Impeachment
 

Is the "single biggest witch hunt in history" a waste of time ? Is it just Pelosi drumming up a some pre-election narrative ? It doesn't seem like there's any chance it will pass Congress, so what's the deal ?

Re: Impeachment
 

I presume the process should be free of political bias (I know), and that Congress has a job to do - if there is something to investigate, it should be investigated by House of Congress. There is then a concept that the Senate should take the evidence and decide whether or not to hold the President accountable or not, based on said evidence. Of course, the system is now no different than the UK, where it's all to do with Red and Blue. I have nowhere near enough knowledge on USA history to know if it has always been thus.

Re: Impeachment
 

It hasn't. Nixon resigned because he would almost certainly have been convicted.

This is more like the Clinton impeachment than the Nixon one though. I can't stand Trump, but I think it's time that we let him run out his term and focus on beating him at the ballot box.

Re: Impeachment
 

Do you mean like last time ?

Re: Impeachment
 

Which 'last time' are you referring too? If 2016, are you suggesting that Dems don't try to beat him because they didn't the last time?

2020 is not 2016. Things have changed and many now see Trump for the charlatan he is.

Anyway, there is an ongoing thread in Take It Outside for this.

Re: Impeachment
 

Yes, 2016 where he had a 15% chance of winning. I'm suggesting that leaving it to the ballot box is not necessarily a solution to the problem. It's true that he is now a confirmed charlatan rather than a prospective charlatan, but that does not seem to be an issue with his base. Pelosi's strategy might simply be to officially discredit him, regardless of whether impeachment happens or not.

Re: Impeachment
 

This inquiry is not going to change one single persons mind. Those that dislike him already dislike him, and he would have to literally be proven to be the Anti-Christ for his base to desert him.

This is all reflected in his approval numbers, which have barely got above 45% the entire time he has been in Office. I'm not saying that it won't be hard to remove him, incumbency has massive advantages, but since he isn't going to be convicted and removed anyway (and if he was it goes to Pence, who isn't exactly great either) they might as well move to to honing their 2020 message.

Re: Impeachment
 

Isn't possible that the impeachment hearings bring out more dirt on him and/or maybe he implodes?

It also seems that given his many questionable activities, the Dems start to look weak if they don't question him head on? They have a public duty as well.

Re: Impeachment
 

Even that's a slim hope going on what all my evangelical Christian friends think about the golden haired cockwomble.

Re: Impeachment
 

The fact is most people are not that politically engaged (evidence suggests that may have changed somewhat during the Trump term, but not a whole lot) and therefore all they will get from it is the ending - where the Senate acquits him. Leading to the thought that 'Trump did nothing wrong, why change him'

I understand the rationale, but if they were going to do it they should have done it right after the Muller report was released. Now it's too late. The Repubs have very effectively presented the narrative that Dems are trying to re litigate the 2016 election. Time to move on.

Re: Impeachment
 

It's another witch hunt. I truly believe the Democrats hate the President more than they love the country and constituents they are supposed to be serving.

All they're doing is energizing conservative voters who believe this is Mueller 2.0. Democrats are stupid, why not focus on trying to beat the Republicans in 2020 instead of this constant political warfare. It's embarrassing.

Re: Impeachment
 

Yes, some truth in that.

So it could even backfire.

Re: Impeachment
 

It is helpful at this stage to see how the Republicans are trying to spin this.
1. We still haven't seen the actual transcript, just a memo that contains a short piece of the conversation or maybe several pieces from throughout the conversation and stitched together.
2. "No quid pro quo" is being presented as proof the law wasn't broken, but it isn't a required element to break this law.
3. Biden did it worse - except he didn't. Trump was trying to get foreign help in an election, Biden was getting a guy fired who wasn't prosecuting people. The withholding of aid to Ukraine is the only common element. But it doesn't matter anyway, since even if Biden was involved in corruption then it doesn't mean Trump is allowed to be.

More amusingly is that Trump is now dragging Pence and his son into this, plus it has opened more questions into Giuliani and Barr. The Ukrainian president tweeted out a photo of himself with Trump when no one even knew they had met at that time, so there is way more shady stuff going on here. This isn't going to have the same impact that impeachment had on Clinton, it is mentally destroying Trump. Lying about a blow job is not the same thing at all as treason and election corruption, people care far more about the latter.

Re: Impeachment
 

Impeachment is a political process not a judicial process. Has never actually succeeded.

