[Discussion] Presidential impeachment: the good, the bad, the orange

Formal impeachment proceedings were started today. Discuss.

Stele wrote:

Jesus. He doesn't say "we're withholding money until you investigate" but otherwise yeah. Asking Ukraine for help to dig up dirt on Biden.

Because the money was already put on hold the week before the call. There was no reason to mention what they both already knew.

Nothing like the White House emailing talking points to Congressional Republicans to spin the call summary and somehow including House Democrats as well.

Only to be topped by having the White House immediately try to "recall" its email to Congressional Democrats.

OG_slinger wrote:

Nothing like the White House emailing talking points to Congressional Republicans to spin the call summary and somehow including House Democrats as well.

Only to be topped by having the White House immediately try to "recall" its email to Congressional Democrats.

<.<
>.>

I am schadenfreuding so hard right now but also crying on the inside.

Even still, from the early reports on Republican Senate reactions I'm definitely steeling myself for soul crushing disappointment.

Not that there don't seem to be a few isolated cases of senators giving hints that they might want to develop a spine (Romney, mostly), but the rest are following the entirely expected path of sticking to the (now publicly available) talking points and pretending they see nothing, like the craven, boot licking wastes of oxygen they'e proven themselves to be time and time again for the last two and a half years.

Here's hoping the full whistleblower report really does have something powerful in it, I suppose.

Russia hacked the RNC and didn't release any materials.

Senate and House Republicans have repeatedly visited Moscow.

The NRA was receiving huge infusions of cash from Russia.

The Republican Senate will never act because they're corrupted or compromised.

I'll bet Newell Brands is making a lot of profit lately on all the Sharpies.

zeroKFE wrote:

Even still, from the early reports on Republican Senate reactions I'm definitely steeling myself for soul crushing disappointment.

I think the best I can hope for is that the hearings get televised from now until November of 2020 and that the articles of impeachment cover everything from obstruction, emoluments clause violations and tax fraud to extorting Ukraine.

Make Republicans sign off on all of it.

zeroKFE wrote:

Even still, from the early reports on Republican Senate reactions I'm definitely steeling myself for soul crushing disappointment.

...

Here's hoping the full whistleblower report really does have something powerful in it, I suppose.

I think it's moderately clear that as of right now there's a weak quid pro quo going on, but we also only have what the White House released.

So far I'm not seeing a ton of articles from the mainstream right-leaning places saying that there's no quid pro quo, but places like The Daily Caller are absolutely leading with the lack of overt quid pro quo in the transcript.

Trump has a lifetime of this sh*t under his belt. He's simply too good at saying shady sh*t and being able to go "show me where" and we're all left with a giant word salad Rorschach test.

DSGamer wrote:

Russia hacked the RNC and didn't release any materials.

Senate and House Republicans have repeatedly visited Moscow.

The NRA was receiving huge infusions of cash from Russia.

The Republican Senate will never act because they're corrupted or compromised.

Lindsey Graham is the most obvious. Complete 180, including throwing his supposed friend McCain under the bus.

Moscow Mitch right there though.

Stele wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

If Coats or even his deputy is the whistleblower, that's going to be one huge revelation that may push the Republicans into talking about the R-word with Trump.

I honestly have no idea what the R-word is.

I'm assuming it's self-referential, and the whistleblower was Rat Boy.

Resignation

I kind of hope he resigns, Pence pardons him for federal crimes, and then in 2021 the state of NY locks him up and throws away the key.

Trump won't resign for anything. Even if the house charges him the senate will acquit him. It will be the same as Clinton but Trump won't even apologize. Just a big waste of time and money.

DSGamer wrote:

Russia hacked the RNC and didn't release any materials.

Senate and House Republicans have repeatedly visited Moscow.

The NRA was receiving huge infusions of cash from Russia.

The Republican Senate will never act because they're corrupted or compromised.

And now Trump has all their secrets.

zeroKFE wrote:

Even still, from the early reports on Republican Senate reactions I'm definitely steeling myself for soul crushing disappointment.

Not that there don't seem to be a few isolated cases of senators giving hints that they might want to develop a spine (Romney, mostly), but the rest are following the entirely expected path of sticking to the (now publicly available) talking points and pretending they see nothing, like the craven, boot licking wastes of oxygen they'e proven themselves to be time and time again for the last two and a half years.

Here's hoping the full whistleblower report really does have something powerful in it, I suppose.

Something to consider is that once you bail in Trump, you are done. Even if they are ready to flip on them, most will wait until the last possible moment to do so.

Let the news simmer for a night, as more revelations pop.

garion333 wrote:

So far I'm not seeing a ton of articles from the mainstream right-leaning places saying that there's no quid pro quo, but places like The Daily Caller are absolutely leading with the lack of overt quid pro quo in the transcript.

Gotta respect The Daily Caller's creepy propaganda hustle of repeatedly calling the conversation memo--which is clearly stamped with the warning "CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion."--an "un-redacted transcript."

Acting director of national intelligence threatened to resign if he couldn’t speak freely before Congress on whistleblower complaint

WaPo wrote:

The acting Director of National Intelligence threatened to resign over concerns that the White House might attempt to force him to stonewall Congress when he testifies Thursday about an explosive whistleblower complaint about the president, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The revelation reflects the extraordinary tensions between the White House and the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence official over a matter that has triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

The officials said that Joseph Maguire, who was thrust into the top intelligence post last month, warned the White House that he was not willing to withhold information from Congress, where he is scheduled to testify in open and closed hearings on Thursday.

