There are lots of reasons to impeach Trump. He did obstruct justice, which is the strongest case, even though I think the Dems with their desire to try to make him out as some sort of traitor or Manchurian candidate for Putin and Russia to tie into the old Russian threat trope have come out looking ridiculous. The psychopathic lying p***y grabbing scumbag should be impeached for posterity even if 90% of the GOP support him and he remains in office.
That’s one way to look at it, glynch. Another way would be to take the Russian connection seriously. You are so eager to make the Russian connection somehow the Cold War redux that you are ignoring the obvious. You fall into the same storyline trump and his people want to sell - that there is no “there” there with regard to Russia and their help for the trump campaign, when there was. The graphic below isn’t a made up fantasy, glynch. Mr. trump publicly asking for Russian “help” during the campaign in getting “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, help immediately delivered, wasn’t a fantasy. Over and over again I see people acting like there was nothing to the Mueller Report, when 12 of the 14 issues Mueller farmed out to be investigated because he considered them outside of the narrow brief he was given are unknown and redacted. Significant parts of the report, none of it given to Congress to view in secret, much less made public, along with the supporting evidence, is still secret thanks to Barr, who is acting like he’s trump’s personal attorney, not the Attorney General of the United States, working for the people. But go ahead. Keep putting your head in the sand, along with the trump supporters you despise. You must consider them good company. A club of ignorance you appear to have joined.
From Seth Abramson: Enough. Impeachment—*now*. Retweet if this is where you're at now, too. GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT 1. Emoluments 2. Abuse of Power 3. Obstruction 4. Campaign Finance Crimes Key to Election 5. Oath of Office Violations 6. National Security Threat 7. Collusive Crimes* *Preponderance proof—aiding and abetting, bribery, solicitation of foreign donations. Because impeachment is *not* a criminal proceeding—and the penalty of impeachment is *not* a criminal penalty—the appropriate standard of proof for national security, abuse of power, and criminal allegations is preponderance of the evidence (at *most*). All these grounds suffice. GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT (Pt. 2) In the course of Congressional impeachment hearings, there is substantial reason—just from the publicly reported record of evidence—to believe that evidence would *also* be found of the following: 8. Witness Tampering 9. Money Laundering 10. RICO It may take time for all the evidence on these matters to be gathered, but it would be false to say that the evidence does not already exist and is not already publicly available. It is merely a matter of compiling the evidence and then *augmenting* it with additional testimony. Existing federal/state investigations (EDNY, SDNY, CCDA, USAO, FBI, CIA, NYAG, NYCDA, MDAG, DCAG, NJAG and so on) should continue, but they will not finish in time. Whether he is convicted or not, America should spend 6 months now—not later—letting America see the evidence on TV.
Trump was spied on and falsely accused of collusion and treason, and the same people that falsely accused him want to try and find fault with him. He is the victim.
Nice list, though I'm not sure about all of them. I've been tending to think in this direction as well. An impeachment effort shouldn't focus narrowly on obstruction of justice, but it should be part of the laundry list of charges. One, Trump has done a lot of sketchy stuff aside from trying to block conspiracy investigations. Two, you really only get one shot at impeachment. No one will have an appetite for impeachment hearings over emoluments after they just got done with impeachment hearings on obstruction.
"Investigation Time Is Over, Democrats. Impeach Or Shut Up": The Democrats have the House. Passing articles of impeachment requires a simple majority, which Democrats can easily muster without a single Republican vote. There’s no burden of proof, and they can do so with a nakedly partisan show of force. We can be spared further debate in the media whether the Mueller report shows obstruction of justice (it doesn’t). Democrats have the support of 66 percent of their electorate, who ferociously demand that the president be impeached. So do it. Impeach or shut up. Investigation time is over. We’ve heard all of that talk about the president “obstructing justice,” emoluments, refusing to turn over his tax returns, and now an outright refusal to cooperate in future investigations. There’s no need for further investigation. https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/02/investigation-time-democrats-impeach-shut/
Os, as I read the writing on the wall, my impression is that once the House committees obtain and process the financial data they have subpoenaed, they will have a satisfactorily solid foundation to proceed with impeachment. Ducks must be row-ed.
Investigation time clearly is not over because there are subpoenas outstanding. In fact, Trump is trying to stretch out investigation time as long as possible so that we can't get to impeachment time before the election -- or else, as the Federalist suggests, they impeach before the case is assembled. Honestly, what I'd like to see is for the House leadership to indicate that they intend to impeach and that the ongoing hearings are intended to inform the charges. I know Pelosi doesn't want to handcuff herself like that but I don't think the ambiguity is helping the country.
From Seth Abramson: BREAKING (CNN): Former DNI Clapper Says Trump Campaign "Aided and Abetted" Russians This is what I've been arguing since 2017—and laid out in my 2018 book Proof of Collusion. Aiding and Abetting is a collusive crime, impeachable, and not an offense the Mueller Report considered. The CNN anchor responded to Clapper by trying to get him to say that he wasn't using "aiding and abetting" in the legal sense, though I have no idea why she had the confidence to insist on that correction. Clapper didn't withdraw the comment, and declined to get into the law. There's never been a serious conversation on whether Trump's conduct meets the definition of aiding and abetting, not in the Mueller Report and not anywhere else. David Corn, Jim Clapper, myself, and others have made the argument, and it's never been refuted on its own terms.The requirements for aiding and abetting are very different than for conspiracy, and the facts undergirding the allegation quite different as well. For instance, it has *nothing at all* to do with any allegation there was a Trump-IRA or Trump-GRU conspiracy *before the fact*. When the former Director of National Intelligence, who knows perfectly well what the phrase "aiding and abetting" means, makes that allegation on CNN, I've no idea why a journalist hearing that attempts to shut down the conversation rather than inquiring about legal standards.What I want now is a serious national conversation, conducted on major media and using extensive citations to all the public evidence we have about what Trump and his campaign did, on the *critical* question of whether Trump committed the federal felony of aiding and abetting. After Trump and Flynn were made aware of Russian attacks against the United States in an August 17, 2016 classified briefing, both men willfully engaged in acts to induce the continuation of the very crimes they had already been conclusively informed of. And that is *illegal*. Given that no one significant in media *ever* alleged a before-the-fact conspiracy between Donald Trump and the IRA or GRU, with respect to Trump-Russia contacts alone the word "conspiracy" should've been used approximately 5% as frequently as the phrase "aiding and abetting." There *was* a "conspiracy" involving pre-election collusion, but it was a conspiracy between the *leaders of several foreign nations* to illegally aid Trump's election. (That's what the word "conspiracy" in the title of the sequel to Proof of Collusion refers to, by the way.) As to Trump, the key terms were always these: 1. Bribery 2. Money Laundering 3. Aiding and Abetting 4. "Compromised" You can see for yourself how often those terms (all about "collusion") appear in the Mueller Report, as opposed to references to a conspiracy no one alleged. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1124011241108910081.html
we can do that anyway which is my entire point. that should be done anyway without impeachment being the barometer.
point counterpoint. although somehow I'm hearing this in Dan Aykroyd's "Jane you ignorant slut" voice Spoiler
It's amazing that Mitch is still trying to pretend like this is about Democrats losing the election. That was never the cause of any of it, and it still isn't today. At this point anyone that still tries to pretend like that is the case is delusional. Mitch has always been full of it. Notice how Warren actually gave a rational behind her statement. Mitch just says crap in an attack. He has no reasoning behind his claims.