It does set an interesting precedent, any future President can expect similar treatment.

There seems nothing to concern Trump, well that has come up so far, Biden's chances however could be impacted, Warren has now overtaken him in some polls and how can this investigation be done without exposing Biden's activity?

Politics is a dirty business, why now, why on this, what is really going on?

It would seem more logical for the Dems to nominate a half way respectable nominee for 2020, they seem to have learned nothing from 2016.

Re: Impeachment
 

anyone watching c-span and the intelligence committee interviewing Maguire?
interesting dynamics:
executive privilege? Does this cover election interference which is implied? What about moving sensitive documents - does that concern the intelligence committe.

Re: Impeachment
 

I think we have to wait a few days to see which holes these pachinko balls fall into.
I think there are more than a few Republicans who will turn on him, if they see the wind blowing in the right direction.

Re: Impeachment
 

Trump's tactics in regards the Ukrainian president exactly match what Michael Cohen testified to in his congressional testimony earlier this year as regards Trump's modus operandi.

Re: Impeachment
 

Scaramucci seeing sense and at the same time calling himself a criminal? Ok.

Let's hope Stephen Miller was amongst those officials...

Re: Impeachment
 

Have you read the whistleblower's complaint?

If you don't at least open an impeachment investigation for this, I don't see the point of having an impeachment process.

Re: Impeachment
 

Seems to me that the big story is Warren's gains rather than Biden's losses, per se. And those gains started well before the Ukraine story broke. But I do agree that the impeachment inquiry is going to be a drag on Biden's support, despite the fact that there is nothing sinister about his Ukraine involvement. For some seeing "Biden" and "Ukraine" linked is going to be enough for them to look elsewhere.

Re: Impeachment
 

I won;t hide the fact that I believe Trump to be a disaster of a human being, but on the Republican vs. Democrat angle, I don;t have any skin in the game, so not fussed by either (especially as they seem to have flipped over during history).

What has been presented on the Ukraine call though does seem like the sort of thing that would require proper investigation, at the very least. The live questioning earlier was interesting - the general feeling I got from watching that was that Trump would not have been happy with the way some of the questions were answered. There were also a few Republicans being interviewed who seemed far less committal than they have been on other things. waiting to see how it plays out rather than going full Nunez(he's a proper oddity). The second Democrat who questioned was equally as odd a character, who seemed utterly unable to hide what seemed an internal delight to have his say on Trump.

Overall, this seems far more likely to cause problems than the Russia thing was ever going to do. Trump is not going to change the behaviour of a lifetime, which is essentially to look after number one and bully anyone he sees as not being equal to his standing. He essentially celebrated being told by someone on Fox he'd been cleared on the Russia probe by having this call and idea on funding with the Ukranian President.

Re: Impeachment
 

I have, the whistleblower has also stated they don't have first-hand evidence and it is essentially he said/she said, therefore you're essentially opening up an investigation without having any hard evidence, especially after the whole Mueller farce. If this doesn't come off, Democrats are going to look like an even bigger Circus than they already do.

Re: Impeachment
 

No, it isn't. The whistleblower is willing to name those who have firsthand knowledge. Presumably the Whitehouse will be happy for those individuals to testify, right?

"President Trump told a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations on Thursday morning that he wants to know who provided information to a whistle-blower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days,” spies were dealt with differently.

The remark stunned people in the audience, according to a person briefed on what took place, who had notes of what the president said."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/us/politics/trump-whistle-blower-spy.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Home page

Add that to the hopper of what needs to be investigated.

This analysis notes that the whistleblower "nailed the July 25 call" with his secondhand information. Not proof, that everything reported is accurate, of course, but it certainly adds to the credibility of whoever it was:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...wer-complaint/

Hopefully some Republicans will wake up even if folks like you won't.

Re: Impeachment
 

And they were, actually in many probably most places they still are.

I did read it and I can certainly see why the Dems do not like what he says or does and as I have mentioned this is a Political process. It they really want to get rid of Trump still think they would be better positioned by nominating someone electable with policies that make sense.

Re: Impeachment
 

Antichrist would be a step up.

Re: Impeachment
 

And I'm Republican how? Great assumption. I'm just sick of seeing Democrats not give a single shit about this country, their constituents or any of their half-baked policies. As I stated before, they clearly hate the President more than they love this country or the oath they've been sworn to.

