I disagree. If LBJ offers something the VC want in exchange for something he believes Americans want, he is doing his job. If he offers something the VC want for something he believes America needs he is also doing his job. If offers something they want for their help convincing people to vote for him, then that is bribery. Can you invent edge cases where there’s like a deal that also includes some joint press conferences or whatever that raise the prestige of the candidate during a reelection campaign? Sure, there are always gray areas and edge cases. That doesn’t mean Obama and Trump are in those areas (and I don’t think Carter or LBJ were either). What Nixon did should be illegal, and I don’t know enough about the Reagan incident to comment. I thought Reagan made an illegal arms deal with them once he was in office.
Trump and his campaign aides are transparently guilty of violating USC 52 §30121. You have already stipulated to the facts which make this so, and are reduced to making the absurd argument that an oppo research report isnt a thing of value.
A conviction would be a slam dunk except for the possibility of jury nullification.
What Nixon did was illegal, though no one knew at the time he did it, and - like so much he did - he got away with it.
What Reagan did was to tell the Iranians that if they held the hostages until after he was elected and actually took office, they’d get a better deal from him than they would get from Carter. Also a crime, and Reagan also got away with it.
OK.
Well, people who call for impeachment have done so on different grounds. “Because he’s incompetent” is old and busted. “Because he’s been indicted” is the new hotness.
I’m against impeachment for the simple fact that I think Pence would be efficient. Our saving grace right now is the utter incompetence of Trump and whatever cronies he hasn’t yet fired on any given day. Best-case scenario, to my mind, is that the Democrats wrest back control of Congress in November and serve the Republicans a dose of their own obstructionism for the next two years. The executive branch is basically trashed until at least 2020.
-Tom
Well, if you’re imagining that I accepted that “damaging information about a candidate” is a “thing of value” within the meaning of that statute, even though I did no such thing, then sure. My concern is that the statute could not possibly include such information as a “thing of value,” because it would then unconstitutionally proscribe a foreign national from giving almost any kind of political advice to anyone involved in a campaign. (The unconstitutional bit is that it would also proscribe a US citizen with First Amendment rights from discussing such advice with foreign nationals).
The Trump tower meeting and the Manafort thing are two examples (though Manafort emails we’ve seen don’t implicate Trump). They had discussions about quid pro quo arrangements. I think the stakes are too high to demand video tapes or written agreements as a standard of proof. They had the contacts, they discussed a deal, and then they got stuff and they gave stuff. That’s pretty damning even with nothing more from Mueller.
Again, are you entirely unable to comprehend what you read? I explicitly noted that in the very next phrase you’re quoting.
Who cares what your ‘concern’ is? Your ‘concern’ doesn’t trump the law. If you want to make an argument about what constitutes a ‘thing of value’, go back to people who drafted the statute and see what they said. Or construct a response to my question, which you still haven’t answered: Does this statute prevent a foreign national from donating a Lamborghini to the campaign? If so, then why doesn’t it prevent an oppo research report? If not, what do you think they meant by ‘thing of value’?
Really, you’re bad at this. Make an actual fucking argument.
A Lambo would be covered by the statute, because it has a clear, standard market value. By this reasoning, information with a clear, standard market value – say, AP exit poll results that go for a license fee of $35,000 – would be covered by the statute. However, information of a kind not commercially available for a market price would not be covered. For example, off-hand political advice, or vague promises of oppo research on Clinton.
The reason for the limitation here is not arbitrary. It is founded in the First Amendment and due process protections, which preclude statutes from impinging unnecessarily on free speech rights, as well as prosecuting people for vague, overbroad statutes. We can’t legally prohibit discussions of all kinds of information. We have to draw a line of what kind is OK, and what kind is not.
Here’s another stupid thing: Is it possible you don’t know that you can’t use the first amendment as a defense if your speech constituted a crime? Two mob bosses can’t discuss a crime and then when they’re caught and charged with conspiracy, argue that they were only exercising their first amendment rights. Well, they can, I guess, but I’d say the odds of success are not good.
To be sure, if the conversation was, “Please hack the DNC servers and give us dirt on Hillary,” it would not matter if the dirt was an in-kind contribution or not…
Point to the language in the statute that makes this distinction.
Objection. Asked and answered. You don’t have a first amendment right to conspire.
If this is true then why hasn’t he been impeached? I mean, if he’s actually hindering the GOP agenda shouldn’t they have no incentive to protect him? In which you are saying that they genuinely believe their hands are tied?
Conspire to do what? Make an in-kind campaign contribution? That would also be covered by my argument.
As you know, the statute does not need to draw the distinction explicitly in order for a court to infer it to avoid striking down the statute entirely. If you disagree, point me to where in Obamacare they admitted it was a tax… :)
Because they don’t want to be primaried by Trump supporters. For many of them, that’s the only way they could actually lose their seats, because they are in safe districts.
As you know, the statute doesn’t have to be made of paper in order for extraterrestrials to disintegrate it with their death rays.
I mean, as long as we’re just speculatin’ here, let’s do it right.
What a facile response. If your understanding of statutory interpretation is that courts can do nothing but read the literal words of the text, you might be more of a conservative than I am. :)
Here is some neutral background reading for you on this very topic by First Amendment expert Volokh. Unlike you, he takes the issue of interpreting the statute seriously:
Having a president impeached would be extremely bad for the GOP politically. It is a bad look for the party to have their dude get thrown out of office.
Good then incentives align- impeach because he’s actively harming the country and as a bonus, it also hurts the GOP.
I think that impeachment should never be politically motivated, or you get fiascos like Clinton.
It does nothing but harms the country moving forward but creating additional partisan bad blood.
An impeachment should always be because keeping the president in office will harm the country more than the disruption of forcing him from office.
Trump falls into that category, i think.