Impeachment without removal won’t mean much. It’ll be funny, sure, he’ll have I guess two asterisks! lulz. But otherwise, it will mean the same as the first - nothing.
Matt_W
4209
Or just ratify the Article One of the Bill of Rights
There’s no reason I can see not to do it. Why be afraid of it not working? We knew it wouldn’t work the first time because there was never going to be 67 votes in the Senate, but it was worthwhile.
It’s not so much about achieving gain for the Democrats as it is for doing what is right. Trump incited an attempt to overthrow the government. How can we not fucking impeach him if we believe that is what he did?
Has he? I think he’s simply said that the Senate is in recess until the 19th.
Sharpe
4212
Just what do you think failing to act in response to Trump’s incitement of insurrection, repeated efforts to interfere in elections, and many other crimes and abuses of power will achieve?
Do you think failing to act is the right move here? Doing nothing b/c accomplishing the maximally efficient perfect goal is hard?
We all understand that getting the optimal result here is highly unlikely but there are still VERY strong reasons to take actions including voting to impeach and pressing forward against Trump in multiple ways. Sure, undefined flailing is not helpful but what the Dems are doing is NOT undefined “doing something for the sake of doing something” as you imply.
Voting to impeach has a purpose and will have specific effects including putting the GOP in the Senate on the record, among other things. It may well be true that we cannot win a vote to remove at this time and that’s no reason to do nothing.
On top of all that, there is a simple hard, incontrovertible reality of nature and political perception: NOT taking action will be seen as condoning Trump’s terrible acts, and will simply incentivize, facilitate and catalyze further bad acts. There’s a through line in the last 50 years from Nixon’s crimes to Ford’s pardons to Reagan administration crimes and abuses of power through Bush the Elder’s pardons and failure to prosecute, through Bush the Younger and his admin and their many crimes and abuses, through the Obama DOJ not pressing those issues up to and through Trump and our current situation.
We MUST hold Trump to account, and if we cannot achieve the perfect results that would be best, we still go on the record, make our case and put the reality into the history books. Anything less is a gross abdication of political duty and an invitation to yet more bad acts. I’m sorry if some of that is going to look like “doing something for the sake of doing something” but we can’t let the unobtainability of the perfect stop us from doing the good.
jsnell
4213
It’s an order of magnitude faster than you’d expect things to happen, whether comparing to historical cases or to analogues in the legal systems. No matter how good a case you build in that time, it’s going to be easy for anyone who needs an excuse to claim that they’re objecting to the accelerated schedule that didn’t allow for a sufficient thorough investigation. And even if it’s not true, it’ll sound plausible.
Indeed I don’t know, that’s why I asked. Many posters here seem convinced that the Democratic leadership are spineless morons for not impeaching already on Friday, but nobody has articulated on what concrete improvement that would make. If all you have is “make the Republicans go on record and pay” fairy tales, then maybe the Democratic leadership deserves the benefit of the doubt on the exact timing.
I remember a very similar discussion four years ago around filibustering the SC nomination (Gorcuch, I guess?). There was the argument that the Democrats needed to filibuster just to show they were willing to fight, even though it was guaranteed to be end of the SC nomination filibuster. And there was the argument that it should be saved for when it could actually work.
The purely symbolic gesture won. And it’s plausible that either Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett could have been successfully filibustered if it was still available, given the circumstances.
Yes! I’m already chuckling every time I have to write something to disambiguate the impeachements.
You can build a better case. You can have the appearance of building a better case (which is subtly different). You can spend the time of your legislature on things like appointing adults into all the various gutted agencies, and start rebuilding them. You can avoid the possibly really bad optics with the Senate wasting time on doomed removal hearings an ex-president at a time when Covid will probably be killing 5k people / day.
It’s at least plausible that action later is better than action now.
I absolutely would love for Trump to be impeached again, and this time to be found guilty, even after his term of office expires.
