House Impeachment Inquiry

[phiwum]

I don't think it is unnecessary. If there were not such an exclusion the Hunter Biden's of the world would be even more valuable as they could influence who could and could not work on certain projects within the US government.

Don't wan't Barr leading an investigation into your company, hire his adult family members to your board. Now the investigation has to be run in a way that excludes Barr from participating. The hire has had a hard literal impact on the investigation, instead of the possibility of the appearance of a conflict of interest. If you have deep enough pockets you can pick and choose quite a few relatives of key players and actually force the investigation to be handled by who you choose not to hire.

Unintended consequences and all of that.

And lets remember, these are adults who are not politicians and should be able to accept whatever offer of employment comes their way. Every job I have ever gotten, save one, I have been considered primarily because of a contact I had at the company. Most people I hire are based on personal contacts. That is the entire basis of Linked-In, develop and maintain business contacts so when you need someone you can find them quickly. Maybe not the best person, but someone you have a contact with. Outlawing this sort of hiring would be very difficult to pull off without hurting a lot of people. This outlier is not sufficient reason for such a change.

I was attributing the opinion, "The law has an unnecessary exception for adult children," to kellyb. I haven't thought about whether I agree with her point on this or not.

 

[phiwum]

That's pure hypothetical, unrelated to and unneeded in a discussion of current events.

If anything, move it to the 2020 candidates thread.

It is not hypothetical. It's a claim about history, namely that Biden was in a position where family loyalties could have influenced his duties, though they did not.

Nor is it unrelated to current events, since this recent history has surfaced in Republican defenses of Trump. You've joined in kellyb's discussion, after all, to correct your misreading of her argument. Surely you wouldn't have done so if you found it so irrelevant.

ETA: Of course, my defense of this discussion as on-topic isn't the last word. Feel free to report what you think is a derail.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I was attributing the opinion, "The law has an unnecessary exception for adult children," to kellyb. I haven't thought about whether I agree with her point on this or not.

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as argumentative, just the general tone in this thread seemed to be "there oughta be a law" and that is a pet peeve of mine.

 

[phiwum]

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as argumentative, just the general tone in this thread seemed to be "there oughta be a law" and that is a pet peeve of mine.

No offense taken. This is a place for arguments. I just wanted to point out that I don't have a dog in this particular fight.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Quotes from officially-released transcripts, organised by topic

Worth reading through. Basically, every point has been testified to by multiple independent witnesses - including that there was quid pro quo, and that this was wrong.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It is not hypothetical. It's a claim about history, namely that Biden was in a position where family loyalties could have influenced his duties, though they did not.

Nor is it unrelated to current events, since this recent history has surfaced in Republican defenses of Trump. You've joined in kellyb's discussion, after all, to correct your misreading of her argument. Surely you wouldn't have done so if you found it so irrelevant.

ETA: Of course, my defense of this discussion as on-topic isn't the last word. Feel free to report what you think is a derail.

Could have!!!!

Hypothetical!!!

It's related to the thread, it's unrelated to a discussion of what the Trumpers have claimed Biden did.

 

[alfaniner]

Does anyone know if the questions are going to be limited to five minutes "per side" again? That's about useless. 1-2 minutes to frame and ask the question, 2 minutes for the reluctant witness to obfuscate or waffle, the last minute for the (Democrat) asker to get the question back on track, and if they're lucky there might be a few seconds for a response (again waffled) as their time runs out.
The Rebuplicans, of course, will use their times to spin an agenda.

 

[d4m10n]

The federal bribery statute at 18 U.S.C. §201(b)(2) . . .

Hey presto!

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1194416369661566977

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Does anyone know if the questions are going to be limited to five minutes "per side" again? That's about useless. 1-2 minutes to frame and ask the question, 2 minutes for the reluctant witness to obfuscate or waffle, the last minute for the (Democrat) asker to get the question back on track, and if they're lucky there might be a few seconds for a response (again waffled) as their time runs out.
The Rebuplicans, of course, will use their times to spin an agenda.

Nope, the format will be something like 45 minutes for each side instead of the 5 minute format.

I think it will be interesting to see the GOP questioners when they don't have their soundbite format. What will they do?

