It's whatever provides Trump with a better spin.
Trump wasn't impeached by House vote
- Thread starter Vociferous
- Start date
So?
Yep.
Impeachment criteria are set by the Constitution, not statutory law, as violations of one's oath of office and betrayals of one's duty, country, etc, are not necessarily crimes. Trump has of course apparently committed several statutory crimes, visible within the two articles of impeachment (obstruction of justice/Congress, for example, is the second article), but his betrayals of oath and duty and country seem more serious than his comparatively petty criminal behavior - at least, to many Americans - and are more easily demonstrated in the face of his obstruction of justice.
Meanwhile, the trial for removal is held in the Senate; which is also bound by oath of office to consider the office holder's behavior and the findings of the House according to Constitutional criteria, not statutory law.
Do you think the Senators involved will undertake to keep their oaths of office, and perform their sworn duties as elected Senators, any time soon?
This was in play during the Clinton impeachment; what passed was not conviction but a vote for lesser censure.
There is much about the Clinton impeachment that requires accounting, but this tragic aspect stands brightly: He was acquitted because the old standard against making that big a deal out of getting on subordinates like that remained in effect. Comparatively, there really isn't any question of similarity; if that all was enough to impeach Clinton, we have plenty of reason to impeach Trump likewise, but what House Democrats have passed in their resolution has not, at any time before now, been unclear.
That is to say, whatever we think of the chauvinism by which Clinton's behavior was nearly acceptable, there's no real question about extortion of foreign governments for political favors, and never really was.
So if we're looking for consistency, it's true, Democrats didn't really want to impeach Clinton over any of that, and neither have they yet included the felonies surrounding Trump's infidelity nor standing suit alleging rape of minors. So, it's true, Democrats are at least being consistent, having not wanted to impeach a nod and wink sexual predator for matters related to (ahem!) an extramarital affair, they haven't yet impeached Trump for proudly boasting of having committed sexual assault.
Perhaps Republicans should stop complaining so much.
Meanwhile, it's hard to see a lesser censure as an outcome for Trump. Having strenuously avoided the most predatory aspects of the accusations against Bill Clinton, the Senate shamed him for conducting himself so poorly in matters related to an undignified circumstance he should have known well enough to avoid. It's going to be much harder for the Senate to simply shame Donald Trump for multiple felonies including racketeering. Presently, omens suggest the question will come down to whether or not Republicans in the U.S. Senate are willing to put their names to this infamy.
I do realise that it is a lot more complex than what I have read but:
(more for my own clarification but of background interest to this thread.)
Johnson 1868:
- Dismissing Edwin Stanton from office after the Senate had voted not to concur with his dismissal and had ordered him reinstated.
- Appointing Thomas secretary of war ad interim despite the lack of vacancy in the office, since the dismissal of Stanton had been invalid.
- Appointing Thomas without the required advice and consent of the Senate.
- Conspiring, with Thomas and "other persons to the House of Representatives unknown," to unlawfully prevent Stanton from continuing in office.
- Conspiring to unlawfully curtail faithful execution of the Tenure of Office Act.
- Conspiring to "seize, take, and possess the property of the United States in the Department of War."
- Conspiring to "seize, take, and possess the property of the United States in the Department of War" with specific intent to violate the Tenure of Office Act.
- Issuing to Thomas the authority of the office of secretary of war with unlawful intent to "control the disbursements of the moneys appropriated for the military service and for the Department of War."
- Issuing to Major General William H. Emory orders with unlawful intent to violate federal law requiring all military orders to be issued through the General of the Army.
- Making three speeches with intent to "attempt to bring into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach, the Congress of the United States."
- Bringing disgrace and ridicule to the presidency by his aforementioned words and actions.
Bill Clinton 1998
- Lying to Congress
- Obstruction of Congress
- Abuse of power
- Obstruction of Congress
but if he was:
- Obstruction of justice
- Abuse of power
- Contempt of Congress
src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton
In the Trump case there is ample evidence to support the two articles of impeachment
- He has obstructed Congress
- He has abused the power of his presidential office to facilitate personal political favor.
