Happy Impeachment! Next step is removal. (Trump thread 98)

[TheClaws]

In the last thread, Trump was impeached by Congress. Now the question is when the articles will be sent to the Senate for Trial, as - at this stage - there is no guarantee from Mitch McConnell of a fair trial. Trump clings to his belief that his call to Zelensky was “perfect”.

Previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3732056-Trump-and-the-Giant-Impeachment-Trump-thread-97

I am always faintly amused by accusations that I hate trump, because I don't hate him. I don't hate people who are clinically insane; I just want them contained and prevented from causing harm to others.

I despise him, and I am of the opinion that he is unfit for office for a number of cogent reasons including his inability or refusal to identify truth. I wish him out of a position in which he can assist in the destruction of the world my grandchildren will have to live in, and of the trade which makes the poor less likely to die untimely of starvation, and of a judicial system which is not hopelessly biased against fifty percent of his country's population, and of the world's ability to prevent dictatorships from gaining the ascendency, but I don't hate him.

Yes, notice to trolls. We see you a mile coming. Even if we don't mention it - only because troll hunting is not allowed on MN.
Note: This is a generic comment, not addressed to any specific pp.

Meanwhile...
Don't open it if you're a massive Queen fan.

Bad President Rhapsody

Trolls and bots, trolls and bots. There was a news bit the other day about the fact that they're noticing a huge increase in Russian-based troll and bots.

I'm expecting Claig back any day. 😆

Please No.

Whether or not you agree with Bush Jr or Obama on the military issues you mention does not determine whether these things are impeachable.

It's not really my opinion that matters. George Bush himself was quite worried he might be impeached when the shortcomings of the intelligence gathering were revealed in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, and it was widely considered an illegal war (by the UN, for example). If you think that what Trump has done is worse than this, then I'm not sure we'll agree on much.

What Trump is accused of doing in Ukraine is very straightforwardly impeachable, viz the use of the power of his public office for his personal political gain. It was on a national security matter, not an attempt to get a good table at a restaurant, so is important for the country. It's also well-supported by evidence.

I suppose in this sense you could also say that the Clinton impeachment was just, in that it was a national security risk and using his office for his own personal gain. The consensus seems to be now is that it was indeed political and pointless, though.

I see that you're in the habit of assuming that those who do not support the impeachment of Trump are in fact Trump supporters. I am not.

What Clinton did which got him impeached was being accused in a lawsuit of sexual harassment, and saying that he had not had sex with Monica Lewinsky when he had in fact done so. I am not sure how that was a national security risk?

If having a lawsuit brought against you for sexual harassment, and denying that you had sex with someone when you did in fact have sex with them, is "high crimes and misdemeanours", I would have thought that Trump is rather more guilty than Clinton of "high crimes and misdemeanours", because so many more women have made these accusations against him and gone to the law about them.

I suppose that the difference is that Trump has so far managed to avoid making any statement about anything on oath. Or does making a written deposition about something count as being on oath? He gave evidence to Meuller in writing, and I doubt it was accurate because he never is.

It is my feeling that not impeaching Trump would have been allowing him to get away with a bit too much, once he had released the quasi-transcript of a telephone conversation in which he quite clearly did "make someone an offer they could not refuse", and this had been backed up by sworn evidence from more than one person that he had indeed intended to withhold aid from his country's ally in order to compel that ally to undertake something for Trump's personal gain.

Politically I suspect that impeaching Trump will have hardened the stance of his core supporters, but not impeaching him would not have moved any "floating voters" away from him while impeaching him may do so.

edition.cnn.com/2019/12/24/politics/dave-trott-donald-trump/index.html

'Washington (CNN)A former GOP congressman who retired earlier this year says President Donald Trump is "psychologically, morally, intellectually, and emotionally unfit for office" and that he will consider voting for a Democrat in 2020.

Dave Trott, who represented suburban Detroit for two terms until he declined to seek reelection last year, made the comments in a letter to The Atlantic and went on to say Congress should remove Trump from office.'

Men who stray are obviously a national security risk in that their infidelity can be used against them by foreign actors, i.e a honeytrap.

This is all silly, I don't care about Clinton and Lewinsky but neither do I care very much about Trump and him trying to dig up dirt on Biden. Biden put himself in a questionable situation, Trump saw an opportunity.

'Washington (CNN)A former GOP congressman who retired earlier this year says President Donald Trump is "psychologically, morally, intellectually, and emotionally unfit for office" and that he will consider voting for a Democrat in 2020.

So what? I don't think Trump is fit for office either. It doesn't matter what he or I think .

Hundreds of millions of dollars wasted for the House to showily impeach Trump, which will be overturned by the Senate leading to absolutely no difference in Trump finishing his term of office or running for another term.
Way to go. Nice job cutting social security disability to pay for it by the way. The disabled would much rather know how much you hate Trump than eat or have heat.

IIUC, Trump merely "trying to dig up dirt on Biden" isn't impeachable, if Trump does that in his personal capacity and legally.

A US public servant making US military support to a foreign country dependent on whether the foreign leader will announce an intention to investigate the US public servant's political rival's family member, as theatre for a US audience in an upcoming election...

That's impeachable.

So the question is, is that what happened? If it is... well.

There's a summary here:
Trump impeachment: How Ukraine story unfolded
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50323605

This is not just about Trump of course.

