With the Mueller Report now available, and I believe it makes the case for bringing articles of impeachment against Donald J. Trump now, and for Congress to decide his fate. This thread is intended to discuss whether the Mueller Report is a road map to impeachment.
The only reasons for impeachment to be discussed in this thread are cases of obstruction that Mueller believes meets the threshold of being a chargeable crime. Nothing going on in the SDNY or other investigations is relevant to this topic. This is only relevant to the Mueller Report's findings.
Starting impeachment proceedings against Trump should be the Democratically-controlled House version of the what the Republicans did with voting to repeal Obamacare. There should be dozens of impeachment attempts, each with Republicans having to go on record saying they believe Trump did nothing wrong while new information about Trump's guilt and incompetence comes to light from the related Congressional, federal, and state investigations.
Why haven't they?
Why haven't they?
You'd have to ask the Democratic leadership.
My guess would be that it's because impeaching a president is a slightly more serious matter that probably shouldn't be turned into political grandstanding like the Republicans did with their numerous House votes to repeal Obamacare.
That and things move a lot slower than we'd like.
Take the timeline for Nixon's impeachment. The Senate Watergate Committee was formed in February 1973, didn't hold hearings until May 1973, and didn't issue it's report until June 1973. Then there were months of House politicking (and Nixon doing dumb things like the Saturday Night Massacre in October) before impeachment charges were formally filed in February 1974. The subsequent impeachment inquiries lasted for months and the official impeachment hearings ran from May to the end of July of 1974. Then it all ended a week later when Nixon resigned on the eve of the House impeachment vote. All together it took a year and a half for the House to investigate Nixon and gather the political support needed to impeach him.
I don't know where we stand with Trump in relation to Nixon's impeachment process, but it's clear the House needs to do more work.
Why haven't they?
Polls have shown only about a third of Americans support impeachment efforts. Impeaching Trump would probably take about as much time as just voting him out of office, and all the time spent on impeachment proceedings could instead be spent on health care, immigration, climate change, deficit reduction, and all the things people care about more and that would give Democrats something to point to during the 2020 election.
OG_slinger wrote:Starting impeachment proceedings against Trump should be the Democratically-controlled House version of the what the Republicans did with voting to repeal Obamacare. There should be dozens of impeachment attempts, each with Republicans having to go on record saying they believe Trump did nothing wrong while new information about Trump's guilt and incompetence comes to light from the related Congressional, federal, and state investigations.
Why haven't they?
Impeachment requires a relatively lengthy process to ultimately get to where the Senate votes on a guilty/not guilty status. The eleventity billion ACA repeals were only single voting events.
I imagine also it is not clear to me if articles of impeachment could be reintroduced for a set of actions again, i.e. would some kind of double jeopardy attach.
hope you don't mind a tag post, curious where this goes with today's news of executive privilege
I know it's far from the first time, but this obsession with "loyalty" is really disturbing.
Could be a big day. Robert Mueller will be speaking to the press about the Russia probe today at 11am ET. It will be a statement only, and he will not take questions from the press.
NBC News: Robert Mueller to make public statement about Russia probe on Wednesday
Prediction: The report speaks for itself. There’s fine people at FBI and DOJ.
Jayhawker wrote:Could be a big day. Robert Mueller will be speaking to the press about the Russia probe today at 11am ET. It will be a statement only, and he will not take questions from the press.
NBC News: Robert Mueller to make public statement about Russia probe on Wednesday
Prediction: The report speaks for itself. There’s fine people at FBI and DOJ.
Yarp. I'm not expecting much.
Jayhawker wrote:Could be a big day. Robert Mueller will be speaking to the press about the Russia probe today at 11am ET. It will be a statement only, and he will not take questions from the press.
NBC News: Robert Mueller to make public statement about Russia probe on Wednesday
Prediction: The report speaks for itself. There’s fine people at FBI and DOJ.
Pretty much this. Anything to preserve the veneer that we have a functional government with checks and balances that are all working fine.
Report speaks for itself and he’s retiring.
Edit:
“Bobby, we really think it’s time for you to retire. You’ve done our nation a great service in a difficult time.”
“You know Bill, I disagree with how you portrayed my report.”
“I know, I know. But, we’ll clean this up. We always do.”
“Yes, we do. And I am ready for a break.”
Edit 2: NYT is using the word “retire” and CNN is using the word “resign.”
And that it was under DOJ policy that they couldn't charge the president with a crime, not on the merits.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/sta...
Fox judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano: "Effectively, what Bob Mueller said is, we had evidence that [Trump] committed a crime, but we couldn't charge him because he's the President ... This is even stronger than the language in his report. This is also a parting shot" at Barr.Worth watching the whole clip at the link.
It’s starting to sink in at Fox that the endgame is on.
The endgame? The Senate will never act.
More people may actually read it now. It doesn't have to be anywhere near 100% of the population reading it to be effective.
Speaking of which, I have only skimmed it. If not me, who? If not now, when? Right?
II. Trump systematically obstructed justice from the beginning, and continues to do so in public to this day.
Fixed!
the Dems will soon be tasing to an audience of one.
Which voice recog do you use? It’s awesome.