To be absolutely clear, the articles of impeachment have been considered by a duly elected House to be valid and held. The gavel has fallen so to speak.
Our neighbor needs to seriously consider what that means to the future of the Republican party who have publicly committed to support Trumps acquittal with out proper trial or even if the outcome is to censor, if a proper and constitutional trial is successfully carried out.
and that to me is the straw on the camels back... not just for past transgressions of which there are many but all the future ones he will apparently and inevitably make with the encouragement of the Senate, green lighting and condoning such behavior.
A lot can happen between now and November 2020 and I can only hope the Republicans will be prepared to take this opportunity provided by the house and cut their losses and move on...or stand responsible for all that Trump does as POTUS.
ie. The inquiry into deals with the Deutsche Bank. is but one of many ongoing investigations.
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RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
Reminds me of all the poor media that went on for the selection of the Republican candidency
such a torrid media affair of muck raking & mud slinging
real personal slights toward personal insults
and then suddenly everything changed ?
THAT story might be interesting(though not one for my sensitive pallet)
now is their valid opportunity to show whos ship they had jumped on when the nasty in fighting and sledging their own party leadership was so in trend.
i get a distinct feeling there is a sense of death by decay in their party leadership and they will not change coarse.
they are prepared to go down with the ship regardless of where it sails or who is steering it.
i think it is an odd combination of having too many fingers in the till and too much addled self bloated freeloading off the tax payer that their culture has become so toxic it poisons everything
i think the bulk of their party lust for the iraq invasion war years and seek to bestow the honor of the poor sacrificing the last man for their ideology of class system culture
where is the new blood ?
hiding behind a hermetic shield waiting for all the old tin-pot crazies to run off a cliff or crawl into a hole.
difficult considering the dems are expected to present Jesus himself as the presidential candidate.
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Both.
Aside from your obvious leftist hyperbole (notice no mention of any actual instance of "loosing it"), no, acquittal does not preclude any future impeachment on new charges. There is no constitutional provision for removing an official for something they might do in the future. So the complete lack of merit of the current impeachment articles is wholly a problem of those who rushed it for purely political reasons. That you think it's a favor to the GOP just illustrates how little you understand outside of your leftist bubble.
As usual, a lot of genetic fallacies rather than any direct rebuttals at all. The incredulity coming from such a tiny bubble would be laughable if it weren't so pitiable. Trying arguing with a modicum of substance if you want to be taken seriously by anyone but the choir you seem to prefer preaching to. m'kay?
You know you have people on the ropes when they start circling the wagons and preferring to talk about you rather than to you. They're trying to build a consensus fallacy because they know their actual arguments fail.
Pretending that anyone implied Congress doesn't make the laws is cute, but transparently dishonest. Congress passing budgets, censure, non-binding resolutions, etc. are not laws. They are budgetary and political, respectively. The legal basis in impeachment is wholly in the justification for its articles. Since these include zero statutory laws, there is zero legal basis. Hence only political. It really shouldn't be this hard for you to understand such a simple distinction.
The only precedent set recently have been Pelosi delaying the delivery of the articles to the Senate. But do tell, what precedent has Trump set? What "unconscionable, reckless and impulsive behavior"? Be very specific, as I presume you only mean leftist nonsense with no basis in reality.
I don't particularly care. Like McConnell, there's no rush, and hence no House leverage on the Senate. But all the dolts on social media celebrating impeachment, foolishly thinking it already means Trump has been ousted, might care.
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Treason and bribery are statutory laws, and any first year law student knows that in any such list, as "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors", a trailing, generalized catchall is of the same nature as the specific elements enumerated. Violating an oath is perjury, a statutory crime.
