016, and it was the President of the USA who, in that 'perfect' call in July 2019 complained that that 'very good prosecutor' Shokin had lost his job. What is going on here? As Adam Schiff pointed out last week, what emerges from the adventures of Rudolph Giuliani Jr, is the view that the very people he and his boss were involved with, were the corrupt officials that were either sacked before Zelensky entered office, or have been sacked since then. If it had nothing to do with allegations that Ukraine hacked the DNC in the 2016 election campaign, or failed to investigate the Bidens, the conclusion is that what gnawed away at the obsessed minds of Giuliani and his boss, was that Ukraine was going to turn off the tap from which they filled their buckets as much as they could.
Indeed, it is now argued that while Ukraine was mired in corruption, it has smartened up and made significant reforms to end corruption and grow the economy, and Zelensky, viewed as a weakling by Giuliani and his boss, has scored something that the Impeached President cannot deny, because one man is facing the future with confidence, while the other is on trial.

Links:
Profile of 'very good man' Shokin here-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9147001.html

Background to the issues in Ukraine-
https://www.rferl.org/a/why-was-ukra.../30181445.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1XE20C

Reforms in Ukraine are working-
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/14...an-corruption/

[Stavros]

I should add, though it is now clear, that Amabassador Yovanovitch was committed to supporting the reform of corruption and that when Proshenko lost the election and it was clear Zelensky was going to sack people known to Rudolph Giuliani Jr and his boss, that she became 'an obstacle' to their interests. The point is that Yovanovitch represented the stated interests of the USA, while Giuliani was working in a 'personal capacity', but what then were the President's personal interests in Ukraine that were not the interests of the USA?
Is Giuliani going to be called as a witness? It seems incredible that key players in this drama are not having their day in court.

[filghy2]

Alan Dershowitz is the legal equivalent of a scientist who is a climate change denier. His arguments are pure sophistry. He seems to take the misconceptions of first year law students and use them to construct his arguments which is convenient since he teaches 1L Criminal Law. Take this example: "Even if a President were to demand a quid pro quo as a condition to sending aid to a country, that would not by itself constitute an abuse of power."

He also had a different view at the time of the Clinton impeachment, though he claims to have changed his mind after further research. https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/en...abuse-of-power

What I struggle to understand is why so many people are willing to trash their reputations for the sake of a man they must know would not hesitate to screw them if he thought it served his interests or just to gratify his fragile ego. I know the short answer in most cases is that they're afraid that resisting Trump will end their careers, but surely they must know there will be a reckoning eventually. Do they really think they will never pay a price for this?

[broncofan]

He also had a different view at the time of the Clinton impeachment, though he claims to have changed his mind after further research. https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/en...abuse-of-power

What I struggle to understand is why so many people are willing to trash their reputations for the sake of a man they must know would not hesitate to screw them if he thought it served his interests or just to gratify his fragile ego. I know the short answer in most cases is that they're afraid that resisting Trump will end their careers, but surely they must know there will be a reckoning eventually. Do they really think they will never pay a price for this?

Sadly in the case of Dershowitz he has already trashed his reputation a thousand times over and would do it again for attention. He can't keep up with his own views. When he was first peddling nonsense a couple years ago I couldn't find anyone who has written about Constitutional law who agreed with him.

[Stavros]

He also had a different view at the time of the Clinton impeachment, though he claims to have changed his mind after further research.
What I struggle to understand is why so many people are willing to trash their reputations for the sake of a man they must know would not hesitate to screw them if he thought it served his interests or just to gratify his fragile ego. I know the short answer in most cases is that they're afraid that resisting Trump will end their careers, but surely they must know there will be a reckoning eventually. Do they really think they will never pay a price for this?

I think the key is that these guys all know they are smarter than the President and support him because they can manipulate him to get what they want, which in the case of McConnell has been tax cuts for the wealthy donors to his party. They know that if they cross him they will be sacked, abused, ignored but do not care: the bottom line is this: 'we are richer now than we were before', because it is money that drives their loyalty, just as the 'Peace Plan' for the Middle East is based, not on history or politics, but money, $50 billion of it.
Obama was a cultural revolution for them, the proof that 'their America' is either lost, or in peril. They said to themselves 'never again', but so deep is their hypocrisy that they never congratulate Obama for saving their financial system, for using tax-payers money to bail out the very same people who all but bankrupted their system (other than the little guys who lost their jobs on Wall St), for putting an end to the haemorrhage of 800,000 jobs a month in 2008 to year on year declines in unemployment. As for all that money, is it being invested in the USA? Or real estate? Has it been parked overseas in tax free offshore accounts?
And here we are again: household debt at staggering levels measured in trillions of dollars; consumers failing to meet their credit card repayments every month; the President borrowing a minimum trillion $$ a year to compensate the victims of his failed economic policies.
McConnell and Graham and Romney and all: counting their money while the foundations of their lucrative enterprise is sinking into the ground, and not just because of climate change.

[filghy2]

I think the key is that these guys all know they are smarter than the President and support him because they can manipulate him to get what they want, which in the case of McConnell has been tax cuts for the wealthy donors to his party.

I think the conservative establishment in Germany had a similar idea about Hitler. They may find that they've nurtured a monster they cannot control, with unpredictable implications.

[Stavros]

Watching the proceedings in the Senate where Counsel respond to questions from Senators, I was struck by a question which makes me wonder if I have misunderstood the Federal Election Law of 1971 and the ban on candidates seeking and/or receiving the help of foreign nationals. Is that the law?
The question asked related to the public appeal to Russia in the 2016 Election, and subsequent appeals by the President to the Ukraine and China, and his claim that if he is offered information on rivals in an election by a foreign national he would accept it and it would not be illegal. Indeed, Jay Sekulow argued that because there were no 'campaign contributions' the appeals his boss made could not be construed as being illegal.
I don't now understand what is legal and what is not with regard to foreign nationals, and how any support they give can be construed as a 'campaign contribution'. It then occurred to me, and it should have before, that Nigel Farage, a UK national, appeared on a public platform at rallies organized by the President's campaign in 2016 to endorse him and link the campaign to Brexit; just as Farage then campaigned for Roy Moore in Alabama -but was this iegal, as in both cases the Republican candidates sought and received help from a foreign national in their campaigns?
Extend the thought: would it have been legal for Roger Federer, Daniel Barenboim and JK Rowling (without assuming these three would have wanted to) to have both endorsed Hillary Clinton having been asked to do so, and appeared with her on a platform at a public rally?

I am now confused as to what constitutes a foreign national illegally contributing to an election campaign.