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

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Formal impeachment proceedings were started today. Discuss.

f*cking finally

It’s been a long road. To realize you can be that incompetent. I guess every parent wasn’t lying when they told us we too could be President one day

Now that we're at this point, I kind of hope they don't rush it to a vote--the very public impeachment hearings to establish the facts and lay bare the corruption are an important step, and were a major factor in the downfall of Nixon.

Of course, that will only work if they do things like actually hold witnesses who stonewall in contempt of Congress, so this rollercoaster isn't over. Still, better than never.

Edit: I wonder if we'll ever get testimony from the well-known, frequently known to lie Donald Trump?

Gremlin wrote:

Edit: I wonder if we'll ever get testimony from the well-known, frequently known to lie Donald Trump?

You mean other than when he admits to crimes publicly?

Gremlin wrote:

Now that we're at this point, I kind of hope they don't rush it to a vote--the very public impeachment hearings to establish the facts and lay bare the corruption are an important step, and were a major factor in the downfall of Nixon.

Of course, that will only work if they do things like actually hold witnesses who stonewall in contempt of Congress, so this rollercoaster isn't over. Still, better than never.

Edit: I wonder if we'll ever get testimony from the well-known, frequently known to lie Donald Trump?

Oh, be still my beating heart. If they actually got him up there, with a prosecutor questioning him... I can only imagine the fireworks. Now that would be prime time viewing.
For maximum joy have it happen around the October before the election.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm still unconvinced that it will actually go anywhere, so I don't really want to get my hopes up prematurely.

Zona wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Now that we're at this point, I kind of hope they don't rush it to a vote--the very public impeachment hearings to establish the facts and lay bare the corruption are an important step, and were a major factor in the downfall of Nixon.

Of course, that will only work if they do things like actually hold witnesses who stonewall in contempt of Congress, so this rollercoaster isn't over. Still, better than never.

Edit: I wonder if we'll ever get testimony from the well-known, frequently known to lie Donald Trump?

Oh, be still my beating heart. If they actually got him up there, with a prosecutor questioning him... I can only imagine the fireworks. Now that would be prime time viewing.
For maximum joy have it happen around the October before the election.

It would enjoy seeing him dismantled by a trained and skilled prosecutor instead of the humanblob fish media personalities that often interact with him.

CNN is reporting that the White House is preparing to release the whistleblower complaint tomorrow in addition to the transcript.

Can't wait for all the mysterious Sharpie redactions and additions.

Oh boy

bekkilyn wrote:

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm still unconvinced that it will actually go anywhere, so I don't really want to get my hopes up prematurely.

I think this is the right stance to take. So far what I think happened is they renamed pre-existing investigations. Once the administration blows off a few subpoenas we'll see if Democrats plan to do anything substantial.

DSGamer wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm still unconvinced that it will actually go anywhere, so I don't really want to get my hopes up prematurely.

I think this is the right stance to take. So far what I think happened is they renamed pre-existing investigations. Once the administration blows off a few subpoenas we'll see if Democrats plan to do anything substantial.

Saw the news and popped my head in. Yeah. This is my take too. I'm not optimistic.

I can only hope that this disgusting coward is eventually brought up on charges of treason, but I'll take what we can get.

I think with Pelosi involved it will be different. How different is anyone's guess...

it’s so interesting that now the WH is so forthcoming with information and willing to share it. Was this because the whistleblower is going to testify or because they started formal impeachment inquiries?

I assume they think the transcript will exonerate Trump and show that the whistleblower isn’t credible?

I think how fast this caught on, and Trump's habit of just admitting to things, has caught them flatfooted. If a Trump appointed IG thought it was serious and credible, and the WH broke the law to keep it from Congress, I can't imagine it's not something that's going to hurt them. Remember the IG report isn't just the phone call, it's a series of linked events.

Stupid Watergate 2: Ukranian Boogaloo definitely has had a more attention grabbing first act, but I'm particularly worried that the act three twist will be even more disappointing this time around.

(Just tagging in for the tracker.)

JC wrote:

I assume they think the transcript will exonerate Trump and show that the whistleblower isn’t credible?

Yuuuuup

zeroKFE wrote:

Stupid Watergate 2: Ukranian Boogaloo definitely has had a more attention grabbing first act, but I'm particularly worried that the act three twist will be even more disappointing this time around.

(Just tagging in for the tracker.)

Yuuuuuuup

The over/under has to be nothing happening to Trump, but at least sh*t is moving for once.

