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Mitch McConnell is openly conspiring with Trump on Impeachment

ahhell said:
Do you have evidence for this? Aside from the oath of office which requires them to protect and defend the constitution, I am unaware of any additional oath required for impeachments.
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Senate Resolution 479 - An original resolution amending the Rules of Procedure and Practice in the Senate when sitting on impeachment trials. 99th Congress (1985-1986).

Section IX:

"I ______________ do solemnly swear that the return made by me upon the process issued on the _____ day of _____, by the Senate of the United States against, _______________, is truly made, and that I have performed such service as prescribed within: So Help Me God."
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's worse. A thousand times worse.

At the very least right now every 2 years the two tribes have to put at least some token effort of pretending like they give a crap about the people so they get enough votes to maintain the tipping points in Congress.

With your plan get 5 person majority on the Supreme Court on your side and boom... you're set for life.
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Which is exactly what the GOP has been doing with their judicial appointments, packing the court with extreme reactionaries.

Impeachment should be a function of law enforcement and made 100% outside the ability of any political appointee to influence.
 
theprestige said:
It's not that I don't think the Supreme Court is a political body. It's that the Supreme Court itself has repeatedly invoked a doctrine of political questions to recuse itself from certain Constitutional disputes. There are many SCOTUS rulings that say, in essence, "this is political; it needs to be resolved by the other two branches amongst themselves." I think the Supreme Court would almost certainly apply this doctrine to the question of impeachment.

I think it's an obviously political process, and was always intended as such, and that this is the right way to handle it. I do not believe, nor intend to suggest, that the SCOTUS judges are not political creatures.
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SCOTUS, especially under Roberts, has consistently refused to hold itself to the Canons of Judicial Ethics involving conflicts of interest.
 
Under existing Senate rules, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will be the Presiding officer of an impeachment trial. The defense team could ask the Presiding officer to dismiss the charges just as in a normal trial. The Presiding officer would then rule on that motion. Chief Justice Roberts is unlikely to dismiss the charges but he doesn't have the final word. The rules allow the Senate to overrule the Presiding officer with a majority vote. A Senator could object to the ruling and call for a vote. If party discipline held, the charges could be dismissed and the impeachment trial would be over without any witnesses or discussion of the evidence.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I have come to the conclusion that Impeachment is a deeply flawed method for a check on power on the President, precisely because it tries to turn a legislative body into a judicial one: this undermines the credibility of such a process.
Impeachment should be up to the Supreme Court, and the threshold should be high.
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The Supreme Court are appointed by politicians and sit for life. Making them decide whether or not a president has done anything wrong in a hyper-partisan environment and when it's as easy as it's proven to be to stack it to favour one particular political party, seems like a bad idea.
 
acbytesla said:
The problem with immediate acquittal is political and how it would be viewed through the lens of history. The Constitution mandates a trial in the Senate. For the Senate not to take it seriously would look bad.
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I think we're long past the stage of Republicans worrying about whether or not something will look bad.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
It's hard to say exactly when it started, but we're living in the era of the imperial presidency. It's inconceivable that Republicans would ever impeach one of their own, and I really doubt that Democrats would at this point either. It's hard to imagine either party getting a super-majority in the Senate, so the impeachment power is essentially neutralized.
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It also means that no future amendment is going to happen, and that even passing bills is going to be hard.
 
Can any concept of "Separation/Balance of Power"/"Checks and Balances" not fall victim to the "Powers" forming unofficial groups outside the separation?

It certainly seems to me like "We're gonna form a club and just not go after people in our club" counters any possible "Separation of Power" anyone could put on the table.
 
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alfaniner said:
I was appalled to see that snippet on the news this morning. The branches are supposed to be separate but equal, and here McConnell says right out that he is working with the White House. This would be just as wrong if he were a Democrat trying to work out a deal.
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It's just a snippet of truth that demonstrates that the parties have become the only branches of government.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Can any concept of "Separation of Power" not fail to the "Powers" forming unofficial groups?

It certainly seems to me like "We're gonna form a club and just not go after people in our club" counters any possible "Separation of Power" anyone could put on the table.
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Only having elected members of those branches sur doesn't help. They're all in the same teams and have to work to get elected. SCOTUS has avoided that so far.
 
I know times are dark, but if even 5% of Republicans around the nation are as disgusted by the open approval of Trump's misconduct as the rest of us, incumbent Republican senators could start dropping like flies.

McConnell and company believe there are no lines they can't cross with impunity while holding their base, but they don't have to lose them all to lose their power.
 
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