Again, obstruction of justice (as statutory crime) is not the same as "obstruction of Congress" (a political term of art), especially when the supposed "obstruction" only existed because the House was too impatient to wait for court rulings on their subpoenas. The only people who obstructed the House inquiry were House Democrats, in their haste. Obstruction of justice is a complete lie, foisted on ignorant leftists and not specified in the articles precisely because of the lack of supporting evidence. Only partisan leftists can massage anything into a betrayal of oath or duty, neither of which in the articles of impeachment.
I've repeatedly said that impeachment need not include statutory crimes. Yet you keep trying to shoehorn them in anyway, even though none exist in the articles of impeachment. So which is it? If you really believe that they're in the articles, you can simply quote the relevant portions. If you can't, you're just arguing partisan leftist fantasy.
Sure, when Pelosi finally gives them the articles.
Nope, the Clinton articles included the actual statutory crime of obstruction of justice, not just "construction of Congress".
Again, you're duped by your own ignorance.
You keep bringing it up, I keep knocking it down. I don't know why you keep bringing it up, but I do know why propaganda operations employ repetition rather than argument.
I already did - for one, the second article of impeachment is obstruction of justice, a felony crime for which any private citizen could be indicted.
Yes, it is. The Constitution is explicit: Congress, not the courts, provides justice in matters involving a sitting President.
Silly. Trump even fired the lead investigator for continuing to investigate him - not even Al Capone managed that.
They - the Senators involved - say that they won't. McConnell insists that he will not even allow witness testimony (although that's Roberts's call, requiring a majority vote of the entire Senate to overrule, by law).
Do you think Roberts will allow himself to be humiliated like that without objection?
What do you think will change their minds?
Unfortunately for your cause, whatever it is, words like "partisan" and "leftist" have meanings. They aren't just filler syllables you can throw in any old place you realize you have nothing to say, and thereby appear to have said something.
This impeachment has nothing to do with the left/right axis of ideological stance for example. Anyone who knows what "leftist" means knows that.
So from where are you - and the rest of your Tribe, btw - getting that silly-ass language, the continual and completely irrelevant screwball attempts at personal attack that match the Republican media feeds and rhetorical tactics so perfectly, and nothing else?
Are we supposed to make the obvious inference: that you as well as the rest of us know Trump is guilty as sin? That you are trying to save a bit of face, let on that you aren't a complete idiot while continuing to defend the guy?
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Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
I keep bringing it up because you keep shoehorning in crimes that are neither stated in the impeachment articles nor required for the political process of impeachment. If you agree on the latter, why do you feel the need to justify impeachment with crimes? Maybe because everyone knows that impeachment without any statutory crime, like this one, is BS.
Now you're just lying, to me or yourself. "Obstruction of justice" appears nowhere in the articles, and "obstruction of Congress" is neither the same thing nor a statutory crime. Otherwise, you could cite some legal scholar arguing the equivalency.
Pfft, like you've read and understood the Constitution. The separate but equal powers defined by the Constitution explicitly means that no one branch has authority over any other without the third mediating. This is so basic, it's clear you have no clue.
First, the House inquiry wasn't about Russia collusion. So how you think, what, firing Comey affected the Ukranian inquiry is anyone's guess.
Second, the Mueller investigation didn't even start until after Comey was fired, and the head of the FBI was not a "lead investigator". What ignorant nonsense.
The Senate has very broad authority in how they run their trial...all within their oath of office. And?
Roberts would be a grandstanding fool to not follow Rehnquist's lead in the Clinton impeachment trial. You really imagine that he'd repeatedly make rulings on procedure only to be repeatedly countermanded by Senate vote? Either you think he's a moron, or you're a very optimistic leftist.
I think Roberts would avoid any humiliation by simply referring all procedural questions directly to Senate vote.
So you can't quote actual crimes in the article. Got it! And all this BS (e.g. partisan leftist fantasy) is just weaseling distraction.
To repeat for the slow-witted: the second article of impeachment is for a felony crime in civilian life, namely obstruction of justice.
You really imagine he'd be repeatedly countermanded by Senate vote?
He's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He's going to be the guy in charge when the court cases Republicans all over the US have been pushing come up for Supreme Court review.
