Impeachment

Why are the Democrats leaking? They are clearly trying to cement their interpretation of the narrative in the mind of the public, not unlike Bill Barr's laughable summary of the Mueller report.

The question is, will anyone remember the leaks when the information is finally made public? I'd argue the answer is a resounding "no". We have the Gowdy led Benghazi hearings as a prime example. Sidney Blumenthal, a confidante of HRC, testified behind closed doors along with many others. In fact, the only public hearing was HRC and that occurred months after the drip drip drip of Conservative narrative leaks. Now you have people here claiming they never occured. That we didn't know and discuss Blumenthal's testimony long before it was made public. The only thing anyone remembers is the final report and HRC's testimony, especially if the because the leaks actually existed in the testimony.

The leaks are a roadmap to cementing the key details of the accusations.

I don't support the leaks but they clearly work. Both sides of the aisle have become masters at using them. Of course, this is why controlling which witnesses get heard is so important. The Dems get to call witnesses they are confident will elucidate their narrative. The R's did the same thing in many of their investigations since 2015 which is why you have people like @I35 claiming as fact narratives that were never proven.

 

if you are going to mention my name then give me examples of what I said that’s wrong?

 

If it can be proved and out in the open if Trump did something for which he should be impeached the he should be impeached.
Then bring it, get it out there , use the same process used every time it has tried to impeach a president. Andrew Johnson’s 1868 impeachment was predicated on formal House authorization, which passed 126-47. In 1974 the Judiciary Committee determined it needed authorization from the full House to begin an inquiry into Richard Nixon’s impeachment, which came by a 410-4 vote. The House followed the same procedure with Bill Clinton in 1998, approving a resolution 258-176, after receiving independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report.
Adhering to constitutional text, tradition and basic procedural guarantees of fairness is critical. Right now the process is flawed.

 

I can't speak to 1868 but for some reason you keep ignoring the elephant in the corner that Nixon and Clinton each had a Special Prosecutor that had spent month/years gathering evidence. In both situations the House was handed mountains of information along with a report and still didn't vote for the impeachment inquiry at the outset. Why do you keep trying to draw a parallel where one doesn't exist?

With that said, it appears you'll get your formal vote later this week.

 

I said early on that Trump had a right to investigate foreign corruption as well as it isn’t possible to separate politics from it.

 

The leaks aren’t even damning. What happens when the other side tells its story?

 

Let's revisit since you NEVER site any evidence to back up your claims.

There's too much BS packed into one single sentence fragment to spend time researching and supporting my evidence below so in turn you get only my perspective. If you actually site evidence to back up your claims I'll offer evidence in kind. I've been burned with you too often yhat building a cogent, fact supported, argument gets blown off with a mere emotional fantastic "whataboutism" claim not unlike this very claim.

1. FISA abuse? Until we get an IG Report or the Durham report your pissing in the wind.
2. NSA Spying? You must have missed the various Congressional hearings, one of which Brennan or Clapper claimed the NSA wasn't spying on American citizens. We later learned that American citizen data was most assuredly in the dataset they were capturing. Of course, I don't believe we ever received conclusive proof that they were spying on Americans vs trying to intercept foreigners communicating with Americans. The liberty crowd has equated simply having possession of our call metadata as "spying on Americans".
3. Wiretapping journalist. You'll need to refresh my memory with a link.
4. Iran Ransom. Yes, money was given to Iran as part of the Nuclear deal. What conspiracy are you ckaiming as fact?
5. Solyndra. Hearings were held in Congress that amounted to a poorly run company that went tits up after receiving a loan ftom the US government.
6. Fast and furious. Many hearings were held, subpoenas issued and an AG held in contempt for not testifying. Still, over 10,000 documents were given to the committee(s) investigating it. The outcome? It was a poorly concieved and executed program by the ATF.
7. IRS Scandal. You clearly didn't follow the outcome of this scandal. It cost Lois Lerner her job (and her boss?) but didn't amount to much. The final report essentially outlines the IRS needs to do better at setting it's criteria for determining additional scrutiny. It actually states there was no evidence of any nefarious intent among the 100+ the FBI interviewed when announcing no charges were being pursued.
8. VA scandal? Wait, Obama is personally involved in any poorly run bureaucracy? The 'VA scandal' spans nearly all administrations, including the Trump admin.
9. Benghazi. 7+ unique investigations and all we've learned is sadly the number of deaths hasn't changed, the State Dept security apparatus was woefully underfunded, the Ambassador didn't heed the advice of his limited secuity detail who advised against traveling to Benghazi, and the Obama administration's spin in the immediate aftermath was atrocious.