There is an almost zero chance that he’ll be impeached, convicted, and removed from office before January 20. To do so would require almost 100% backing from Republicans in the House and Senate. That isn’t happening.
So absent that, I would very much like to see the article of impeachment for inciting insurrection (a first, and hopefully only such article of that nature) arrive on the desk of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Who can then set the rules and hearings and evidentiary proceedings that will be thorough and make it clear what was done by Trump on January 6…and leading up to it. And then I want it to be spectacularly uncomfortable and incredibly politically expensive for Republicans in the senate to vote no.
Canuck
4215
Well it’s already the 10th of January. How does the process work? Does he have to be impeached by the House first before the Senate Majority leader gets to decide the rules for the Senate? If so they could do their thing in the House and then wait a couple of days before sending the impeachment on up to the Senate, right?
Timex
4216
I agree that they need to do things correctly. Frankly, i think Trump is going to go to prison anyway.
But the answer to your question here, is that if you wait, you give the GOP time to weave some narrative where Trump didn’t actually incite insurrection.
Nesrie
4217
Hopefully we keep seeing more moves like this.
Clay
4218
It’s gonna be fun with 6500 members of the House!!
The only reason for waiting I can see is waiting for control of the Senate to pass to the Democrats. I don’t know how it all works, though, so if the House could vote to impeach this coming week, they should.
If pressuring an AG to change election results and inciting a mob to try to overthrow the government isn’t grounds to impeach, then nothing is. It has to happen even if the votes in the Senate aren’t there.
ShivaX
4220
Impeachment can bar him from ever holding office again and remove all the perks of ex-Presidency.
No travel budget, no pension, etc.
Sharpe
4221
No, that is not plausible. With all due respect, that is a foolish statement. We have years of evidence of GOP intransigence that makes that statement laughable.
Alstein
4222
I agree on the impeachment articles being sent to the Senate for that reason.
I just don’t think you get a conviction, and we have so many other things to do.
I also could see the court ruling that you can’t impeach former officeholders, which would nullify the impeachment.
So the process is going to start in committee with debate there. And the House Republicans can draw that process out in committee for a day, maybe 2. The the Democratic majority on the committee votes to impeach and it goes to the floor with the committee’s endorsement.
Then it goes to the House floor for vote and debate. House Republicans can use their debate time to stretch this out for 2-4 days if they want. Then the full House votes.
If they vote to pass the article, the article is sent to the Senate for the actual trial.
The Senate majority leader and his caucus then set the agenda for the trial as they like; in the previous impeachment, McConnell’s agenda meant no witnesses to be called. Democrats would very much like to call witnesses this time around, because those witnesses are likely to paint a pretty damning picture of President Trump’s actions. They won’t get to make that agenda and rules for impeachment until both new senators from Georgia arrive in Washington, and until Kamala Harris is sworn in as VP. Heck, they may have to wait another few days after that for Harris’ replacement to arrive.
But then they get to make the rules and set the agenda for the impeachment trial.
Impeachment is a political process and not a legal one. Clip and save.
Sharpe
4225
Point of clarification in follow up to Triggercut’s post: there’s essentially no chance of a removal before January 20th, due to the various timelines, House and Senate rules, etc. However, I do believe pressing forward this week on impeachment is important, to establish the articles of impeachment which can then be pursued in the new Senate.
This also ties in to pressure on Trump to resign or on Pence to invoke the 25th: those are the quicker options, which would be great if they happened, but IMO those would in no way stop the need for a formal impeachment, and making the case for removal from office and formal bar from running for office, which needs to be done regardless of whether Trump resigns or the 25th is invoked.
Impeachment is not a swift process and it is not the immediate solution for a dangerous delusional President. It is, nonetheless, still a necessity for the Dems to pursue for many other reasons.
CF_Kane
4226
Indeed.
Impeachment of the President is explicitly assigned to the legislature in the Constitution. There is no chance that even this Supreme Court would get involved.
