Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

And because the White House defied the subpoenas, all of those witness didn't testify, dramatically shortening the proceedings.

The argument there is that Trump has the right to challenge these things in court, and if the Democrats were really sure of their position then they'd take the time to go through the courts. If they abandon the subpoenas, then they can't have been serious about them.

I certainly agree that it's bad optics. It's also a bad precedent to set - that if you don't comply with a subpoena then it'll just be dropped.

Turley repeatedly made the point that the process should take longer so that the public had time to come around to the idea that impeachment was needed, and AFAIK nobody ever pointed out to him that support for Trump's impeachment is already higher than it was for Clinton's. But Trump has a stronger hold on his party than Clinton or Nixon ever had, IMO largely because he's been so willing to politically sabotage members of his own party who upset him.

I think you're right, but I also think he's right on this point. The Senate is highly partisan and they'll only vote to remove Trump if there is considerable pressure from the public to do so. At the moment no such pressure exists.

There is enough evidence to impeach Trump, and the Democrats have a majority in Congress. These proceedings should never have been about establishing whether or not Trump can be impeached. They should have been about persuading the public that Trump should be impeached and about releasing inculpatory evidence of Trump's wrongdoing to the public. I understand it's difficult, though, because the election is coming up and Congress are up against many hostile agencies.

 

[dasmiller]

I certainly agree that it's bad optics. It's also a bad precedent to set - that if you don't comply with a subpoena then it'll just be dropped.

That is indeed a dangerous and disturbing precedent.

I think you're right, but I also think he's right on this point. The Senate is highly partisan and they'll only vote to remove Trump if there is considerable pressure from the public to do so. At the moment no such pressure exists.

That's a political calculation, rather than a point of law, and Turley is being presented a legal scholar rather than a political strategist.

There is enough evidence to impeach Trump, and the Democrats have a majority in Congress. These proceedings should never have been about establishing whether or not Trump can be impeached. They should have been about persuading the public that Trump should be impeached and about releasing inculpatory evidence of Trump's wrongdoing to the public.

I sympathize, but I don't know how else the House would persuade the public.

 

[Upchurch]

Here, I'll help.


1. 5th December 2012, Varwoche starts writing timeline.

2. December 5, 2019, TragicMonkey corrects aup's mangling of writing the date.

3. 2019-12-05, Upchurch submits a pull request with a format better for sorting of, you know, a timeline.


ETA: App design by forum board sounds like the equivalent of playing Pokemon via Twitch

 

[ponderingturtle]

It's certainly good material for a shrink, whether he used his son's name as an alias or named his son for his alias.

Named his son after the alias.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Named his son after the alias.

Without taking the time to research, I did have the impression that the “John Barron” alias preceded the birth of his son by a lot.

 

[bruto]

Named his son after the alias.

And the alias after the magazine?

 

[phiwum]

I guess lying about a blow job is more serious than withholding critical aid from an ally at war in exchange for dirt on his domestic political rival, obstructing Congress and abuse of power.

Lying under oath is a clear violation of law. The abuse of power that Trump is accused of is not as clearly a violation of law. It's a stretch to call it bribery in the usual sense. Whether ignoring subpoenas is obstruction of Congress is unclear until court cases are settled. And so on.

I see no inconsistency in Turley's position. I don't agree with it, but it's not a matter of whether lying is worse or not. Lying under oath is a clear violation of law. Abuse of power is more vaguely defined. If one thinks that every violation of law (or at least every significant violation, and I regard perjury as significant) is impeachable, but that we should be careful in applying vague principles in impeachment, then Clinton's act would be impeachable while Trump's may not.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The Democrats lose the fight a little more every time one of them whines about "But you impeached Clinton for a blowjob..."

It plays into the absurdist paranoid delusion that this is just politically based revenge.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

That's a political calculation, rather than a point of law, and Turley is being presented a legal scholar rather than a political strategist.

Sure, but he's also being presented as non-partisan.

The point isn't how he's being presented, but that he's not actually wrong when he says that longer is needed to bring the public round, and that bringing the public round is relevant - even if not for quite the reasons he was alluding to.

I sympathize, but I don't know how else the House would persuade the public.

More evidence of more wrongdoing. Mueller's grand jury evidence. Trump's tax returns, emoluments violations, etc.

But, as I say, that would all take too long and, given what is already in the public domain, may not be persuasive. It also runs the risk of falling prey to evidence fatigue.

The point is that this hearing has been extraordinarily quick and in some ways seems like small potatoes.

 

[dasmiller]

The point isn't how he's being presented, but that he's not actually wrong when he says that longer is needed to bring the public round, and that bringing the public round is relevant - even if not for quite the reasons he was alluding to.

But the public has already come around to a much greater extent than it ever did for Clinton's impeachment, and the polls have been remarkably steady for the last couple months. Barring some new revelation, do we think that public opinion would un-stall?

And if we're waiting for a new revelation, doesn't that suggest tacit approval of what we've already seen from him?