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

WaPo wrote:

President Trump’s attempt to pressure the leader of Ukraine followed a months-long fight inside the administration that sidelined national security officials and empowered political loyalists — including the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani — to exploit the U.S. relationship with Kiev, current and former U.S. officials said.

The sequence, which began early this year, involved the abrupt removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the circumvention of senior officials on the National Security Council, and the suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars of aid administered by the Defense and State departments — all as key officials from these agencies struggled to piece together Giuliani’s activities from news reports.

Several officials described tense meetings on Ukraine among national security officials at the White House leading up to the president’s phone call on July 25, sessions that led some participants to fear that Trump and those close to him appeared prepared to use U.S. leverage with the new leader of Ukraine for Trump’s political gain.

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.

Have there been reactions from Trump supporters blinded to truth yet?

PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!

It was interesting to me that McCarthy's rebuttal to impeachment inquiry announcement said nothing about Ukraine, instead saying that the inquiry was trying to rehash the 2016 election. And McConnell's reaction to the Ukraine story (which I assume happened before Pelosi's announcement) seemed rather...tempered, to me.

I assume the two treasons are connected at least in so far as they’re all tangled up with Oligarchs and people like Manafort.

I do wonder why this has taken on more urgency for some politicians. I wonder if Trump sent taxpayer money as a bribe to someone in Ukraine and they realizing that wasting our money on corruption could actually stick.

Nevin73 wrote:

Have there been reactions from Trump supporters blinded to truth yet?

Well, let's see.

Ari Fleischer wrote:

After 2 years of an independent counsel investigation that found no collusion, we’re now going to have more turmoil and strife based on a transcript no one has read, a “whistleblower” report no one has seen, all thanks to a person no one knows.

Here.

Ed Henry of Fox News reported Tuesday evening on Hannity that the Office of Intelligence Community Inspector General found that the so-called “whistleblower” who raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s discussions with foreign leaders had a “political bias” in favor of one of Trump’s rivals in the 2020 presidential election.

That's from Breitbart. I won't even link it.

JC wrote:

I assume they think the transcript will exonerate Trump and show that the whistleblower isn’t credible?

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again...

NYT from freakin' 1974 wrote:

House Judiciary Committee transcripts of some of President Nixon's Watergate tape recordings differ extensively, and in many cases significantly, from the edited transcripts made public by the White House.

A comparison of portions of the two sets of transcripts, made possible for the first time today by the disclosure of a series of confidential Judiciary

Committee staff memorandums, shows that the discrepancies are more numerous and persistent than has been suggested by officials of the impeachment inquiry.

Words, phrases and sometimes whole sections of conversation contained in the Judiciary Committee transcripts are missing from or at variance with the expurgated White House narrative.

Committee lawyers have offered' an explanation for the differences, saying that the inquiry staff has audio equipment superior to that used by the White House and has therefore been able to decipher comments that may be inaudible to White House transcribers.

Watching Pelosi finally say the word Impeachment made a grumpy day better.

I keep thinking back to what trichy said in another thread:

trichy in another thread wrote:

If the whistleblower is Dan Coats, how bad would that be?

Here's a timeline someone shared with me that makes a strong argument:

The whistleblower is someone who knew the exact content of the Ukraine call, an extremely small group after the White House cracked down on leaks early in the administration. It's someone who knows the full picture of what's going on with Ukraine. It's someone who very much wants to follow the precise rule of law and not go rogue with a leak. It's someone that a Trump-appointed inspector general would consider credible.

The call happened on July 25.
Coats announced his resignation on July 28, but wouldn't leave office until August 15.
On August 8, Coats interrupts a meeting with Deputy DNI Gordon to tell her she needed to resign.
On August 9, Gordon resigns, to leave office on August 15.
On August 12, the complaint is filed.
On August 15, they leave their positions.

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.

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.

As long as there's the unholy trinity of Fox News, deplorable voters, and a McConnell-led Republican Senate, I cannot imagine any major defections from the ranks of Trump supporters on this without the biggest, most blatantly obvious smoking gun imaginable- not some measly pistol, but a huge frickin railway gun like the Germans had in WWI and II.

And sadly, I doubt that exists.

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.

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.

That. While no president has been removed from office due to a conviction over articles of impeachment, one got talked into leaving over the specter of conviction. And don't underestimate Mitch McConnell. He may come to believe that ousting Trump in favor of a President Pence running in 2020 is their best chance of retaining the White House.

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