House Impeachment Inquiry

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Belz... said:
If this keeps up, the Senate's going to become just as important as it was under Augustus.
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That would make Melania Livia. I can see her painting poison onto fruit still on the tree, but I can't see Trump eating fresh fruit.
 
Stupid reporters, still think they can't be rude and call a politician a liar even when the politician is lying. They don't have follow-up questions ready for the spin they know the interviewee is going to say.

If Trump's hunting for more legal help that explains the bs-ing attorney that was on the news this morning claiming it was accepted procedure for Trump's due process to be able to call defense witnesses and cross examine witnesses. When asked if that was in the Constitution the answer was no but it was the norm.

Do you suppose the reporter might have asked in which impeachment trials had that occurred? But no, as ignorant as Trump's base they just took his word for it.

Wiki Nixon's impeachment: I don't see anything here about putting on a defense or cross examining witnesses. But of course he resigned.

Judge Charles E. Wiggins, a Republican congressman from California who was influential in the Watergate hearings and switched from defending President Richard M. Nixon to supporting impeachment
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NYT Obit for the guy.


Wiki: Clinton's impeachment:
The defense presentation took place from January 19–21. Clinton's defense counsel argued that Clinton's grand jury testimony had too many inconsistencies to be a clear case of perjury, that the investigation and impeachment had been tainted by partisan political bias, that the President's approval rating of more than 70 percent indicated that his ability to govern had not been impaired by the scandal, and that the managers had ultimately presented "an unsubstantiated, circumstantial case that does not meet the constitutional standard to remove the President from office".[26] January 22 and 23 were devoted to questions from members of the Senate to the House managers and Clinton's defense counsel. Under the rules, all questions (over 150) were to be written down and given to Rehnquist to read to the party being questioned.
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That was after the case went to the Senate, not while Ken Starr was searching for needles. And I don't recall Clinton cross examining any witnesses.

Over three days, February 1–3, House managers took videotaped closed-door depositions from Monica Lewinsky, Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. On February 4, however, the Senate voted 70–30 that excerpting these videotapes would suffice as testimony, rather than calling live witnesses to appear at trial. The videos were played in the Senate on February 6, featuring 30 excerpts of Lewinsky discussing her affidavit in the Paula Jones case, the hiding of small gifts Clinton had given her, and his involvement in procurement of a job for Lewinsky.

On February 8, closing arguments were presented with each side allotted a three-hour time slot. On the President's behalf, White House Counsel Charles Ruff declared:

There is only one question before you, albeit a difficult one, one that is a question of fact and law and constitutional theory. Would it put at risk the liberties of the people to retain the President in office? Putting aside partisan animus, if you can honestly say that it would not, that those liberties are safe in his hands, then you must vote to acquit.[26]

Chief Prosecutor Henry Hyde countered:

A failure to convict will make the statement that lying under oath, while unpleasant and to be avoided, is not all that serious ... We have reduced lying under oath to a breach of etiquette, but only if you are the President ... And now let us all take our place in history on the side of honor, and, oh, yes, let right be done.[26]
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Again, all that was in the Senate trial, not the House investigation.

Don't you think if you were a reporter and you were going to interview an attorney pundit for Trump you would brush up on this stuff before the interview? The reporters look as clueless as Trump's base.


Then we get a PBS newscaster interviewing Pompeo. Same bull ****. Pompeo dodges, claiming Trump was working against corruption. The fact Biden got a corrupt prosecutor ousted was sidestepped, the reporter asking, why ask for dirt on Biden was sidestepped. Her follow up question that there was no evidence against Biden was side stepped. Not one word that I heard (I missed a few minutes) asked about threatening Turkey's economy.

These reporters think this is an in-depth interview when all it is the usual letting liars get their talking points out. The reporters know what those standard responses are going to be. But doing one's homework so you are ready for this? Of course not.


I don't think a lot of these mainstream newscasters have yet gotten it through their heads what they are dealing with with Trump.
 
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Segnosaur said:
Actually, I think Congress has the ability to enforce subpoenas, outside of the courts.