It's much bigger than that, from the new cyber war to constitutional democracy and beyond.

www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/russia-ukraine-ten-years-of-putin-fake-news-pussy-riot-scrip-a9251566.html

"Biden put himself in a questionable situation"

Erm, in what way? He was following both instruction from his boss, the then-President of the USA, and requests from the EU and a few other countries, when he attempted to get a corrupt individual, Viktor Shokin, removed from office; the whole "his son worked for a company (Burisma) that Shokin was investigating" nonsense is just that, nonsense, because investigation of that company was not happening at that time and Biden (and everyone else's) complaint was that Shokin was not investigating things including corruption at Burisma. The corrupt individual Biden acted against was actively helping Biden's son by not investigating Burisma, so Biden was acting against his son's interests in trying to get rid of that individual so that someone more honest would get the position of prosecutor.

Trumped up, in more than one sense of the phrase.

I find it astonishing that anyone could not see the conflict of interest in Biden Jr and Sr and their overlapping roles in the Ukraine gas and oil industry, in which the former had absolutely zero experience.

Do you actually think it's just coincidental? Or do you accept that it seems dodgy as fuck, but set that aside for fear you might share a momentary headspace with Trump?

A US public servant making US military support to a foreign country dependent on whether the foreign leader will announce an intention to investigate the US public servant's political rival's family member, as theatre for a US audience in an upcoming election...

That's impeachable.

Well, probably, if you can find a sufficiently hostile house and senate. Lots of things are. Have you supported impeaching American presidents in the past?

Two wrongs don't make a right.

' Whatabout-ery" - don't do it.

'Whatabout-ery" - don't do it.

It's just context, innit.

Not sure how you can discuss whether it's right to impeach the 45th POTUS without discussing what the previous 44 got up to.

Oh I think we're managing just fine to discuss it, AlaskanOilBaron.

Ta for your concern.

It doesn’t matter if Trump is guilty or not guilty of a high crime, impeachment and removal is a political process not a judicial process. Congress is divided- House is Democrat majority and the Senate is Republican majority. There is no way the Senate will approve impeachment and removal. And even if they did, the VP Pence takes over.

It’s a complete waste of time and money. It’s being done by the House to clog up Congress so that no work at governing gets done until the end of Trumps term. It’s the ultimate filibuster or fuck you to the Senate.

This is making me ponder more on some of Trump's other legally questionable behaviour.

I'd been wondering if accepting emoluments, although illegal, simply didn't rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanours" required for impeachment. But apparently one of the framers of the US constitution specifically mentioned it as impeachable.

What are emoluments and is Trump taking them from foreign powers?
edition.cnn.com/2019/05/03/politics/emoluments-clause-definition-trump/index.html

That links to an interesting paper, which I'm just looking through now:

THE EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE: ITS TEXT, MEANING, AND APPLICATION TO DONALD J. TRUMP
www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/gs_121616_emoluments-clause1.pdf

For example, speaking at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Edmund Jennings Randolph described the Clause as applying to the President, and as affording grounds for impeachment in the event of a violation: "There is another provision against the danger mentioned by the honorable member, of the president receiving emoluments from foreign powers. If discovered he may be impeached."

According to that CNN article, Trump is trying to get around that by arguing that money and advantages received by his businesses are "business exchanges" and therefore can never be emoluments.

At his confirmation hearing to become attorney general, William Barr said he hadn't yet researched the issue, but he offered a pretty good representation of the government's argument on behalf of Trump. Basically, they say the Constitution's prohibition on presents or emoluments from foreign states shouldn't be applied to the commercial exchange of a good or a service, even if the person benefiting is the President.

It's an argument that upends more than 150 years of very strict interpretation of emoluments, according to Washington University law professor Kathleen Clark, who has studied the issue in depth and published a recent paper that said the Department of Justice is acting more like Trump's personal lawyers than the country's.

"The Justice Department has veered away from its long track record of vigilance on behalf of the republic," she says in her report. "Instead, the Department adopted the legal arguments put forward by Donald Trump's personal lawyers, pushing for a narrow interpretation of the clause in order to advance Trump's private financial interests."

edition.cnn.com/2019/05/03/politics/emoluments-clause-definition-trump/index.html

Of course Jimmy Carter gave up control of the peanut farm to meet the strict interpretation and avoid any possible conflict of interest. Trump didn't even put his in a blind trust, and not only do foreign governments use his hotels, he actually tries to force international meetings like the G7 to be at his hotels.

Trump abandons plan to host G7 summit at his golf course
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50113732

Donald Trump: A list of potential conflicts of interest
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38069298

Even if the G7 had genuinely been hosted "at cost" ( yeah right) it would still have been advantageous to Trump because the hotel has been doing poorly.

This article is from 2019:

Trump-branded properties 'underperforming'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48275796

The Trump National Doral Miami has reported a steep drop in profit since 2015, according to the Washington Post. Since 2015 net operating income fell by 69%, the paper reported, citing Trump Organization documents.

I was actually expecting the emoluments issue to be the one that caught up with him.

I'm not exactly surprised at his (alleged) behaviour with respect to Ukraine, though – after all, it's of a piece with his behaviour from way before he became president.

On that:

www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/us/politics/impeachment-presidents.html

www.lawfareblog.com/what-do-scholars-say-about-impeachment-power

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/civil-war-among-evangelicals-the-last-thing-trump-needs