Do we have the full Muller report now?
Do we have the full Muller report now?
No, still just the redacted one. Which is damning enough, but the DOJ has been fighting tooth and nail to avoid complying with the subpoenas to release the unredacted report to Congress.
The latest development is that the House Judiciary Committee is finally holding a hearing today, at 2pm Eastern:
PBS: WATCH LIVE: House committee reviews Mueller report findings on ‘presidential obstruction’
Drazzil wrote:Do we have the full Muller report now?
No, still just the redacted one. Which is damning enough, but the DOJ has been fighting tooth and nail to avoid complying with the subpoenas to release the unredacted report to Congress.
The latest development is that the House Judiciary Committee is finally holding a hearing today, at 2pm Eastern:
PBS: WATCH LIVE: House committee reviews Mueller report findings on ‘presidential obstruction’
Huh... Wow.
Justice Dept. Agrees to Turn Over Key Mueller Evidence to House
The Justice Department, after weeks of tense negotiations, has agreed to provide Congress with key evidence collected by Robert S. Mueller III that could shed light on possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by President Trump, the House Judiciary Committee said on Monday.
The exact scope of the material the Justice Department has agreed to provide was not immediately clear, though the committee signaled that it could be a breakthrough after weeks of wrangling over those materials and others that the Judiciary panel demanded under subpoena. The Trump administration’s blockade of the material had ground the Democratic investigations of Mr. Trump’s possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power to a halt.
These documents will allow us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the president by the special counsel,” Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee chairman, said in a statement.
Mr. Nadler said he expected the department to begin sharing some of the material Monday afternoon and that all members of the committee would be able to view it privately.
The agreement appears to have been foreshadowed in an exchange of letters in recent weeks between the committee and the department. In a May 24 letter outlining a proposed compromise Mr. Nadler wrote that he was “prepared to prioritize production of materials that would provide the committee with the most insight into certain incidents when the special counsel found ‘substantial evidence’ of obstruction of justice.”
Those incidences include Mr. Trump’s attempts to fire Mr. Mueller, the special counsel; his request that Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, create “a fraudulent record denying that incident”; and Mr. Trump’s efforts to get former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to undo his recusal and curtail the scope of the special counsel inquiry.
After weeks of objections, the Justice Department said it found the proposal reasonable and would work with the committee to share the materials in question, but only if the House would back off holding Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for his defiance of the subpoena in question.
Democrats were willing to do so. The House still plans to vote on Tuesday to authorize the committee to go to a federal court against Mr. Barr to seek full enforcement of its subpoena and to petition a judge to unseal grand jury secrets related to the case for Congress. But in a sign of the newfound cooperation, the House will not formally vote to hold Mr. Barr in contempt of Congress, leveling a criminal accusation against him. Mr. Nadler hinted that Democrats could hold off on filing a lawsuit for now, as well.
Justice Dept. Agrees to Turn Over Key Mueller Evidence to House
NYT wrote:The Justice Department, after weeks of tense negotiations, has agreed to provide Congress with key evidence collected by Robert S. Mueller III that could shed light on possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by President Trump, the House Judiciary Committee said on Monday.
The exact scope of the material the Justice Department has agreed to provide was not immediately clear, though the committee signaled that it could be a breakthrough after weeks of wrangling over those materials and others that the Judiciary panel demanded under subpoena. The Trump administration’s blockade of the material had ground the Democratic investigations of Mr. Trump’s possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power to a halt.
These documents will allow us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the president by the special counsel,” Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee chairman, said in a statement.
Mr. Nadler said he expected the department to begin sharing some of the material Monday afternoon and that all members of the committee would be able to view it privately.
The agreement appears to have been foreshadowed in an exchange of letters in recent weeks between the committee and the department. In a May 24 letter outlining a proposed compromise Mr. Nadler wrote that he was “prepared to prioritize production of materials that would provide the committee with the most insight into certain incidents when the special counsel found ‘substantial evidence’ of obstruction of justice.”
Those incidences include Mr. Trump’s attempts to fire Mr. Mueller, the special counsel; his request that Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, create “a fraudulent record denying that incident”; and Mr. Trump’s efforts to get former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to undo his recusal and curtail the scope of the special counsel inquiry.
After weeks of objections, the Justice Department said it found the proposal reasonable and would work with the committee to share the materials in question, but only if the House would back off holding Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for his defiance of the subpoena in question.
Democrats were willing to do so. The House still plans to vote on Tuesday to authorize the committee to go to a federal court against Mr. Barr to seek full enforcement of its subpoena and to petition a judge to unseal grand jury secrets related to the case for Congress. But in a sign of the newfound cooperation, the House will not formally vote to hold Mr. Barr in contempt of Congress, leveling a criminal accusation against him. Mr. Nadler hinted that Democrats could hold off on filing a lawsuit for now, as well.
Why cant we get it all?
What is being hidden?
Why cant we get it all?What is being hidden?
Part of it is because over a dozen still-active secondary investigations spun off this one and it likely contains information that could compromise them.
Another part of it is probably because it contains embarrassing and/or incriminating information that the administration doesn’t want public until it’s no longer relevant.
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