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House Impeachment Inquiry

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The real joke is now the Republicans want both Hunter Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to appear as witnesses during the impeachment hearings. Their reasoning is pure nonsense and nothing other than an attempt to make the inquiry about these people instead of the actions of Trump and the administration.
 
Babbylonian said:
He, along with the rest of the executive branch scum, pretty obviously doesn't believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. "Checks and balances?" If the United States Congress can't compel testimony from members of the executive branch, then members of the executive branch are effectively above the law.

Seriously, this isn't even high school civics stuff. It's literally taught in grade school.
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The executive branch has certain rights and privileges. They are asserting that among those rights is the right not to submit to the current subpoenas.

Congress, of course, has rights as well, such as the right to issue such subpoenas.

An employee of the administration finds himself in a conflict. Congress has ordered him to appear. The administration has ordered him not to. There are three obvious possibilities:

(1) Decide for yourself that Congress has the authority and appear, as some have done.

(2) Decide for yourself that the executive branch has the authority and do not appear, as some have done.

(3) Decide that you should defer to the courts in order to decide who has the authority, as Bolton, Mulvaney, McGahn and one other guy whose name eludes me have done.

I don't see (3) as a bad option. It's much better than (2). I think (1) is a noble route to take, but I don't begrudge those who take (3). It is the safest option. (I would, of course, blame those who choose (3) not out of an abundance of caution but merely to slow the proceedings to a crawl. At present, I don't see much reason to suppose this is Bolton's tactic, though it sure could be.)
 
acbytesla said:
The real joke is now the Republicans want both Hunter Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to appear as witnesses during the impeachment hearings. Their reasoning is pure nonsense and nothing other than an attempt to make the inquiry about these people instead of the actions of Trump and the administration.
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Exactly. That H. Biden sat on Burisma's board is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he was paid for doing nothing but lending his surname. Trump sells the use of his name on building and merchandise he does not own.
This is nothing but a "Look! Squirrel" tactic.
 
Stacyhs said:
Exactly. That H. Biden sat on Burisma's board is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he was paid for doing nothing but lending his surname. Trump sells the use of his name on building and merchandise he does not own.
This is nothing but a "Look! Squirrel" tactic.
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Talk about fixating on the irrelephant in the room. Biden was unaware of the phone call and the committee has moved on so far past the phone call.
 
acbytesla said:
The real joke is now the Republicans want both Hunter Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to appear as witnesses during the impeachment hearings. Their reasoning is pure nonsense and nothing other than an attempt to make the inquiry about these people instead of the actions of Trump and the administration.
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Sad thing is that repetitively linking “Biden” with “corruption” has apparently achieved its goal: driving the Democratic front runner down to fourth place.

These are tried and true tactics, and I’m not sure what the defense is.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Sad thing is that repetitively linking “Biden” with “corruption” has apparently achieved its goal: driving the Democratic front runner down to fourth place.

These are tried and true tactics, and I’m not sure what the defense is.
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I don't think there is a remedy for that sort of thing.


Unfortunately for the Democrats, they don't have a cult following (herding cats and all that) like the Republicans do. It seems religion does serve a purpose afterall... and it's served the Republicans quite nicely thus far.
 
Craig4 said:
Talk about fixating on the irrelephant in the room. Biden was unaware of the phone call and the committee has moved on so far past the phone call.
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Exactly, if Schiff is smart, he will say sure, we'll let the GOP depose Hunter Biden. That is if the administration not only frees everyone in the government to fully cooperate with the impeachment inquiry but ORDERS IT! No more ******* around.

As for the whistleblower "Go to hell". The whistleblower law was specifically enacted so government officials could bring to attention important concerns without being worried about reprisal. It would send a disastrous signal to future employees if Congress and the government were to prove itself untrustworthy. There is NOTHING the whistleblower reported that hasn't been confirmed by other sources.
 