You think Obama should be impeached for that? Other than maybe Benghazi you'd be a fool to bet that Obama had anything to do with any of those topics. It wasn't like the committee's looking into each topic didn't look for evidence of Obama's fingerprints.

Now, on this current impeachment we have evidence of Trump's direct involvement. In fac . Mueller cited many instances of Trump's direct involvement in obstruction of justice. So while you wildly flail about and make wild claims and non-sequitors just remember that Trump is tied directly in this investigation and probable corruption.

 

Yet you haven't cited a single case of Trump pursuing corruption that wasn't beneficial to his political aspirations.

 

Stopping any corruption is beneficial to his "political aspirations".

 

Doesn’t matter. Trump is also pursuing a trade deal that is beneficial to his political aspirations.

 

"Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters that Schiff shut down a Republican line of questioning during a hearing with Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the latest current or former Trump administration official to come before Congress in relation to the impeachment probe.

"When we asked [Vindman] who he spoke to after important events in July -- Adam Schiff says, 'no, no, no, we're not going to let him answer that question,"' Jordan said."

GOP reps say Schiff stopped impeachment witness from answering certain GOP questions

 

Clearly the Democrats aren't the only leakers.

 

The clown show continues.

 

We wouldn't have any leakers if Schiff and the democrat party weren't pulling a fast one on the American people. Anyway, the leaks from the dem side have been massive compared to the republicans. Detailed testimony vs. generalities.

 

What did the Pubs leak?? I don't think you understand what leak means.
Leak would have been if Schiff had allowed the dude to answer the question
and the Pubs would have leaked the answer

 

I get the impression not many are interested in the process, which admittedly is not that exciting, but it is important, arguably the most important part of what is going on right now. So, just in case, one of the things the Dems have been after are the unredacted Mueller grand jury transcripts

They got a victory of sorts before District Court Judge Howell (an Obama appointee who some were already calling an "activist judge"). What seemed to be happening here is that Howell was going to wait to make a final ruling on the stay motion until after the House got their impeachment framework worked out. Once they did, then Howell would have likely issued her final order.

But DOJ said to heck with that and went directly to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals which issued its own emergency stay, thus impeding whatever scheme Howell had planned, at least for now.

I admit I have not been very impressed with what the WH has done to date with regard to witness subpoenas to federal employees, but on this issue at least, theyve signaled they are not just sitting back. It was clear they needed to get this out of Howell's hands and that is exactly what they did. And they will aggressively keep appealing this as long as they need to.

 

Now we know why Jim Jordan asked who Vindman shared with others who had a " sorta need to know". Sort of a need???

from Fox
"Catherine Herridge: One thing that caught my attention is that Vindman said he shared it with people who were relevant and who had sort of a need to know and proper security clearance. And, it you could just bare with me, the reason that matters is that presidential phone calls are highly classified and if they’re shared with people who don’t have a need to know that would be a potential violation of the leaking statute that is 18 USC 798. And if you watched closely this afternoon Rep. Jim Jordan said that Chairman Schiff repeatedly shut down lines of questioning including who Vindman talked to after the July 25th phone call."

Maybe whoever he shared it with did have a need to know but How would anyone know??

 

Here is the Ingraham segment talking about Vindman advising Ukraine that had a lot of people talking today

 

Uh If it were not the NYTimes it could be dismissed as conservative making stuff up.
This might be nothing but should be looked into. And we need to know whoever Vindman discussed the call with.

 

Speaking of Vindman, today Schiff “repeatedly and blatantly” instructed him to not answer question from Republicans. Some of those questions were about whether Vindman, who is subject to UCMJ, leaked classified information, which might have been a crime.

Schiff Directing Witnesses Not To Answer GOP Questions

 

DOJ needs to hang one of these mofo’s if he wants to stop the leaking and deep state coup.