 

[CapelDodger]

Regarding the Republican list of witnesses, can any of the Trump supporters here explain what they imagine either Biden can contribute to the investigation in hand? What can they possibly know about what Trump and Crazy Rudi were getting up to in Ukraine? Enquiring minds would like to know.

 

[CapelDodger]

Nope, the format will be something like 45 minutes for each side instead of the 5 minute format.

I think it will be interesting to see the GOP questioners when they don't have their soundbite format. What will they do?

Alexandra Chalupa (another name on the Republican list) would apparently relish the chance to find out.

Republicans highlighted the Chalupa episode as part of an 18-page impeachment defense memo they expect to drive their effort to undermine Democrats' case that Trump abused his power in his dealings with Ukraine.
But Chalupa says her part of the story has been magnified and distorted to the point that it's little more than a smear campaign initially disseminated by Russia.
“The whole story originated with the Kremlin,” Chalupa said in an interview on Monday, pointing to an initial December 2016 statement from Russia’s spokeswoman accusing the Ukrainian government of trying to sabotage Trump’s campaign by exposing that Manafort hid millions in payment for his work pushing Kremlin-backed candidates in Ukraine.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/12/alexandra-chalupa-testify-impeachment-069817

 

[quadraginta]

That's bull ****. Take your pick, absurd hyperbole or a blatant straw man.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But only a bit, certainly not absurd.

You just about admitted as much in an earlier post of yours, where you suggested that his jobs were a constant string of positions he got because of his dad.

What seems to be the important consideration to some people is how much of a job it was, not whether he was capable of handling it.

The seeming impropriety gets attached to the size of the position. Hence, if Hunter stuck with flipping burgers he'd be mostly in the clear. (I say mostly, because no overreach is too far for Republicans to throw mud with.)

But as soon as the job had any weight or prestige the shadow of daddy would rear up, convenient for GOP mudslinging.

And you seem to concur.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But only a bit, certainly not absurd.

You just about admitted as much in an earlier post of yours, where you suggested that his jobs were a constant string of positions he got because of his dad.

Yeah, so what?

Kelly, (for whatever reason because she's usually on top of these things), mistakenly repeated the GOP lie that J Biden got the prosecutor dismissed because said prosecutor was investigating H Biden. That is not and never was true; that was a GOP/Trump lie.

What seems to be the important consideration to some people is how much of a job it was, not whether he was capable of handling it.

The seeming impropriety gets attached to the size of the position. Hence, if Hunter stuck with flipping burgers he'd be mostly in the clear. (I say mostly, because no overreach is too far for Republicans to throw mud with.)

But as soon as the job had any weight or prestige the shadow of daddy would rear up, convenient for GOP mudslinging.

And you seem to concur.

The rest of this is a side show. It is relevant in the 2020 candidates thread. It is not relevant in the Trump impeachment thread.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I've no idea how the GOP folks are going to work around this one, but I'm guessing they are going to focus on the requirement of corrupt intent. They will perhaps come up with plausible sounding reasons to be chasing down a bizarre conspiracy theory about a DNC server which was somehow exfiltrated from the United States.

The old adage is that "if you have the facts on your side, bang on the facts. If you have the law on your side, bang on the law. If you have neither, bang on the table."

It's clear that the GOP can't argue the shape of the Facts, nor can they argue the shape of the law, so all they have left is what they are doing, and that's arguing about the shape of the table.

 

[kellyb]

It may not be the central point of discussion, but this really reinforces my opinion that politicians and lawyers (there's a huge overlap there) really need to get writing lessons.

Four pages to say what should have taken one.

Dear Guys

Here's a list of people of people we want to call.

• A
• list
• of
• people

GOP out.

Seriously. To quote Elements of Style:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

 

[kellyb]

Kelly dear, we have tried multiple times to correct you on this. Biden forced the prosecutor out who was slow-waking the investigation (IE protecting) the Burisma oligarch or whoever he was.

No, unless you are talking about some hypothetical that never came up. Biden could have recused himself, problem solved.

Your first paragraph is just restating what I said (I'm agreeing that Biden did nothing wrong) and for the second, of course it was a hypothetical, and having to recuse yourself is a form of having tied hands.