From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress
Under that ruling, courts generally do not hear motions to quash Congressional subpoenas; even when executive branch officials refuse to comply, courts tend to rule that such matters are "political questions" unsuitable for judicial remedy. In fact, many legal rights usually associated with a judicial subpoena do not apply to a Congressional subpoena.
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Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subjected to punishment as the chamber may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment, imprisonment for coercion, or release from the contempt citation).

If that's true, then Congress certainly has the authority to "play hardball"... to issue subpoenas and if Trump or his minions fail to respond, to have them arrested.

(I will of course defer to anyone with more legal expertise than myself.)
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Yup, there are even cells under the House for this express purpose.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Yup, there are even cells under the House for this express purpose.
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And they have been used them for this purpose. But it has been a while since they have. But Congress could just as legally put you in the county lock-up. They would just have to make some arrangement. Or in a private commercial prison.
 
Trump's defense teams' position is: Nixon and Clinton should just have ignored Congress and they would have been fine.
 
Some more stuff that the inquiry can use in its investigation:

From: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/poli...cal-appointee-congress-impeachment/index.html
A political appointee at the Office of Management and Budget took the unusual step of getting involved in signing off on freezing US aid to Ukraine this past summer -- a process normally reserved for career budget officials, according to sources familiar with the matter...career budget officials raised concerns about signing the documents because they believed such a move may have run afoul of laws requiring OMB to spend money as it is appropriated by Congress, according to a congressional aide.

So, yet more people (long term government employees) who have recognized the actions of the Trump administration as potentially wrong.
 
acbytesla said:
It says a lot. It definitely says that Giuliani was soliciting foreign contributions for Trump's reelection. I keep thinking that these guys couldn't get dirtier and then they do.
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It's more corrupt than just that. It's also using the power of the US government (the Dept of Energy, in this case) to embed cronies into positions of power in Ukraine.

These are the guys: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...tion-is-exporting-its-own-corruption-ukraine/

It was reported recently that Secretary of Energy Rick Perry will be leaving the Trump administration by year’s end.
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The most newsworthy part is that Perry reportedly urged the Ukrainian government to fire the board of its state-owned gas company, Naftogaz, and install on the board some Americans who had given large donations to the Republican Party — in apparent furtherance of their interests and those of some other large GOP donors who happen to be Giuliani’s clients.
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Giuliani has two clients, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Soviet-born real estate entrepreneurs from Florida who are in partnership with an oil magnate named Harry Sargeant III; they’re trying to get a deal to import liquefied natural gas to Ukraine. All have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans, and while Giuliani was running around Ukraine trying to gin up an investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, the three were trying to get the Naftogaz CEO removed so that an executive more friendly to their own ambitions to sell liquefied ] natural gas to Ukraine could be installed.

The AP reports that Sargeant reportedly told this Ukrainian executive “that he regularly meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and that the gas-sales plan had the president’s full support.” The executive “perceived it to be a shakedown.” At the same time, Parnas was going around telling people that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, was about to be removed because she wasn’t friendly enough to their business interests. Months later, Trump did indeed recall Yovanovich from her post. “The ambassador to Ukraine was replaced,” Giuliani told reporters. “I did play a role in that.”
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Here’s where Rick Perry comes in, on his own trip to Ukraine:

A second meeting during the trip, at a Kyiv hotel, included Ukrainian officials and energy sector people. There, Perry made clear that the Trump administration wanted to see the entire Naftogaz supervisory board replaced, according to a person who attended both meetings. Perry again referenced the list of advisers that he had given [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy, and it was widely interpreted that he wanted Michael Bleyzer, a Ukrainian-American businessman from Texas, to join the newly formed board, the person said. Also on the list was Robert Bensh, another Texan who frequently works in Ukraine, the Energy Department confirmed.
Bleyzer is also a big Republican donor
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acbytesla said:
It says a lot. It definitely says that Giuliani was soliciting foreign contributions for Trump's reelection. I keep thinking that these guys couldn't get dirtier and then they do.
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I don;r know exactly what the two guys were going to be charged with in court today,, but they can add "Attempted Flight To Avoid Prosecution: to the list.
 
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acbytesla said:
It says a lot. It definitely says that Giuliani was soliciting foreign contributions for Trump's reelection. I keep thinking that these guys couldn't get dirtier and then they do.
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His associates were trying to leave the country on one way tickets the night before a scheduled court appareance. You cannot get more suspicious then that.
 
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