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Split Thread A second impeachment

Yep, how dare Democrats expect a higher standard from the President than they would from a crazy person on a soap box on the street?!?
 
The majority of Americans think Trump should be convicted and barred from holding public office in future in a new ABC poll:

The new poll, which was conducted Friday and Saturday and has a nationally representative probability sample of 508 respondents, found that 56 percent of Americans backed the both actions.
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The poll was conducted using KnowledgePanel, which Ipsos described as the “largest and most well-established online probability-based panel that is representative of the adult US population.”

The poll was also conducted in Spanish and English and has been weighted to “adjust for gender by age, race/ethnicity, education, Census region, metropolitan status, household income, and party identification,” the market research company said.

The company added that the survey has a margin of sampling error of 4.8 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent for results “based on the entire sample of adults.”
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Fast Eddie B said:
Democrats are waffling on the need for witnesses.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/07/democrats-trump-second-impeachment-466152?cid=apn

Seriously, what’s wrong with these people???
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What people? Who should be called as witnesses? The House Impeachment managers will probably decide on whether they want or need witnesses.

I'm not sure they are needed. I could create a compelling case just with Trump's statements for the last few months combined the planning of the rally and the audio of the rally, Trump's Statement after, social media posts of the rioters and so on. I would create a video editing the story together including nice shots of the riot.
 
acbytesla said:
What people? Who should be called as witnesses? The House Impeachment managers will probably decide on whether they want or need witnesses.

I'm not sure they are needed.
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I’m just thinking back to the first impeachment. Democrats squawked loudly about the Republicans shutting down any witness testimony.

If it’s all theater anyway, I say go for it. Put at least a few of the rioters on the stand. If they plead the Fifth, go ahead and ask the questions anyway...

“Mrs. Jones, did Donald Trump’s words or actions influence your decision to participate in the invasion of the Capitol?”

“On the advice of my attorney, I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.”

“I understand. Allow me to play a video for you.”

Plays a video of Mrs. Jones saying she was there because she thought that’s what Trump wanted.

“Mrs. Jones, does that statement accurately reflect your state of mind at the time?”

“On the advice of my attorney, I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.”

And so on. If it’s a show trial, at least try to make it a good show.
 
This is what Graham's threat was about, "You call one witness and I'll call...." The threat was to draw the trial out. The Democrats want to get it over with so they can get on with their other agendas.

I think it's a mistake, because I don't know how they can succeed without them. I say that because the majority of the GOP Senators are going to vote against it on the politically easy grounds of it's unconstitutional. Wimps. So witnesses are the best way to show what a slime Trump is beyond what is obvious.
 
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Calling Raffensperger to testify that he felt threatened by Trump to “find votes” on the infamous phone call should be a no-brainer.

Play this portion of the call:

“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it. You know, that’s a criminal — that’s a criminal offense. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”

Make the case that any reasonable person would see those threats by a sitting president as real threats, in an attempt to “find votes”.

Get it all on the record for history, even if we know in advance it’s extremely unlikely that enough Republicans will vote to convict regardless of the evidence.
 
Complaints from Republicans that this impeachment is only "political theater" seem deeply ironic to me. After all, they are the ones who first elected then supported as President a man whose entire career up till then had been a tawdry glitter-show, and, as President, only ever accidentally managed to stumble upon substance (and then, as often as not, to stumble over it). He spent the last two months of his term squawking about how his show just could not have been cancelled, culminating in a production where his only concern was with how it would play for his selected audience. Elections are serious business; Trump, enabled by the GOP, made a bad comedy out of this one.

So if it's a show, it's the one Republicans put on; that they don't like the last act because it wasn't in their original script just proves what a shoddy improvisation it always was.
 
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Trump Impeachment Trial Legal, GOP Lawyer Argues

Cooper wrote that “the strongest argument against the Senate’s authority to try a former officer relies on Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, which provides: ‘The president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’ The trial’s opponents argue that because this provision requires removal, and because only incumbent officers can be removed, it follows that only incumbent officers can be impeached and tried....

Cooper further explains that “if removal were the only punishment that could be imposed, the argument against trying former officers would be compelling.”

But he pointed out that Article I, Section 3 also give the Senate authority “to impose an optional punishment on conviction: ‘disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.’”
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Not that the GOP Senators who want an easy out will change their disingenuous argument anyway.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Trump Impeachment Trial Legal, GOP Lawyer Argues

Not that the GOP Senators who want an easy out will change their disingenuous argument anyway.
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But this would mean that an officer could damn well do almost anything during his/her last couple of weeks in office and be immune from impeachment. As Trevor Noah said, "You can't get fired from Best Buy and steal a TV on your way out the door."
 
