I fully agree.. This is why the people I am most disappointed in are GOP in Congress like Will Hurd. These people know what Trump is doing is wrong and have said so before. For them to sit back and not do anything, defend or excuse Trump is undermining the very Constitutional principles they've sworn to uphold. For someone like Rand Paul who has said that principles of liberty and limited government to now go after those that the Executive considers his enemies is a betrayal of his principles. Instead these people rather than acting as members of an independent and coequal branch of government are just abetting an Executive branch that considers itself all powerful and there to serve the personal benefit of one man.
This could credibly be cast as a legitimate foreign policy argument. Providing missile defense systems could make Russia more belligerent in Ukraine and elsewhere, heating up the proxy fight we have with them. If Obama said it, I wouldn't think twice about it. It's too bad for Trump he went away from this story to the corruption story.
"Why Republicans should admit there was a quid pro quo" https://theweek.com/articles/877912/why-republicans-should-admit-there-quid-pro-quo excerpt: As far as I am aware, with the exception of Matthew Whitaker, the astonishingly indiscreet former acting attorney general, the only Republican official of any consequence who seems to understand the reality of the situation is Rand Paul. The junior senator from Kentucky rightly observes that the disbursement of foreign aid is always contingent. The United States gives billions of dollars to other countries each year on the condition that they will behave in a manner that aligns with America's national interest. How exactly we define the national interest is an open question. But politicians have a curious way of making it line up neatly with their own political fortunes at home. Was the four-day Operation Desert Fox bombing of Iraq by Bill Clinton at the height of his own impeachment in the national interest? What about Richard Nixon's attempt to sabotage Lyndon Johnson's peace talks in Vietnam in advance of the 1968 election? Nixon genuinely believed that the appearance of success in Paris would lessen his chances of being elected, which would mean that Hubert Humphrey, whom he considered less likely to bring the war to a swift and honorable conclusion, would be in charge. This is not cynicism. A president cannot do what he thinks is right for the country abroad if he is hampered by difficulties at home, including the difficulty of not being elected (or re-elected) president. Since the conduct of foreign policy is the prerogative of the chief executive, without whom we could not have relationships with other leaders, it is difficult to draw hard-and-fast distinctions between what is good for the president and what is good for the country — at least ones that do not depend upon our prior judgments about the president in question. Paul, of course, does not quite frame his argument this way. As befits a libertarian, he uses his own well-established opposition to foreign aid to argue that the whole process is inherently corrupt, which makes Trump no more or less guilty than any other president who has ever dangled something in front of a Third World honcho in the hope of securing certain real or perceived advantages for himself and the nation. This is not quite synonymous with claiming that the granting of foreign aid is straightforwardly within the purview of the executive branch and thus not a legitimate subject of congressional scrutiny, much less grounds for impeachment and removal from office. But it amounts to the same thing. What are the rhetorical advantages of putting the issue this way, as opposed to the proceduralist grumbles and semantic splitting of hairs about quid pro quos offered by Paul's colleagues thus far? The main one is simply that it is true. Instead of asking Republicans and the voters with whom they will be communicating to inhabit a universe in which Trump is a Boy Scout, admitting that he did exactly what his opponents have accused him of keeps everyone firmly within what we might call the reality-based community. more at the link
I've actually been reading the https://thefederalist.com/ because of you on occasion. Stop this bipartisan attempt at intelligent journalism....
I’m amused at the use of Nixon’s meddling in Vietnam as a defense of trump here. That was 100% illegal and LBJ did Nixon a huge favor by not having him arrested. Regardless it isn’t an appropriate comparison here because Nixon wasn’t president when he was doing that. He could have been charged with a crime and thrown in jail, something LBJs people wanted done. That isn’t an available remedy to resolve this one. Aside from that, what an insane defense. Rand Paul is right! Aid is always contingent on foreign countries behaving in ways that the US sees as in our interest! Who is to say that investigating political opponents is any different that any other request of a foreign nation, such as ending blockades or bombings of innocent civilians? Impossible to distinguish really. crazy pills
We're benchmarking Trump with Nixon...Cons because it has become their political Vietnam. Libs because they still believe the American people will convict Trump for Nixon-esque crimes...inoculation and tribal warfare have something to say about that.
That would potentially have been worse for him really. People forget that before this blew up, RIGHT before the whistleblower stuff came out, Republicans in Congress were sniffing about why the aid was being held up.
