The US Presidency 2019

[FJAG]

(CNN)Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a close ally of President Donald Trump, said he will do everything in his power to quickly end an expected impeachment trial in the Republican-led Senate.

"This thing will come to the Senate, and it will die quickly, and I will do everything I can to make it die quickly," the South Carolina Republican said Saturday during an interview with CNN International's Becky Anderson at the Doha Forum in Qatar.

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday approved two articles of impeachment against the President, paving the way for a final vote on the House floor expected next week. That will set up the Senate trial, for which lawmakers are now gearing up.

Asked if it was appropriate for him to be voicing his opinion before impeachment reaches the Senate, Graham replied, "Well, I must think so because I'm doing it."

"I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here," Graham said, adding, "What I see coming, happening today is just a partisan nonsense."

...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/14/politics/lindsey-graham-trump-impeachment-trial/index.html

:cheers:

 

[mariomike]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/14/politics/lindsey-graham-trump-impeachment-trial/index.html

:cheers:

Same guy who said,

"He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot."
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNTZ_x0KdKRVGpenP9BNcI6xulc1Xw%3A1576371696331&source=hp&ei=8IX1XcXnEPCl_Qbyn4y4Bw&q=He%27s+a+race-baiting%2C+xenophobic%2C+religious+bigot&oq=He%27s+a+race-baiting%2C+xenophobic%2C+religious+bigot&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3575.3575..4601...1.0..0.0.0.......0....2j1..gws-wiz.V6HtXGsBdGY&ved=0ahUKEwjFn_aXurbmAhXwUt8KHfIPA3cQ4dUDCAs&uact=5#spf=1576371700113

 

[FJAG]

Same guy who said,

Yup. That guy. Ain't politics grand.

;D

 

[tomahawk6]

2 articles of impeachment and the supreme court ruled the other day that guts article 2. This is weak sauce and since Trump did not commit a crime the Senate will vote on party lines to acquit the President.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Democrats will be thankful if the Senate finishes the matter quickly.  The senators who are running for president don't want to be stuck there when the primaries start, and the Democrats don't want their tightly scripted show to be unraveled by a wide-ranging inquiry where they don't control the rules.

 

[tomahawk6]

One House Dem has switched parties. I thought they had a sure majority in the House but with 30 of them in districts Trump won in 2016 they may not have enough votes to impeach.

https://www.foxnews.com/

 

[mariomike]

the Senate will vote on party lines to acquit the President.

Laurence Tribe put it this way,

The essential difference between [1974 and now] lies . . . in the grim refusal of today’s Republican Party to notice wrongdoing and its determination to stand by Trump come what may.

My argument that a “trial” where the fix is in doesn’t work to clear the defendant or give the defendant bragging rights. Period.

Laurence Henry Tribe is an American legal scholar who is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at the Harvard Law School of Harvard University. Tribe's scholarship focuses on American constitutional law. 

Tribe is a constitutional law scholar and co-founder of the American Constitution Society. He is the author of American Constitutional Law, a major treatise in that field, and has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Tribe

 

[Brad Sallows]

The essential difference between now and 1974 is the sum of all the unseemly things ignored by both parties in order to gain and retain political advantage.  Few believe that the impeachment push that started before the inauguration is a quest to punish wrongdoing, although many try to maintain the fiction.  If this saga were about what is right, there would not be so much manoeuvring on the part of the righteous that results in the erosion of customary practices and other norms.

>My argument that a “trial” where the fix is in doesn’t work to clear the defendant or give the defendant bragging rights. Period.

True.  And it applies to the impeachment process and the trial process equally, but with the "fixes" (for and against) running strictly along partisan lines.

Democrats fucked themselves into a corner on "obstruction" by tolerating Obama and Holder.  Next time they own the administration, they can behave differently, or prove me right.

 

[mariomike]

One House Dem has switched parties.

Regarding that,

A polling memo obtained by The Washington Post, citing results of a Dec. 7-10 survey of likely Democratic voters commissioned by Van Drew’s campaign, found only 24 percent thought he should be reelected, with 58 percent wanting another Democrat nominated for the seat.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-urges-rep-van-drew-anti-impeachment-democrat-to-switch-parties/2019/12/14/b201bb4a-1ea0-11ea-8d58-5ac3600967a1_story.html

 

[QV]

The FISC is not happy with the FBI misleading it in their applications to surveil Carter Page (ultimately the Trump campaign).

https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/MIsc%2019%2002%20191217.pdf

 

 

[mariomike]

in the news,

16 Dec. 2019

'Puppet Master and Agent': Russian state TV openly mocks Trump
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNSq78oO_6NNyQqJH5ClaxL-G-Rskw%3A1576622990866&ei=jlv5Xc-5NMmAtgXb_omQBA&q=trump+russia+agent+state+tv+puppet&oq=trump+russia+agent+state+tv+puppet&gs_l=psy-ab.12...54915.59569..61772...0.0..0.235.1970.4j8j2......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i39.pvN624FoIeA&ved=0ahUKEwjPuMKq4r3mAhVJgK0KHVt_AkIQ4dUDCAo#spf=1576623053258

 

[Jarnhamar]

100-Year-Old Grandma Winnie Fools Everyone by Holding MAGA Hat, Only to Call For Impeaching 'Sucker' Trump
https://www.newsweek.com/grandma-winnie-impeach-this-sucker-1467053

:rofl:

 

[FJAG]

Trump. Letter. To Pelosi. No. Words.