The move was in part designed to force the White House to make an explicit legal decision on whether it was going to assert executive privilege over the whistleblower complaint, which centers on a call that Trump made with the leader of Ukraine in late July.

In essence, Maguire was serving notice that he intended to cooperate with lawmakers unless the White House moved forward with a legal case to prevent him from doing so, the officials said.

The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

OG_slinger wrote:

Acting director of national intelligence threatened to resign if he couldn’t speak freely before Congress on whistleblower complaint

WaPo wrote:

The acting Director of National Intelligence threatened to resign over concerns that the White House might attempt to force him to stonewall Congress when he testifies Thursday about an explosive whistleblower complaint about the president, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The revelation reflects the extraordinary tensions between the White House and the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence official over a matter that has triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

The officials said that Joseph Maguire, who was thrust into the top intelligence post last month, warned the White House that he was not willing to withhold information from Congress, where he is scheduled to testify in open and closed hearings on Thursday.

The move was in part designed to force the White House to make an explicit legal decision on whether it was going to assert executive privilege over the whistleblower complaint, which centers on a call that Trump made with the leader of Ukraine in late July.

In essence, Maguire was serving notice that he intended to cooperate with lawmakers unless the White House moved forward with a legal case to prevent him from doing so, the officials said.

The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

He's now contesting that and saying he never said it...

Here's the statement from Maguire:

“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now. I am committed to leading the Intelligence Community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation.”

JC wrote:

He's now contesting that and saying he never said it...

He said "at no time have I considered resigning," but he did not explicitly deny that he threatened to resign.

You can threaten to resign without actually seriously considering resigning, especially if your confident the person you're threatening is going cave in to your demands. Like allowing him to testify about a legitimate whistleblower claim that the inspector general of the intelligence community said was of “urgent concern” because not allowing it would make the administration look shady af and scream cover-up.

Did Trump really just say Pelosi is no longer the Speaker of the House? I have seen the video and still don't believe it.

Giuliani pursued shadow Ukraine agenda as key foreign policy officials were sidelined

My favorite bit:

As those worries intensified, some senior officials worked behind the scenes to hold off a Trump meeting or call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky out of concern that Trump would use the conversation to press Kiev for damaging information on Trump’s potential rival in the 2020 race, former vice president Joe Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter.

“An awful lot of people were trying to keep a meeting from happening for the reason that it would not be focused on Ukraine-U.S. relations,” one former official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Okay, I guess I wasn't seeing things when I scrolled past another tweet about it a few minutes ago:

@chrislhayes on Twitter wrote:

Most significant part of that presser was Trump roping Pence into the whole mess and volunteering to make Pence's conversations public as well.

Vector wrote:

Did Trump really just say Pelosi is no longer the Speaker of the House? I have seen the video and still don't believe it.

She won't be Speaker for long.

Spoiler:

President Pelosi!

IMAGE(https://preen.inquirer.net/files/2018/12/NancyPelosi.jpg)

Ken "Popehat" White and Josh Barro discuss impeachment. Ken has a bad habit of being right when it comes to not being hopeful about, well anything really, but he's also pretty level headed.

Say things happen and Pelosi becomes President. Does that mean the primaries end or is there really no precedent for this?

Vector wrote:

Say things happen and Pelosi becomes President. Does that mean the primaries end or is there really no precedent for this?

Ford ran in the following presidential election cycle and lost to Carter.

Vector wrote:

Say things happen and Pelosi becomes President. Does that mean the primaries end or is there really no precedent for this?

Primaries are for the next presidency. Nothing about that changes if we have a President Pelosi today.

Thing is, the GOP has bugger all people planning on running in primaries, because Trump was going to be a two-term president, right?

Rat Boy wrote:
Vector wrote:

Say things happen and Pelosi becomes President. Does that mean the primaries end or is there really no precedent for this?

Ford ran in the following presidential election cycle and lost to Carter.

Jonman wrote:
Vector wrote:

Say things happen and Pelosi becomes President. Does that mean the primaries end or is there really no precedent for this?

Primaries are for the next presidency. Nothing about that changes if we have a President Pelosi today.

Thing is, the GOP has bugger all people planning on running in primaries, because Trump was going to be a two-term president, right?

I am not asking about the GOP. I mean do the democrats just end their debates and primaries and back Pelosi for re-election? Even if there isn't a lot of support for it. Ford was at least the same party as the sitting President and was President for about 3 years before before the next election.

If it came to that point, I'd imagine she'd decline the nomination at the outset and leave office in 2021, which was what she was planning to do with the speakership.

What would be really funny is if we do get a President Pelosi and she runs unopposed because the Republicans didn't have any primaries.
Romney is probably the only one with name recognition and funds to just say "I'm the nominee"

Vector wrote:

I am not asking about the GOP. I mean do the democrats just end their debates and primaries and back Pelosi for re-election? Even if there isn't a lot of support for it. Ford was at least the same party as the sitting President and was President for about 3 years before before the next election.

The nomination isn't automatic. It's just a polite tradition that party members don't primary sitting presidents of the same party, though it's happened a handful of times in recent decades (McCarthy and then Robert Kennedy vs. Johnson (who then bowed out leaving VP Hubert Humphrey as the candidate) in 1968, Reagan vs. Ford in 1976, Kennedy vs Carter in 1980, and Buchanan vs. Bush in 1992).

I seriously doubt any of the Democratic candidates would drop their presidential bids in deference to Pelosi, especially because she'd have been president for a shorter amount of time then they've been campaigning, and I don't imagine the DNC would raise much of a fuss. That and as Rat Boy pointed out Pelosi's enough of a team player that she wouldn't do anything to muck up the 2020 election.