Jonathan Turley argues that Schiff's bribery ploy may be unwise https://jonathanturley.org/2019/11/13/schiff-raises-bribery-as-a-possible-impeachable-offense/ Schiff Raises Bribery As A Possible Impeachable Offense by jonathanturley House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has caused a stir in suddenly injecting the possible use of bribery as a basis for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Converting the Ukrainian controversy into a bribery theory is both constitutionally and historically unsound. It would undermine the credibility of the impeachment effort by struggling to reshape the facts into a more compelling criminal image. Impeachment cannot be an exercise in creative reconstruction. It is not license for imaginative or untested theories of criminality. The House needs to establish a clear and credible theory of impeachable conduct based on well-established definitions. Ironically, I testified on this issue in the Clinton impeachment hearings but last had this argument (over broadening such definitions for purposes of impeachment) with my opposing counsel in the last impeachment trial: Adam Schiff. Note: I will be doing commentary today with CBS and BBC on the impeachment hearings. Schiff told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep “Bribery, first of all, as the founders understood bribery, it was not as we understand it in law today. It was much broader. It connoted the breach of the public trust in a way where you’re offering official acts for some personal or political reason, not in the nation’s interest.” He added that you only have to show that the president was “soliciting something of value.” That limitless definition would convert most of the conversations between presidents and other heads of state into potential bribery cases. Presidents often try to get every concession from aid in such conversations. Some of those concessions may clearly advantage a president as a political matter. Likewise, presidents may perform other acts that would meet such a definition. President Bill Clinton not only pardoned a family member but gave a pardon to a leading Democratic donor. The pardon of fugitive Marc Rich was widely and correctly ridiculed as an absurd and corrupt use of the authority. Was that a thing of value being offered or given in return for favors? I previously wrote a series of academic pieces on the inclusion and meaning of these terms in the Constitution, including SENATE TRIALS AND FACTIONAL DISPUTES: IMPEACHMENT AS A MADISONIAN DEVICE, 49 Duke L.J. 1(1999). In that work, I discussed how the most relevant debate on this standard occurred on a single day and constitutes a couple of pages of record, including an exchange between the main protagonists, Mason and Madison. Mason objected to the use of Treason and Bribery as too limited. For that reason, he wanted to add a broader term “maladministration.” That broader meaning of impeachment was rejected. I also discussed this history as a witness during the Clinton impeachment hearings. As I testified, the trial of Warren Hastings weighed heavily on the forging of the impeachment standard. The former governor of India was charged with “mismanagement and misgovernment in India, including acts of extortion, bribery, corruption, confiscation of property, and mistreatment of various provinces.” Notably, in light of that trial, people like Mason felt that bribery was not broad enough. The First Congress criminalized the acceptance of anything of value in exchange for making a favorable judgment or disposition by judges. See Crimes Act of 1790, 1 Stat. 112, 117. That law, which remain in effect, prohibits “being influenced in the performance of an official act.” However, if anything, the Court has limited that definition including the decision in McDonnell v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2355 (2016). Congress did not pass its first criminal provision on bribery until 1853 that covers both “bribes” and “presents” when they were given “with intent to influence” federal officials. Indeed, things that are barred today as corrupt gifts were not barred under early English and American notions of bribery. See Edward Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes of the Law of England 145 (1670). There are legitimate issues concerning abuse of power for Congress to consider. As I have written, this is shaping up as the most narrow impeachment of a president in history. Redefining the same acts as different crimes is an approach that will not broaden that foundation and will only raise questions of the legitimacy of the effort.
I heard him the other day try to shoehorn this into a bribery charge. I get it. Quid pro quo is not a very accessible term for normal people, and then you have to distinguish between good and bad quid pro quos. And it's awfully nice that bribery is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as an impeachable offense. Bonus, it's in the criminal code as well. And, who knows, his historical argument might even be true. But, that's not really how people use the term today. It feels like he's doing some linguistic gymnastics to make the charge fit. It's okay, imo, to fall in the larger umbrella of high crimes. I'd call it simply abuse of power.
Technically sanctions are extortion. The illegal part is extortion for personal political gain against US foreign interests as the military aid had bipartisan support and was already cleared to be sent.
So, why is the GOP trying to frame this as an investigation on 2016? It is stupid, Buden is running now - this is 100% about 2020.... No one believes this is about 2016 - when Biden didn't run......the GOP makes no sense. DD
It probably polls well with their base. Trump voters will look for anything to explain and justify his criminal behavior.
