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House Impeachment Inquiry

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We learned from Vindman that it was White House lawyer John Eisenberg who moved the Ukraine call to the deep chill server. Eisenberg is scheduled to testify next week, although I don't imagine it will actually happen.

Yes Mr Fast Eddie, it's a truism. Any lawyer who works for Trump will eventually require their own lawyer. And as often as not, Trump's lawyer's lawyer will also need a lawyer.
 
varwoche said:
We learned from Vindman that it was White House lawyer John Eisenberg who moved the Ukraine call to the deep chill server. Eisenberg is scheduled to testify next week, although I don't imagine it will actually happen.

Yes Mr Fast Eddie, it's a truism. Any lawyer who works for Trump will eventually require their own lawyer. And as often as not, Trump's lawyer's lawyer will also need a lawyer.
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Reducing unemployment.

One lawyer at a time.
 
Belz... said:
I've said it before, but American government is so weird. I don't remember the Canadian government ever 'shutting down'. It makes no sense.
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//Vastly over simplifying//

Because the whole "Oh noes we ran out of money" thing can't happen in sanely run societies.

Here in the United Bald Eagles of Assault Rifle Land here's what happens.

By the rules Congress controls two things; the amount of the budget (that is how much money we have) and what things we have to spend money on. The President only has the authority to actually put those into action, he can't add money to the budget (not directly, more on that in a second) or refuse to spend the money in the way Congress has said to spend it.

If budget > expenses (which is almost always is) the President has to borrow money in order to buy the things Congress has legally ordered him to buy with all the money he is legally allowed to have. Problem is he also has to ask Congresses permission to borrow the extra money.

See the problem here? Congress says "I'm giving you a 20 dollar bill, go the store and buy 30 dollars worth, but you can't put anything on the credit card" and when someone goes "Wait that's not mathematically possible" that's when shutdowns happen.

Again in sane countries that have vaguely similar setups if the Congress/Parliament/Equivalent orders to the President/Executive/Equivalent to spend more then is in the budget, the permission to borrow money is implied so they don't have to go through the steps of one entity begging another entity to be allowed to do the thing the first entity has told them to do and they are legally obligated to do.

And of course all of this is almost always over some political hot potato one side has demanded to be or not to be put in the budget.

Here's a good breakdown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE
 
JoeMorgue said:
Again in sane countries that have vaguely similar setups if the Congress/Parliament/Equivalent orders to the President/Executive/Equivalent to spend more then is in the budget, the permission to borrow money is implied so they don't have to go through the steps of one entity begging another entity to be allowed to do the thing the first entity has told them to do and they are legally obligated to do.
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It helps that in parliamentary systems we usually don't have a separate executive.

Thanks for the summary.
 
Belz... said:
What nonsense. It's absolutely the business of Congress to keep the executive in check.
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But that's the beauty of the weasely way they phrased it.

"Speaker Pelosi’s conduct is an encroachment across the constitutionally-mandated separation of powers. She has no business examining or investigating the president’s legitimate exercise of his authority to determine the foreign and national security policy of the United States," the complaint argues."

Catch that? That's the game they are playing. "Oh sure fiddle dee we're totally not saying *wink wink* that Congress can't investigate the President... only that they can't do it when what the President doing is legitimate."

The fact that determining if or if not what the President IS THE POINT is something they are trying to poison the well on. Create a Catch-22 where it's unfair to investigate innocent people, but you're innocent until you've been proven guilty which a process that requires an investigate to start. It's like arguing that you can't give the cops a search warrant until after the suspect has already been found guilty in court.

It's that whole "You can't even to investigate the President until you've already totally and completely across the board proven wrong doing" thing the Trumpers have gotten stuck on.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Reminder: Formal impeachment vote in about an hour, scheduled for 9AM EDT.

Main interest to me is will any Republicans vote in favor and incur Trump’s wrath.
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I doubt any House Republicans will vote that way (since it's almost a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will carry the vote). Why not just wash their hands of it and let the Senate handle it?
 
We're more likely to see a few token Democrats not vote for it then any token Republicans vote for it.
 
quadraginta said:
There isn't any doubt that Trump was using extortion to demand a quid pro quo, but since he didn't actually say "quid pro quo" in those specific words the Trumpistas claim with a straight face that it shows he didn't mean it that way.

By the same token they could claim that "the company" could have meant any company.

Now they can't.
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There's another important facet about Zelensky mentioning Burisma in the call. The name "Burisma" doesn't appear in the call at all. Trump didn't mention it by name. In reference to a discussion about Biden and his son, Zelensky mentioned Burisma by name.

