Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

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Lurch said:
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Assassinating a prominent individual of a foreign government against whom one is not at war is a mighty step indeed. Has Trumpy thought through the ramifications? The wider world highly doubts it.
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Even worse, doing it in a country other than his own. There's of course going to be some blowback from Iraq as well.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
In defiance of a court order, the White House is refusing to release 40 pages of emails between two Trump officials re the withholding of aid from Ukraine, even with redactions
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On the surface, this seems like a pretty big deal.

It's one thing to stonewall Congress. They might get mad about it. They might even write an article of impeachment about it. However, they won't get a conviction on that article.

When they go to court, and the executive branch defies the courts, you get into a whole new territory. This should be escalated to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible. It could be a game changer.
 
Meadmaker said:
On the surface, this seems like a pretty big deal.

It's one thing to stonewall Congress. They might get mad about it. They might even write an article of impeachment about it. However, they won't get a conviction on that article.

When they go to court, and the executive branch defies the courts, you get into a whole new territory. This should be escalated to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible. It could be a game changer.
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I find it kind of amusing that refusing to comply with the courts is somehow more offensive than refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the courts that right. Yet the Constitution demands Congressional oversight.
 
acbytesla said:
I find it kind of amusing that refusing to comply with the courts is somehow more offensive than refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the courts that right. Yet the Constitution demands Congressional oversight.
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I missed that part.
 
acbytesla said:
What do you thing the power of impeachment is if not oversight?
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Ahh. That's what you meant.



I can't make your previous post make sense out of that.

ETA: Here's what I mean. Your post said this

I find it kind of amusing that refusing to comply with the courts is somehow more offensive than refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the courts that right. Yet the Constitution demands Congressional oversight.
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You seem to be saying that the President cannot refuse to comply with a Congressional subpoena. His refusal to do so is an impeachable offense. The proof of this is that the Congress has the power to impeach.

Or perhaps you can connect the dots for me in some other fashion.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Ahh. That's what you meant.



I can't make your previous post make sense out of that.

ETA: Here's what I mean. Your post said this



You seem to be saying that the President cannot refuse to comply with a Congressional subpoena. His refusal to do so is an impeachable offense. The proof of this is that the Congress has the power to impeach.

Or perhaps you can connect the dots for me in some other fashion.
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So. Do you think the founders would have given Congress the duty to impeach or not to impeach without the right to investigate and subpoena? Seriously? Combine this duty with the implied powers

Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
 
acbytesla said:
So. Do you think the founders would have given Congress the duty to impeach or not to impeach without the right to investigate and subpoena? Seriously? Combine this duty with the implied powers

Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
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The Congress has a right to investigate, and to subpoena. However, that right is not unlimited. Congress does not have the right to decide on its own limitations.

What has happened here is that Congress made demands on the executive branch. The executive branch is claiming that those demands are beyond the lawful powers of Congress, so no compliance is required. The courts get to decide who is right. That's what courts do.

Unless of course you can convince 2/3 of the Senate, then the courts' opinion really doesn't matter. However, you can't.

Why the defiance of the court order matters is that an awful lot of people will agree with my analysis, that the court gets to decide whether or not the congressional demands are lawful. If the Supreme Court says that withholding documents is unlawful, and Trump does it anyway, an awful lot of the public would see Trump's actions as a threat, and unlawful, and public pressure would be much higher for conviction. However, it would take the authority of the Supreme Court to make that demand. Some lesser court doesn't have sufficient credibility with the public.
 
Yeah the system of Checks & Balances works fine right up until that crazy, insane, totally implausible scenario that we're currently living in.
 
Meadmaker said:
The Congress has a right to investigate, and to subpoena. However, that right is not unlimited. Congress does not have the right to decide on its own limitations.

What has happened here is that Congress made demands on the executive branch. The executive branch is claiming that those demands are beyond the lawful powers of Congress, so no compliance is required. The courts get to decide who is right. That's what courts do.