Stacyhs said:
But this would mean that an officer could damn well do almost anything during his/her last couple of weeks in office and be immune from impeachment. As Trevor Noah said, "You can't get fired from Best Buy and steal a TV on your way out the door."
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Yeah. It's a nutty argument.

It be like like if a State passed a law that basically said: "Embezzlement is a crime. A person convicted of embezzlement shall be forced to pay back the money they stole. The sentence for embezzlement shall not be more than forcing the person to pay back the money they stole, and up to 5 years in prison."

Someone gets arrested for embezzlement. They then immediately pay back the money they stole. They then claim that they can't be convicted and sentenced to prison because a conviction would require that they be forced to pay back the money which can't be forced because they have already paid it back. If they have paid back the money, they can't be forced to pay back the money, which means they can't be convicted, which means they can't be sentenced to prison. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card.

That's obviously nonsense. The reason the drafters of the Constitution included the provision for disqualification to hold office is for cases where someone holding office committed acts against the United States and if they held office in the future they would likely commit act against the United States again, perhaps with greater success.

Other than a sitting President outright joining forces with a foreign country to overthrow the US government or taking control of the military for a violent military coup, the action by Trump are about the most impeachable offenses a President can take. This was exactly the type of thing the Founding Fathers feared and why they included the provision for disqualification to hold office.

It isn't a borderline case. A President inciting a mob to storm the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of pawer is exactly what the Constitution was intended to prevent.
 
Here's another argument for the ball-less GOP Senators, if nothing will happen to Trump if he is impeached, why do they care? Why waste time trying to pretend nothing happened if said Senators are going to merely use an excuse to look the other way?
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
Yeah. It's a nutty argument.
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It is, it's also the only argument that the GOP Senators feel that they have.

If they accept that an ex-President can be impeached then they would be forced to consider whether or not President Trump actually did what the Democrats allege he did....

he did ;)


If they go that route then all kinds of evidence will be presented and they'll find themselves on record supporting acts of insurrection. Much better to simply insist that the "court" lacks jurisdiction. :(
 
Secret vote?

Can/Should the vote to convict be a secret vote? The Republicans have a chance to distance themselves from Trump, but many want to continue to support him so they can retain his voter base. If they had a secret vote, they could vote to convict, while publicly saying they voted to acquit. For the ones that want to run for pres in 2024, do they really want to run against Trump? (Cruz, Hawley, maybe Green, for example) Or just not show up for the vote, and let the Dems convict? This may be their last chance to dump Trump. The trial really won't change anybodies mind, I'm sure everybody has already decided on how they will vote. But it would still be good for the public to see the trial.(as long as the Democrats don't blow it)
 
LongFuzzy said:
Can/Should the vote to convict be a secret vote?
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That argument has been made upthread. My first reaction was that it sounded like a good idea but then there were a couple of contrary points made:

  • It's important in a representative democracy to be able to know what your representative is doing on your behalf
  • It assumes that a secret vote would encourage more moderate views to be expressed - it could instead allow more extreme views. For example some Democrats could decide that they want to acquit


LongFuzzy said:
The Republicans have a chance to distance themselves from Trump, but many want to continue to support him so they can retain his voter base. If they had a secret vote, they could vote to convict, while publicly saying they voted to acquit.
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I'm not so sure that the majority want to distance themselves. I've seen little evidence of any large-scale opposition to President Trump among GOP representatives in House or Senate.

The ovation that they gave to Marjorie Taylor Greene was a clear indication of the sentiment in the House IMO. The GOP is fully on-board the Trump Train.

LongFuzzy said:
For the ones that want to run for pres in 2024, do they really want to run against Trump? (Cruz, Hawley, maybe Green, for example) Or just not show up for the vote, and let the Dems convict? This may be their last chance to dump Trump. The trial really won't change anybodies mind, I'm sure everybody has already decided on how they will vote. But it would still be good for the public to see the trial.(as long as the Democrats don't blow it)
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President Trump managed to motivate the largest number of Republicans in history to turn out and vote for him. Why would they Republicans want to distance themselves from someone like that ? IMO their focus isn't necessarily on increasing the 74 million who voted for President Trump, but instead reducing the 80+ million who voted for Joe Biden and/or securing power despite losing the popular vote by a considerable margin.
 
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