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Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

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pgwenthold said:
Not just Trump. There are pictures of a whole lot of GOP politicians with Parnas.*** The result is that GOP politicians are either hanging out with a lying sleazebag, or he's telling the truth.

***ETA: And a large number of these politicians have previously denied knowing him, but that's another story. ("Oh, I guess I was at the same function of him once. I take a lot of pictures with people." Yeah? He's another picture of you with him at another place. And a third....)
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Remember that Lev and Igor are awaiting trial for illegally funneling Russian money to GOP politicians.
 
Ziggurat said:
Impoundment is the term to describe when a president doesn't spend money allocated by Congress. And for most of the history of the US it was perfectly legal to do so.
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So, are you saying that Americans don't have to follow any laws that are less than a century old or so?
Although this case isn't actually impoundment. The money was spent, just not on the schedule demanded by the legislation.
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So, in other words, the Trump administration acted illegally.

(And we will ignore the fact that some of that spending only happened once the whistle-blower acted... had they not raised the issue, its possible that the money still would not have been spent. Acting correctly when you are under scrutiny isn't nearly as impressive as acting correctly when nobody is watching.)
The government isn't supposed to do that, but to be honest, that's really not particularly unique.
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Yet it was serious enough for the Trump administration to restrict access to Trump's call with the Ukranian president. It was serious enough for multiple people to raise warnings that the actions were illegal.

You can find cases in every administration where the government didn't follow the law as written. Sometimes those failures are trivial, sometimes not so much, but it's not exactly new territory.
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Really? Please, tell us... when was the last time an administration failed spend money as required by congress, THEN had the president use that spending as a way to dig up information against a political opponent, all the while attempting to cover their tracks by putting information in locations that are difficult to access.
 
Upchurch said:
Okay, here is what I don't understand. How is surveillance the bad thing but really, really apparent quid pro quo is nothing?
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The nature of the quid pro quo has been discussed many times here. I don't want to go over old ground. We can hear from the senators (or is is House managers?) on it. Listen carefully to see if they say the word "crime", unless as part of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors".


However, stalking and the type of surveillance he was talking about is, at the very least, really creepy. It's the kind of thing that makes a lot of people very, very, nervous. It seems threatening, and it might be illegal.*


I also read something else today about the new revelations. It seems that Lutsenko was demanding Yovanovich be fired as a condition for the investigation. What surprised me was the source where I read it. National Review. I didn't see anything anywhere else. That won't play well in Peoria. It's one thing for the President of the United States to tell some foreigner that he wants something in exchange for US aid. It's quite another thing for some foreigner to tell the President of the United States he wants something. It's not a good look to the right wing voters if Trump accepts the demands.


This could be it......Stay tuned.


*ETA: And, as noted earlier, it might not have happened. Time for some investigations.
 
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Imagine that all these 'aides' were doing crimes around Trump without him knowing.
After the fifth or sixth got caught, wouldn't he have noticed something strange going on
and said to them "Stop criming?"
Unless he approved and conspired of course.
 
Meadmaker said:
The nature of the quid pro quo has been discussed many times here. I don't want to go over old ground. We can hear from the senators (or is is House managers?) on it. Listen carefully to see if they say the word "crime", unless as part of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors".
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That is an odd sort of apologetics.
 
Segnosaur said:
So, are you saying that Americans don't have to follow any laws that are less than a century old or so?
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How does that follow from anything I said? Are you honestly this bad at reading comprehension?

So, in other words, the Trump administration acted illegally.
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That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.

It would be nice if the government always acted according to the law, but this isn't the first time it hasn't. A sense of perspective is in order.

Really? Please, tell us... when was the last time an administration failed spend money as required by congress, THEN had the president use that spending as a way to dig up information against a political opponent, all the while attempting to cover their tracks by putting information in locations that are difficult to access.
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This is all special pleading. Why are these very specific conditions required? Why couldn't breaking the law in some other manner be similarly serious? Again, this is hardly the first time the government failed its statutory duty. And it's a safe bet that it will happen again no matter who wins in 2020.
 
Ziggurat said:
How does that follow from anything I said? Are you honestly this bad at reading comprehension?



That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.
It would be nice if the government always acted according to the law, but this isn't the first time it hasn't. A sense of perspective is in order.



This is all special pleading. Why are these very specific conditions required? Why couldn't breaking the law in some other manner be similarly serious? Again, this is hardly the first time the government failed its statutory duty. And it's a safe bet that it will happen again no matter who wins in 2020.
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That is too funny that you would bring that up. This whole thing is a whole different kettle of **** and you know it.

Trump has ****** your institutions and traditions over. Now is not the time to be doubling down.
 
Meadmaker said:
House managers?) Listen carefully to see if they say the word "crime", unless as part of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors".
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Cabbage said:
Why? Does the word "crime" have some sort of magical powers like "Abracadabra" or "Simon Sez"?
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Cabbage makes a good point. There have been 14 impeachment trials with a grand total of 80 articles of impeachment issued and maybe 5 of those articles were for violating a criminal statute. Whether the offense is a crime punishable by potential imprisonment is entirely irrelevant to the proceedings.
 
Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
How does that follow from anything I said? Are you honestly this bad at reading comprehension?


That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.
It would be nice if the government always acted according to the law, but this isn't the first time it hasn't. A sense of perspective is in order.

This is all special pleading. Why are these very specific conditions required? Why couldn't breaking the law in some other manner be similarly serious? Again, this is hardly the first time the government failed its statutory duty. And it's a safe bet that it will happen again no matter who wins in 2020.


Sideroxylon said:
That is too funny that you would bring that up. This whole thing is a whole different kettle of **** and you know it.
Trump has ****** your institutions and traditions over. Now is not the time to be doubling down.
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The GAO did not find that it was illegal to transfer the 5 Gitmo prisoners to Qatar. What it found to be illegal was that the Secretary of Defense did not notify certain congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of such a transfer. Not quite the same thing at all.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
"Just got"?

He is sooo needled.
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I think one of the GOP arguments was that he's not "really" impeached until the step of going from congress to senate with the charges occurred.

(Possibly that was to counter the possible Democrat tactic of not progressing to that stage; to avoid the partisan vote and allow the impeachment to remain.)

So "just got" may be consistent with their spin.
 
Ziggurat said:
That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.

It would be nice if the government always acted according to the law, but this isn't the first time it hasn't. A sense of perspective is in order.
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Is equating a failure to notify Congress within the correct time frame with withholding funds in order to extort political favors from a foreign nation a proper sense of perspective? Asking for a friend.
 
Ziggurat said:
That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.
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Nice Whataboutism, bro. :rolleyes:
 
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