Unless of course you can convince 2/3 of the Senate, then the courts' opinion really doesn't matter. However, you can't.

Why the defiance of the court order matters is that an awful lot of people will agree with my analysis, that the court gets to decide whether or not the congressional demands are lawful. If the Supreme Court says that withholding documents is unlawful, and Trump does it anyway, an awful lot of the public would see Trump's actions as a threat, and unlawful, and public pressure would be much higher for conviction. However, it would take the authority of the Supreme Court to make that demand. Some lesser court doesn't have sufficient credibility with the public.
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Laws only matter if they are enforced regardless if they are personally inconvenient. My point is nowhere in the Constitution does it say the courts have any right to tell the Executive or Congress what to do. Whereas Congress was given the right ...no, not just the right but the duty to impeach. The House was given the duty of impeachment and basically made the Senate jurors.

Do you honestly believe the following; That given the stated responsibility, the House not only doesn't or shouldn't have the authority to investigate the Executive and impeach/indict it. And if you believe it does, how do they do that effectively if we allow the Executive to simply say "no" and deprive it the necessary information to do that smartly?

No POTUS in US history has so blatantly ignored the laws and customs. It's a dangerous precedent.
 
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acbytesla said:
Do you honestly believe the following; That given the stated responsibility, the House not only doesn't or shouldn't have the authority to investigate the Executive and impeach/indict it. And if you believe it does, how do they do that effectively if we allow the Executive to simply say "no" and deprive it the necessary information to do that smartly?

No POTUS in US history has so blatantly ignored the laws and customs. It's a dangerous precedent.
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Yes, they have that authority, but that authority is not unlimited. "Executive privilege" is not something that Trump or Nixon made up. It's a critical aspect of the system of checks and balances. If Congress ignores it, and says that any time it is invoked they can and should remove the president from office, then there's no check on congressional power.

In reality, though, there is a check on congressional, and executive, power. If Congress makes a demand, and the president refuses that demand, then they can go to court to try to enforce the demand.

And plenty of presidents have asserted the ability to refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas. One of them, Nixon, went to court, and lost.

When the executive refuses a congressional command, the Congress could impeach him. That's what happened in December. However, they need 2/3 vote to convict. They'll never get it, and the public will yawn.

However, in 1974, the Supreme Court sided with Congress, and faced with that court defeat, public pressure mounted on Nixon. He and his lawyers decided that failure to comply would result in impeachment, so they complied. It turns out the material that was subpoenad contained enough bad stuff that public pressure still mounted, and the congressional Republicans turned on Nixon, and he was thrown out, or would have been if he hadn't see the handwriting on the wall and resigned.

The Democrats should go through that channel now. Refusing a Supreme Court order would be seen as a pretty big deal by the public, and it could turn at least some of the Republicans against him. Anything less is a major yawner.
 
You can't just sit here and counter everything Trump's doing with some new variation on "Well he's getting away with it, ergo it has to be a valid use of the system" when the fact that he's getting away with it specifically because he is using the system the way he is is the problem is such a major point of argument against Trump.

Even if, if, we hit some massive, damn near reality denial "I believe button" and pretend we can even entertain the idea that Trump hasn't done anything objectively legally, Constitutionally, or morally wrong watching our country go to crap based on how far a demagogue manchild see how much damage he can do while still being "technically" right is not anything any of us should be championing just because it's giving a boner to a previously untapped zeitgeist of sad, smarmy, disaffected, nihilistic trolls who think they've cracked the code on life by just being detached who'll standby and cheer on any damage done just to to increase they chances they'll get to watch the system fail and say to "I told ya so" anyone who ever showed a scrap of positivism or optimism or ever dared be "hyperbolic" about anything that ever scared or bothered them.

Yes previous Presidents have used Executive Privilege, yes even in ways I most definitely did not like. But none of them were specifically just seeing how much crap they could get away with before they were stopped.

Just because we have a system of both formal and informal checks and balances, not all of which are defined to mathematical precision doesn't not make it the Presidents job to stress test the system to find its breaking point.
 
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