Read full text here.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/474937-read-trump-letter-to-pelosi-objecting-to-impeachment-process

:facepalm: or  :rofl:    :dunno:

 

[brihard]

Trump. Letter. To Pelosi. No. Words.

Read full text here.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/474937-read-trump-letter-to-pelosi-objecting-to-impeachment-process

:facepalm: or  :rofl:    :dunno:

It’s genuinely funny; the parts that were written by Trump himself and the parts that were written by someone else couldn’t be more stark if his portion was literally scribbled in crayon. There are some clean and crisp turns of phrase in there that clash brutally with his disjointed whining. You have to wonder at the cognitive dissonance that much afflict someone intelligent enough to lend efforts to this, yet who has to reconcile themselves with trying to wedge Trump’s words by brute force into some fragments of decent prose.

In any case, while addressed to Pelosi, she isn’t at all the intended audience. While he cries about being denied due process, he has had opportunities to say his bit and to defend himself, and he will have that opportunity again. Past behaviour being a predictor of future, I don’t think we need waste our time hoping he’ll have the integrity and backbone to actually take an oath and testify.

The failure of impeachment in the Senate is a foregone conclusion, but the testimony will be interesting- enough Republicans are willing to buck that it at least won’t get summed up without hearing from witnesses.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Senate will call no witnesses and will move to exonerate the President.

 

[FJAG]

The Senate will call no witnesses and will move to exonerate the President.

You call that exoneration?

Under the Senate rules for impeachment the following oath must be taken by the senators:

I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be,) that in all things appertaining to the trial
of the impeachment of , now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the
Constitution and laws: so help me God.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/1_1868ImpeachmentRules.pdf

Two Republican senators (Graham and McConnell) have both already stated that they are not impartial.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday bluntly acknowledged some of the political realities surrounding the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, notably saying, "I'm not impartial about this at all."

"I'm not an impartial juror," he said flatly. "This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision."

It's not. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides, there is a trial and a judgement. Bet you anything that neither Graham or McConnell will recuse themselves. I guess an oath before God and honor doesn't mean that much to someone who is:

... basically just what he looks like: a man serenely unbothered by anything he’s done to get his power or anything he’s done with it, having few friends but many allies.

https://newrepublic.com/article/153275/mitch-mcconnell-profile-nihilist-chief

So if McConnell is content to turn this into a "political process" how can anyone rationally call the outcome an "exoneration".

:brickwall:

 

[Brad Sallows]

The trial can't produce exoneration unless new evidence comes forward which ... exonerates.  But the Senate apparently will not consider anything not already provided by the House's investigation.  "Exoneration" seems to have replaced "not guilty" in the minds of those not found guilty and/or their supporters.  (Hillary Clinton was "exonerated", Trump was "exonerated", the FBI was "exonerated".)

Republicans will not be impartial now just as the Democrats were not impartial during Clinton's trial.  The saving grace is that few want an extended proceeding - the Democrats want to wrap without any new evidence which weakens their position and to get on with the primaries; the Republicans want to wrap and resume other Senate business (these days, mainly confirming judicial appointments).

This has been a purely "political process" since long before McConnell was about to get involved.  That shit isn't going back into the horse.

 

[tomahawk6]

Trump is being impeached although no impeachable offense. Obstruction of Congress for asserting executive privelage. In our system there are 3 co-equal branches of government, the judiciary,legislative and executive. If the dem's control the house after 2020 election they will try to impeach again. Sadly the next Democrat President may well face impeachment.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Trump is being impeached although no impeachable offense. Obstruction of Congress for asserting executive privelage. In our system there are 3 co-equal branches of government, the judiciary,legislative and executive. If the dem's control the house after 2020 election they will try to impeach again. Sadly the next Democrat President may well face impeachment.

I try not to weigh into American politics but...

1)  As I understand it this all an exercise in futility, won't this just die in the Rep contolled senate ? 

2)  My sentinments exactly, I think pandors box may forver be opened here and it may back fire in the future on the Dems. 

 

[mariomike]

pandors box may forver be opened

It's been open since 1868,

My countrymen here to-night, who has suffered more than I? Who has run greater risk? Who has borne more than I? But Congress, factious, domineering, tyrannical Congress has undertaken to poison the minds of the American people, and create a feeling against me
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/andrew-johnson/cleveland-speech-september-3-1866.php

More recently,

On the day the House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton, his approval rating hit its presidential peak, 73%
https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1207295590272507905