Impeachment is a process. Transparency of evidence presented to the public. Hearings with witnesses under oath. In short, upholding the rule of law even as one party treats it with disdain.
But nope, can’t have that because a president 20 years ago was impeached for lying about a blow job, ergo any impeachment process is totally the same.
But wait, there’s more! We can’t indict a president in a court of law either because reasons. Effectively and functionally we’ve now decided short of a president committing murder they are completely immune from being held accountable.
Oh but we can vote them out of office. Losing an election, that’ll show’em!
Congratulations America! We are now an elective monarchy. Awesome.
That’s because you don’t see the posts I end up deleting!
But to your point, it’s hyperbole for a reason. I don’t understand the logic at all. I don’t understand how Clinton’s impeachment, done after a seven year investigation with the only evidence of any wrong doing was lying to a grand jury about oral sex is in anyway the same as what heir trump is doing (aside from conspiring with an adversarial government to win an election.)
We can’t hold impeachment hearings because the Senate won’t convict, nor can we indict a president for crimes committed during or prior to holding office because … then anyone committing crimes might also be indicted?
trump isn’t the last of his kind. The precedents being laid down now open the way to authoritarian executives in the future (from either party mind you.)
Look. I know what impeachment is. I’m guessing that so too does Papageno and Oghier. And I would love to see Trump impeached, indicted, and his legacy of disgrace being moved up a few years or so.
With that said, though, it looks like the really clear-cut stuff he’s likely to have done won’t be in the Mueller Report. And as legal eagles like Ken White have pointed out often, the bar to clear for conspiracy and obstruction of justice is pretty high, and Trump’s own ridiculousness and debasement of the office seems to have only helped his defense.
In 1974, the House had a smoking gun: Nixon was on tape discussing that getting hush money to the Watergate burglars–even a million apiece-- could be done. It clearly sounded like the President was talking about initiating a cover-up with explicit instructions.
As far as we know, we don’t have quite that just yet, at least as far as the people I trust to parse the legal ins and outs of this have led me to believe. We may very well have plenty of smoking guns on a variety of shit that Trump has done, but that’s likely to be stuff that Mueller referred to other DOJ entities.
If they – when they – have that out in the open, I’m all for impeachment. I’m just not sure we’ll get that from Mueller’s report.
I tend to share your attitude. Something seems off if you can’t initiate legitimate impeachment proceedings without making sure the votes have all been counted in advance. And I don’t think there will necessary be the same blowback as there was against the essentially-trivial Clinton impeachment, or at least it was viewed that way at the time. As you say, each impeachment has been different – Johnson, Nixon (almost), Clinton.
Anyway, I do understand that Dems are trying to be cautious and strategic. But whenever I hear “Dems” and “cautious” my tail gets all fuzzy.
I think he’s committed impeachable offenses aside from any involvement with Russian interference into the election (which is Mueller’s mandate for the investigation.) As far as obstruction of justice, I’ve read both sides of that debate from a legal standpoint so it depends on which source you’re willing to give more credence to.
Politically and maybe strategically their response is likely the correct one, I don’t know. As you say, Democrats and timidity are a well worn outfit. Congress has already abdicated much of its authority and the executive office as it stands now holds entirely too much power. To me it looks like we’re heading for a cliff. Hungary, Poland, Turkey all are cautionary tales of democratically enabling an autocracy.
I find that concern quite overblown. Sure the GOP lost a couple seats. They continued to hold both houses of congress, won the presidency 3 out of the following 5 times, etc. Their 1994 wave lasted for at least a decade after a failed impeachment “hurt” them.
Between the advantages inherent in incumbency, our political systems’ debts to the slave power, the GOP’s manifest malignant intent to hold power no matter the cost, and foreign actors’ interests in seeing the USA continue to tear itself apart, I think it’s more than likely the Mango Mussolini will get re-elected barring impeachment. I think Pelosi knows this; note she didn’t categorically state “no” to impeachment. She said she’d need to see evidence worthy of it; I believe she’s letting the various committees develop that record. At least I hope she is; everyone says she’s a brilliant politician after all :)
I’m also troubled by this. As noted, I think the DOJ policy is clearly wrong legally but I can’t think of any mechanism to challenge or defeat it. A lawsuit? By whom? Who would have standing to challenge a DOJ policy on whether the President can be indicted for crimes? And it’s silly to think that a DOJ might of their own volition abandon the policy, given that any DOJ leadership is profoundly beholden to the President.
On impeachment, however, it strikes me that impeachment hearings that can’t lead to conviction are basically no different than House committee investigation hearings. I don’t think Pelosi has ruled out investigations at all, quite the contrary; and I’m for them as well. If they lay out all of Trump’s misdeeds through normal House committee procedures which expose him but don’t lead to conviction in the Senate, how would that be different than exposing them in an impeachment hearing that doesn’t lead to conviction in the Senate? Why take on the political risk of failed impeachment if you can accomplish the same thing without it?
I think the argument is a sitting president could pardon themselves, so no point indictment.
Seal it until they’re out of office.
I think in 2021 a Dem Congress should pass a law making it clear a President can be indicted, and dare the SC to overturn a law that says a president cannot pardon his own crimes, and if they do, try to pass an amendment saying all future presidents can.
(ex post facto means it wouldn’t apply to Trump, who would be facing state charges at this point)
We are in a constitutional crisis at this point. We’re going to need amendments to fix things- and that’s unlikely.
No, that’s not the argument. Here’s a link to the DOJ memorandum on the policy. It’s long, but in summary they conclude that indicting a President prevents him from carrying out his Constitutionally mandated duties — because an indicted President would be preoccupied with defending himself rather than functioning as President — and that this violates the Constitution.
(Note that this same argument could apply to impeachment, so it doesn’t strike me as particularly compelling at all.)
Along the way they note that:
No explicit language in the Constitution prevents indictment
The existence of impeachment powers doesn’t preclude indictment
The existence of separation of powers between judicial and executive doesn’t necessarily render the President immune from indictment
prosecution of a President isn’t simply too political to permit
the President’s role as head of the executive and his associated duties for prosecution don’t necessarily rule out indicting him
I generally agree with that. Let’s see some members and senators vote against the No Person is Above the Law Act of 2021.
The polls don’t show that (though we’re awfully far out, and it’s hard to say they show anything right now). The mid-terms and all the special elections we’ve had over the past two years tend to indicate Dems have a pretty good chance in 2020.
This is a cop-out, but I’ve decided to just trust Pelosi on this. She is in a better prediction to predict how any proceeding would go than I am. Her judgment has a track record, generally a good one.