 

[JoeMorgue]

The difference between "prove" and "convince" isn't easy to exactly define to some mathematically precise level and there is a lot of overlap in how you go about it, but the difference does exist.

 

[theprestige]

The Democrats lose the fight a little more every time one of them whines about "But you impeached Clinton for a blowjob..."

It plays into the absurdist paranoid delusion that this is just politically based revenge.

It's also needlessly dishonest, which can't be a good look for the Democrats either.

 

[Belz...]

It's also needlessly dishonest

No it's not.

 

[theprestige]

No it's not.

Thanks for this counterpoint. I'll consider the possibility that the Democrats need to be dishonest about the nature of Clinton's impeachment.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again if you want to argue that argue that technically speaking on a technically the Democrats technically committed a technical wrong technically, fine.

Cheering on the rolling dumpster fire that is currently happening to our country to get back at them is another story.

Again the Democrats are not a sinless organization. The difference between me and you theprestige has always been that the damage I'm content being done to this country to "get back" at the Dems is nowhere near as much as you.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

But the public has already come around to a much greater extent than it ever did for Clinton's impeachment, and the polls have been remarkably steady for the last couple months. Barring some new revelation, do we think that public opinion would un-stall?

And if we're waiting for a new revelation, doesn't that suggest tacit approval of what we've already seen from him?

As I say, it's difficult and given what is already in the public domain it's difficult to know whether it's even really possible. But one thing I am sure of is that the situation as it is will almost certainly see there not be enough pressure on Republican Senators, and so they will not remove Trump. This will then be presented as a "tremendous win" of exoneration for him. And I think that Turley has done a good enough job and the Democrats did a bad enough job at challenging him to make that seem convincing enough to enough people to allow the Senate to get away with it unscathed.

So what would create enough of a swing amongst the pubic? I don't know. I don't know if anything would. But I'm sure that the answer is "more than this". And this is the last real opportunity, I think. Save it emboldening Trump enough to do something even more blatant and get impeached again that is, although a second hearing would necessarily have less impact than a first.

The way this is going, I think Americans may have to face up to the fact that their government is irreparably broken. The checks and balances don't work in a partisan system, and free and fair elections are a thing of the past (in as much as they were ever a thing of the present). If this impeachment fails (and it looks like it will), then I'd expect Trump to win the next election. And if he does that, then I wouldn't be at all shocked if they really do push ahead with trying to take away the two-term limit for presidents, assuming Trump's health holds out.

 

[d4m10n]

The point isn't how he's being presented, but that he's not actually wrong when he says that longer is needed to bring the public round, and that bringing the public round is relevant - even if not for quite the reasons he was alluding to.

If a GOP Senator sincerely believes in constitutional originalism (as they generally claim on their campaign websites) then all it should take to convict someone who has been impeached is a reasonably well-informed understanding of the relevant constitutional meaning of terms such as "bribery," and "high crimes," given a fact pattern similar to the one reported by HPSCI earlier this week.

The public can catch up whenever they get around to it (assuming they didn't catch C-SPAN yesterday) but their opinion has no bearing on what it takes to uphold one's oath.

 

[Paul2]

The point isn't how he's being presented, but that he's not actually wrong when he says that longer is needed to bring the public round, and that bringing the public round is relevant - even if not for quite the reasons he was alluding to.

What’s squeezing the Dems is the need to prevent, via impeachment, which is the only remedy, Trump from abusing the powers of the Presidency in the 2020 election. There’s little time to bring more of the public around before it’s too late.

 

[Paul2]

I wasn't talking about the opening statements, but the questioning.

I didn’t mean to imply you were, I just used you comment as a launching pad for mine. No worries.

 

[Segnosaur]

And I think the Democrats dropped the ball, too. For example, Turley spoke about how the defining feature of this impeachment is that it'll be the fastest impeachment in history, and how that's unfair to Trump because it doesn't allow him the time to legally challenge the subpoenas in court and thereby robs him of the due process that he is entitled to.

I don't quite get Turley's argument here.

Yes, we must ensure due process, and that might involve challenging subpoenas in the courts. But from what I see the evidence that has been presented regarding Trump's abuses of power were not subject to subpoenas. (e.g. testimony from Yovanovitch, Vindman, etc., the call transcript, information from the Mueller report that has publicly been released.) From what we know, that should be more than enough for impeachment to proceed.

There are ongoing court cases regarding Trump's financials (which might impact claims of emoluments violations), and certain witnesses (e.g. the subpoena compelling McGahn to testify), and it would certainly be great if those were eventually ruled against Trump. But any evidence they provide would just be icing on the cake.

Its a little like saying "Even though we have someone on video committing murder, plus his fingerprints and DNA all over the scene, and a half dozen witnesses, don't sent it to court until you have just that one more witness.".

Not once did I hear someone from the Democrats side say that the reason for the speed of the impeachment is because it's about interference in the upcoming election and so it has to happen quickly.

Which is a very good point.