 

So, he was being his lawyer? Hmmmm.

 

Joe fan, when a reporter uses the phrase "ongoing illegitimate impeachment inquiry" in the lead, he stops being a reporter and becomes a spin doctor.

 

Croc
Then ignore JF"s link and read the one I posted.
The quotes from schiff directing Vindman to not answer don't change

 

Yeah, I find that's a common deflection technique. If the factual claim is correct, who cares where the link came from? It's just a way of not dealing with the substance. Which, here, is Schiff is directing witnesses not to answer questions. Which is amazing. But, hey, look over there, a squirrel

 

And the judge

 

Then Croc
If you think JF's link was not accurate on what Schiff did and said
Go to the link I posted. Schiff's quotes as he prevented Vindman from answering Jordan's questions are out there to read.

 

This is such a kangaroo court that I have no idea what John Roberts is going to do with these Articles of Impeachment that will be the result of zero or almost zero due process. But I am 100% confident he is going to be "uncomfortable" with whatever they submit.

The FREs allow for a motion for judgment as a matter of law - in civil trials, this is a Rule 50 motion. I've won a jury trial in federal court this way without even having to put on my defense. The judge took it out of the jury's hands on my two page motion (that I threw together at lunch break). The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure have something similar -- which I think is Rule 48. I dont know what rules would apply in this context, but Roberts will need something to guide him through it all, and there is nothing better than the FREs/Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

So, anyway, if it were me, I would make this motion to Roberts immediately based soley on the pleadings, which here is going to be whatever Articles of Impeachment they can paste together (they must submit some Articles). Whatever they submit is going to be defective.
And then, even if Roberts denied that first motion, I would make it again at the conclusion of the House Dems' case.
And then, even if denied twice already, I would do it again a third time at the conclusion of the House Rep's case. And I would make a big deal about it too. Put pressure on Roberts to save the Senate from ever having to take a vote. Give him every chance. And give him the opportunity to save the country in the process.

But John Roberts does not want to deal with this impeachment. He hates the idea of being personally involved in any of it. Given that, I dont know if he has the courage to shoulder the criticism that he knows would come his way for granting such a motion. But it would be right on the law and right in terms of justice. So I still hold out some hope that he possesses the gravitas to do what needs to be done. We will see.

 

This is depositions, right? If so they should be closed doors so conspirators can’t conspire.

Seeing what is coming out of these hearings the GOP May regret when they do go public.

 

Trust me, I understand the case for leaks. You get to control the narrative, especially if the media is sympathetic to you. They'll run with the leaked information, won't seek out context, or frame it as something to be skeptical of. That's a big tool they have in their shed, and I understand why they'd use it. It can give them a quick boost in the polls and build some momentum.

However, I think they need to ask themselves what the real agenda is. Do they just want to smear Trump? If so, then this should be viewed just like any other political circus act and shouldn't be taken any more seriously. Or do they actually want to remove Trump from office? If that's the agenda, they're making a mistake. Convincing the media and other partisan Democrats isn't the challenge. They wanted him impeached the minute he took his hand off the Bible and never cared about evidence. The challenge is getting Republicans to go along, and if the process is tainted with secrecy and selective, self-serving leaks, they won't get very many - definitely not enough to remove. To get even close to enough, they need to run it like a serious impeachment inquiry and foster a little good faith. If you just say "f**k you" to the opposition, they will say it back to you.

Ultimately, they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the seriousness and gravity that comes with an impeachment inquiry and the expediency and one-sidedness that comes with a normal political charade. That's hard to pull off even with media help.

None of this will make a difference to me. If the evidence is solid (meaning Taylor's testimony), I'll support Trump's impeachment and removal, even if the process stinks. However, I'm just some goofball on the internet. Other than my many fans here, I don't have a constituency to worry about. Republican senators do, and if they actually want Trump removed, they need to be mindful of that, and they clearly are not.

I get this argument, and it has merit. However, we shouldn't be calling this am impeachment inquiry of we're not going to treat it as such. Let it be an oversight hearing, and when the evidence is found, refer it to the Judiciary Committee as an impeachment matter.