So Roberts would set up a real trial, with witnesses and evidence and Presidential testimony under oath and so forth.
Cowardice and caving in to the likes of McConnell earns no respect in Roberts's circle of peers.
Comey's firing was an instance of obstruction of justice - the second article of impeachment.
It doesn't matter how it affected anything.
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
No, it's not, and only the slow-witted believe Democrats playing them for fools by conflating the two.
Notice the complete inability to quote from the actual articles of impeachment.
So you not only think Roberts is foolish enough to try grandstanding and being repeatedly countermanded by Senate vote but you also think he's petty enough that being legitimately countermanded will affect his completely unrelated rulings?
Perhaps leftists don't understand people who do not carry around a chip on their shoulder always looking for passive-aggressive revenge.
Only the Senate sets up the procedures of the trial.
I seriously doubt you understand much about Roberts' [that's how literate people make a possessive of that name] circle of peers.
No it wasn't, and not in the articles of impeachment. Quit being so willfully ignorant.
Welcome to the GOP 2020 - where the US Constitution is "phony" and people who follow it are "foolish."
Let's hope the democrats regain power and return the US to a Constitutional republic.
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Wow, nice straw man completely unsubstantiated by your quote.
If you understood the Constitution, you wouldn't be make such ignorant statements.
The Constitution is perfectly clear on the matter: it invests Congress with sole responsibility for enforcing the law against a sitting President.
No, it isn't. (Chicago Manual of Style, ed 14, p. 200, 6.24, for example)
You guys never fact check anything. It's weird.
Your doubts are recorded - along with your continued insistence that Roberts's role in the impeachment hearings is flunky for McConnell. Apparently you regard that as a role Roberts would embrace.
Roberts would be doing his Constitutionally assigned job, not "grandstanding".
Meanwhile: the willingness of the Republican Senate to countermand Constitutionally assigned, soundly reasoned, and plainly correct, directives of the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (a countermanding which would likely end up in front of that same Court, with only Roberts necessarily in recusal),
- with a dozen or more critical bills they have been publicly and openly and politically pushing for years coming up for Court attention (or dismissal) in the next few months (including a law that might overturn the ACA, which has become an emergency in that it moved so quickly the Court might rule before the election - the Republicans have been reduced to begging for a delay of their own initiative)
- is something you might want to think about a bit more carefully.
Yep. But the GOP has been quite clear - the US Constitution is "phony." It does not apply to them. Nor do most laws.
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Notice how your reply has nothing to do with justifying the conflation of "obstruction of Congress" with the actual crime of "obstruction of justice". Obviously you could neither quote the impeachment articles nor find any other legal source to do so.
Again, Congress has no enforcement power of its own, other than its own security and members. Learn something for once.
Style guides do not follow traditional grammar rules, and they're often bastardizations of those rules. Exactly the sort of thing I'd expect you to cite.
It's the role his mentor and predecessor in the same role embraced in the Clinton impeachment trial. Learn some history.
Roberts has no Constitutional authority in the trial other than keeping order. But you just keep believing the fancifully optimistic delusions fed to you through obviously myopic and one-sided sources. Repeatedly making rulings and getting countermanded by a Senate vote would be grandstanding, obviously pointless other than to draw attention to himself. All procedures in the Senate trial are Constitutionally determined solely by Senate vote. The only countermanding would be Roberts failing to anticipate the result of a Senate vote. Period. And no, it's just more of your ignorance that any Senate vote during the impeachment trial could possibly end up in front of SCOTUS.
No, you just don't understand the Constitution any better than self-serving Democrat partisans tell you.
Just curious: where exactly does one encounter this "traditional grammar?" Most publishers--well, nearly all, really--adopt the rules of a style guide, so...
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
From a decent education. Style guides only exist so that publishers have a consistent style among their writers, and different publishers' style guides can differ quite a bit.
So would this "decent education" then not include ample reading of published texts?
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
No more than a decent education includes watching TV. Publishers, with style guides, are first and foremost entertainment/infotainment.