 

[kellyb]

I don't think kellyb is saying otherwise.

She's saying that Hunter Biden's presence on the board created a conflict of interest for Joe Biden, but not one that legally required recusal (as it would have had it been Biden's wife rather than adult son). The law has an unnecessary exception for adult children.

She is not saying that Biden's decision was based on loyalty to his son. Biden did nothing illegal here nor was he motivated by loyalty to family over country, but there was a conflict of interest nonetheless (a conflict that is not addressed by the law that kelly cited).

To have a conflict of interest just means one is put in a tight spot in which his duties are in conflict with other loyalties or considerations. In this case, leaving Shokin in place would perhaps have benefited Burisma and therefore Hunter, but the US and other Western nations wanted Shokin out. Biden did his part in pushing for the removal of Shokin so no harm came from this conflict, but it was present nonetheless.

Kellyb will, I'm sure, correct me if I'm misrepresenting her.

That's exactly right, and thank you.

 

[kellyb]

I question your premise. These are people that have spent decades in the study and practice of law and politics. They've made whole careers out of seeking influence and gaining advantage in those domains.

Rather than taking their texts as evidence that they don't know how to write, perhaps you should take them as evidence of a world you are unfamiliar with. If you assume that they are writing exactly how they intend to write, with all the skill born of long experience and knowledge of what works, then their texts become important windows into that world, and what's important there.

I've read a lot of lawyerly BS, political narrative spinning in the form of letters of request before, etc...but that letter was uniquely, stunningly juvenile. The authors were really bad at faking outrage. If they wanted to use the letter's preface as a part of their impeachment strategy with the republican electorate, they should have hired an actual professional writer to do it, I think.

Did the outrage strike you as genuine?

 

[Worm]

I question your premise. These are people that have spent decades in the study and practice of law and politics. They've made whole careers out of seeking influence and gaining advantage in those domains.

Rather than taking their texts as evidence that they don't know how to write, perhaps you should take them as evidence of a world you are unfamiliar with. If you assume that they are writing exactly how they intend to write, with all the skill born of long experience and knowledge of what works, then their texts become important windows into that world, and what's important there.

I've been mulling this over, and you make a valid point, although I think you perhaps overestimate the skills of those involved. However, I acknowledge that this is a personal opinion, and not really verifiable. I suppose, then , that I'm really questioning the value of a whole system and culture that ends up in a place where this kind of unfocused and vitriolic communication is 'what works' and what is important. It just makes me sad.

 

[kellyb]

But as the Republican response, it is a poor argument and lies or, at the very least CT-style JAQ'ing. At what point can we agree that the GOP response has been good and thoroughly debunked and get on to the real meat of the issue?

Well, one of the reasons I've been talking about how maybe there should be an addition to the law addressing potential conflicts of interest and adult children is that I talk to a lot of actual republicans on facebook in local political groups.

One of the core principals of effective, persuasive communication is that, when you're positive you're overall right, you should always scour the opposite side's arguments for places where they at least kind of have a point. And as counter-intuitive as it is, you should spend some time validating them on those thing. It's a necessary step to getting them to open their mind to what you think and why, so they can become curious about if maybe you are right on something.

The average Republican right now really, actually believes the only reason Trump called the prez of Ukraine to ask him to investigate Biden is because surely there was something illegal about Joe Biden firing the guy who was investigating his son's boss. Showing them that, nope, even if Joe had done that to protect Hunter, it would have been sleazy, but legal (and it really does seem crazy that it would have been legal,) is a crucial part of demonstrating that "investigating corruption" is obviously just a pretense, a demonstrably false pretense, for acquiring anti-Biden headlines and potential opposition research material (which is a foreign contribution).

Then you show them that there was a strong international consensus that Sorkin needed to be removed, and that Joe was actually throwing his son under the bus, if anything, by getting the guy fired. So that whole line of argument is even more fallacious.

This is what's been kinda working for me. YMMV. I have a few of them transitioned from convinced the impeachment is obviously a "sham," to having at least now read the Ukraine transcript, and curious to see what Trump's counter-arguments will be.