acbytesla said:
The real joke is now the Republicans want both Hunter Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to appear as witnesses during the impeachment hearings. Their reasoning is pure nonsense and nothing other than an attempt to make the inquiry about these people instead of the actions of Trump and the administration.
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Quite. The Bidens can obviously tell us nothing about what Trump, Guiliani and the other players got up to (except hearsay, and we know Republicans hate that), and I can imagine the first question Republicans will ask the whistleblower : "When did you first meet with Schiff to concoct your so-called whistleblower report?". Since they won't get a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens now, they'll try to make the impeachment enquiry into one. They desperately want an equivalent to Clinton's emails because that's the only way they know how to campaign.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Sad thing is that repetitively linking “Biden” with “corruption” has apparently achieved its goal: driving the Democratic front runner down to fourth place.
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I doubt many Democratic voters actually believe Biden's corrupt; I think they just don't want this thing dominating the campaign, especially when they find Hunter Biden's activities rather distasteful. As, I imagine, do most of us.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Sad thing is that repetitively linking “Biden” with “corruption” has apparently achieved its goal: driving the Democratic front runner down to fourth place.

These are tried and true tactics, and I’m not sure what the defense is.
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I'm not really sure that it has. Biden's star was dropping well before all of the Ukraine stuff came out, and Warren was polling ahead of him when it did. His drop really is just a continuation of his previous slide which was on the back of his own gaffs and poor performances in the Debates, as well as good performances by others and name recognition increasing for the previous minor players.
 
phiwum said:
The executive branch has certain rights and privileges. They are asserting that among those rights is the right not to submit to the current subpoenas.

Congress, of course, has rights as well, such as the right to issue such subpoenas.

An employee of the administration finds himself in a conflict. Congress has ordered him to appear. The administration has ordered him not to. There are three obvious possibilities:

(1) Decide for yourself that Congress has the authority and appear, as some have done.

(2) Decide for yourself that the executive branch has the authority and do not appear, as some have done.

(3) Decide that you should defer to the courts in order to decide who has the authority, as Bolton, Mulvaney, McGahn and one other guy whose name eludes me have done.

I don't see (3) as a bad option. It's much better than (2). I think (1) is a noble route to take, but I don't begrudge those who take (3). It is the safest option. (I would, of course, blame those who choose (3) not out of an abundance of caution but merely to slow the proceedings to a crawl. At present, I don't see much reason to suppose this is Bolton's tactic, though it sure could be.)
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One of the problems here is that the Executive is pretty much claiming Executive Privilege to absolutely everything, whereas legally it has been defined very narrowly by the Courts in the past, ironically because of the Republicans going after Clinton and Obama on various things, as well as rules over Nixon's tapes and documents.

Should the house go for it, and personally I think that they should, the ledge that the Whitehouse is standing on is extremely narrow.
 
acbytesla said:
Exactly, if Schiff is smart, he will say sure, we'll let the GOP depose Hunter Biden. That is if the administration not only frees everyone in the government to fully cooperate with the impeachment inquiry but ORDERS IT! No more ******* around.
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The greatest deal-maker of all time anywhere ever should relish negotiating a deal.

As for the whistleblower "Go to hell".
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It's a (predictable) shame that the Republicans didn't take up the whistleblower's offer of written questions, making it explicit that this would be without prejudice to their demand that he present himself. I'd love to have seen what questions they'd come up with. The fact that they didn't shows just how spurious those demands are.

The whistleblower law was specifically enacted so government officials could bring to attention important concerns without being worried about reprisal. It would send a disastrous signal to future employees if Congress and the government were to prove itself untrustworthy.
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Disastrous from your point of view, but absolutely spinky from Trump's.
 
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CapelDodger said:
The greatest deal-maker of all time anywhere ever should relish negotiating a deal.

It's a (predictable) shame that the Republicans didn't take up the whistleblower's offer of written questions, making it explicit that this would be without prejudice to their demand that he present himself. I'd love to have seen what questions they'd come up with. The fact that they didn't shows just how spurious those demands are.

Disastrous from your point of view, but absolutely spinky from Trump's.
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That's why Congressional Republicans need to think this through and look beyond this moment.
 
dudalb said:
Rumors now abounding that GOPers in the House are considering a plan to make Giuliani the scapegoat for the Ukraine scandal, trying to portray it as a rogue operation Trump had no control over.....
Total BS of course, but it indicates the evidence of wrongdoing is so strong that they can't just hand wave it away or claim nothing happened.
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Trebuchet said:
Meanwhile, in the White House it's Mulvaney being thrown under the bus.
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Which just shows how misguided their actions were. Why shill for Trump when this is the only outcome you can expect?
 
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