This strongly suggests that he was already aware of the connection between Biden's son and Burisma. Hence, he had already been told of the importance of Burisma (to Trump). It is clear evidence that someone in the administration had raised this issue with Zelensky prior to the phone call.

Not earth shattering, since we all at least presumed as much, but I don't know if we had such clear evidence prior to Vindman's testimony.

I had, obviously, overlooked this point before.

ETA: Trump hadn't even mentioned any company before Zelensky's response. He had just said someone had stopped "the prosecution" in a context that made it seem Hunter Biden was the target of a prosecution. That Zelensky knew immediately that this was a case involving Burisma does show that he was familiar with the issue and the obvious conclusion is that the US had raised the issue previously.
 
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alfaniner said:
I doubt any House Republicans will vote that way (since it's almost a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will carry the vote). Why not just wash their hands of it and let the Senate handle it?
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Perhaps a couple of retiring Republicans.
 
JoeMorgue said:
We're more likely to see a few token Democrats not vote for it then any token Republicans vote for it.
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There's at least the one guy that was a Republican but is now an independent that will be voting for the impeachment. He said he supported it awhile ago.

ETA:

From Oct 10th said:
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a former Republican who has since become an independent, has also called for an impeachment investigation, bringing the total number of representatives to 229, or more than half of the 435-member chamber
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Delvo said:
Actually, when it's police & prosecutors in criminal cases, there ARE rules about how to acquire evidence, and failing to follow those rules DOES invalidate the evidence to take away their incentive to break the rules in the first place, and defendants, including guilty ones, ARE set free as an indirect result. (Breaking the rules doesn't kill the whole case by itself, but being unable to use that evidence can.)

The flaw in the argument isn't the concept of such rules or the termination of the case against the suspect when those rules are applied. It's that nobody's breaking any such rules in this case.
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You're talking about fruit of the poisonous tree. Such as searching a home without a warrant. This obviously is not that. These are depositions taken in private, not secret and as a response to legal subpoenas. And 25 members of the Republican party have a right to be there and are afforded equal time to ask questions.
 
As of October 19th the New York Times reported* that:

227 Democrats have publicly supported or spoken out in support of the Impeachment proceeding.

0 Republicans have publicly supported or spoken out in support of the Impeachment proceeding.

1 Independent has publicly supported or spoken out in support of the Impeachment proceeding.

8 Democrats have spoken out against the Impeachment Proceeding.

14 Republicans has basically said nothing.

The entire list, complete with their actual verbatim comments, are available in the link.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/trump-impeachment-congress-list.html
 
JoeMorgue said:
As of October 19th the New York Times reported* that:

227 Democrats have publicly supported or spoken out in support of the Impeachment proceeding.

0 Republicans have publicly supported or spoken out in support of the Impeachment proceeding.

1 Independent has publicly supported or spoken out in support of the Impeachment proceeding.

8 Democrats have spoken out against the Impeachment Proceeding.

14 Republicans has basically said nothing.

The entire list, complete with their actual verbatim comments, are available in the link.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/trump-impeachment-congress-list.html
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It is my understanding that the latest whip count had at most 6 Democrats hesitating voting ror impeachment.
 
I mean there's a chance we could see a few surprise people break ranks, Impeachments by their very nature are unique process.

I just the possibility of Democrats not voting for the impeachment/impeachment process/whatever more likely then the alternative of Republicans voting for it, since at least some of the Democrats have expressed actual opposition (in some form) for the process while at worst some of the Republicans have just not said anything.
 
phiwum said:
There's another important facet about Zelensky mentioning Burisma in the call. The name "Burisma" doesn't appear in the call at all. Trump didn't mention it by name. In reference to a discussion about Biden and his son, Zelensky mentioned Burisma by name.

This strongly suggests that he was already aware of the connection between Biden's son and Burisma. Hence, he had already been told of the importance of Burisma (to Trump). It is clear evidence that someone in the administration had raised this issue with Zelensky prior to the phone call.

Not earth shattering, since we all at least presumed as much, but I don't know if we had such clear evidence prior to Vindman's testimony.

I had, obviously, overlooked this point before.

ETA: Trump hadn't even mentioned any company before Zelensky's response. He had just said someone had stopped "the prosecution" in a context that made it seem Hunter Biden was the target of a prosecution. That Zelensky knew immediately that this was a case involving Burisma does show that he was familiar with the issue and the obvious conclusion is that the US had raised the issue previously.
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Agreed, not unexpected or earth shattering, but nice to have the direct evidence that preliminary conversations between the Rudi's Team and Zelensky's Team made clear who Biden was and what they wanted. The preliminary meetings are really just as important as the call. Context is everything.
 
2 "nays" from the Democrats so far. 1 Democrat and 3 Republicans so far are declining to vote.
 
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