All I'm saying is, this impeachment investigation is half-cocked. As of *right now*, there is not significant evidence and again, just to clear that up for as you're clearly being obtuse - right now, there is not enough evidence. Not saying there won't be, but as of right now, no.

Hopefully even you can understand that.

Re: Impeachment
 

My sentence doesn't say you are a Republican.

Re: Impeachment
 

Follow up to the points that I wrote above now that the actual whistleblower complaint has been revealed.
1. The actual transcript wasn't put into the normal system that makes it accessible, but instead hidden in the top secret recordings that is usually reserved for code-word level discussions. This is reportedly not the first time that this has been done with a normal Trump phone call.
2. The money for Ukraine (which was already approved by congress) was put on hold by direction of the president while he waited to see if they would "play ball". So the quid pro quo is now provable.
3. The company that Biden's son was involved with was not under investigation by the guy that Biden got sacked.

Lots of information in the complaint about how Giuliani has been used to subvert the normal diplomatic process.

Shows how well the misinformation campaign is going when people catch a whiff of this and assume it is just a witch hunt. This is a big deal and unlike the others it has a paper trail a mile wide. How many more Republican senators will retire rather than vote to keep Trump in power?

Re: Impeachment
 

1, And, so what?

2. Your conclusion, not a fact.

3. That whole thing is quite fascinating and I have read various stories about it, the biggest question in my mind is why he was ever appointed to the position in the first place, I will not go into his dubious history but the only know reason is that he is Biden's son.

Re: Impeachment
 

Sadly I am not seeing even a hint that this may lead to discussing nepotism, and the ease at which those connected to the rich and powerful waltz in to positions of power and influence themselves. Probably the last place the Trump family want it to go too.

Re: Impeachment
 

If Bill Clinton can avoid removal by arguing "what the definition of 'is' is," you can bet the Senate will basically accept any tenuous argument Trump puts out. And in the case of this Ukraine convo, it doesn't seem like there is a true smoking gun statement from Trump like, "if you prosecute Biden we'll get some money flowing your way."

Re: Impeachment
 

Isn't the point of an investigation to investigate? There is clearly a sufficient amount of circumstantial evidence, there is some small amounts of hard evidence that the conversation happened, and pretty much the way the Whistleblower said it did. People may think it's not a big deal, that their personal opinion, but the point would be a President using his position of power to influence another country into doing something for his own benefit in an election. Last time I checked, that used to be considered bad form. On top of that, if other people, whichever side of the political fence, have done similar, get them on the hook in whatever process they should go through as well.

Re: Impeachment
 

The point of this investigation is to impeach.

Re: Impeachment
 

That's not really true - it's to establish if there are grounds to issue articles of impeachment, it's not a forgone conclusion that there are until articles are issued.

After all, 'high crimes and misdemeanors' basically amounts to whatever the Congress at a given time says it does.

Re: Impeachment
 

Does an impeachment inquiry give Congress more authority when demanding to see documents? If so then I'm all for it especially if President Trump has to testify under oath. Clinton was impeached on 2 counts, not because he had sex with an intern at work, but that he lied about it under oath and obstructed justice.

Before the next election I think the voters need to know where the President's financial interests lie. Just like in the case of Nixon the investigation itself may be enough without the need to vote on articles of impeachment. Nixon had a high approval rating at the start of his impeachment but as the proof of wrongdoing emerged his support collapsed and the "smoking gun" tapes were not discovered until well after impeachment inquiries had begun.

Re: Impeachment
 

20 years ago Lindsey Graham had quite a different view on what 'high crimes and misdemeanors" meant. That definition is significantly different now, at least in his view.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/polit...r-ebof-vpx.cnn

Re: Impeachment
 

This has been years in the making, to do it an not impeach? Just can not see it happen.

Thought this was amusing from the Indy today:

Hillary Clinton dismissed Donald Trump as an "illegitimate president" and suggested that "he knows" that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired on Sunday.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9122986.html

Re: Impeachment
 

Still fixated with Clinton, I see.

Re: Impeachment
 

CBS, Indy who.

I realise she is irrelevant but as all this goes back to election night hard to ignore.

Re: Impeachment
 

Wow I've learned a lot from this thread. So the whistle blower was a Democrat? What about all of the people inside the administration that provided the information pipeline to the whistle blower? Were they all Democrats too? Why does Trump have so many Democrats working in a Republican White House?