Impeach!
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@xenon I get it. The process is political. They can do whatever they want, and they will. I've been hearing all the legal arguments in favor of impeachment ("He incited violence"), but those don't hold water, because, on the face of it, that's a high bar to prove. Fact of the matter is, from a legal standpoint, he did not.
The political question is totally different. If you think that he incited violence, then, sure, go ahead and impeach. I'm questioning the wisdom, not the legality of it. The precedent of "The president did something we think is horrible so we must impeach" with no evidence, no argument, nothing...is scary.
This will happen again, and, as McGurn points out, again and again. The process has been cheapened, and that's sad.
I get where you're coming from. It's not an iron-clad chain of logic from his actions to the violence. Without that rock-solid link, this sets a potentially flimsy precedent.
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Maybe I'm the only person who has spoken with and had dinner with actual mobsters. They rarely admit anything. There's a lingo. "We had a 'conversation' with him." "I ran an auto parts business." "A couple of friends of mine had a 'talk' with him and then he changed his mind."
No question that Trump conveys what he wants - but is careful in the words he used.
Exactly. What is the word in English? "Plausible denying"
Example:
BOSS: We need that package delivered by 5 pm?
EMPLOYEE: That is not enough time. I would have to break the speed limit.
BOSS: I am not telling you to do that. All I am saying is that we have to have that delivered by 5 pmExample:
PRESIDENT: The vote certification should not take place. We need to fight for what is ours!
MOB: We should break into the Capital and stop it!
PRESIDENT: I am not telling you to do that. I was just saying that the vote certification was wrong and should not take place. -
I think there is a very real possibility of a Republican house in the next cycle.
Let's convene the next Congress, elect the new speaker and file impeachment charges against Biden on Day 1. We can wait until the next day to take the vote.
If we don't like the Senate trial outcome, maybe we can file impeachment charges once a month. Bound to get something to stick...
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The door is open. But what we are seeing may be just more theater.
Former Fourth Circuit Judge: Senate Can’t Hold Impeachment Trial After Trump Leaves Office
by Matt Palumbo
Posted: January 13, 2021
Never before has a senate trial for an impeached president been held after they left office, and J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, made the case that doing so would be unconstitutional. He penned an op-ed in the Washington Post last night to outline the case.
To quote the key parts of his argument:
The sequencing of the House impeachment proceedings before Trump’s departure from office and the inauguration of the new president, followed by a Senate impeachment trial, perhaps months later, raises the question of whether a former president can be impeached after he leaves office.
The Constitution itself answers this question clearly: No, he cannot be. Once Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, Congress loses its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even if the House has already approved articles of impeachment.
Therefore, if the House of Representatives were to impeach the president before he leaves office, the Senate could not thereafter convict the former president and disqualify him under the Constitution from future public office.
The reason for this is found in the Constitution itself. Trump would no longer be incumbent in the Office of the President at the time of the delayed Senate proceeding and would no longer be subject to “impeachment conviction” by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president.
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The door is open. But what we are seeing may be just more theater.
Former Fourth Circuit Judge: Senate Can’t Hold Impeachment Trial After Trump Leaves Office
by Matt Palumbo
Posted: January 13, 2021
Never before has a senate trial for an impeached president been held after they left office, and J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, made the case that doing so would be unconstitutional. He penned an op-ed in the Washington Post last night to outline the case.
To quote the key parts of his argument:
The sequencing of the House impeachment proceedings before Trump’s departure from office and the inauguration of the new president, followed by a Senate impeachment trial, perhaps months later, raises the question of whether a former president can be impeached after he leaves office.
The Constitution itself answers this question clearly: No, he cannot be. Once Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, Congress loses its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even if the House has already approved articles of impeachment.
Therefore, if the House of Representatives were to impeach the president before he leaves office, the Senate could not thereafter convict the former president and disqualify him under the Constitution from future public office.
The reason for this is found in the Constitution itself. Trump would no longer be incumbent in the Office of the President at the time of the delayed Senate proceeding and would no longer be subject to “impeachment conviction” by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president.
The point I made earlier on this is that the constitutional question would double the amplitude of any attempt to try Trump. If Biden needs that 100 days from now god help his presidency.
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“State Republican Parties Blast Members Of GOP Who Voted To Impeach Trump”
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Education is extremely important.
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The thing is, there was never a chance to remove Trump from office before the inauguration. Never. And very slim chance that the impeachment would remove the chance that he could take Federal Office again. It was purely political theater. Throwing red meat to both mobs. And here is the biggest problem and issue. Trump looked the fool last week. He looked like the weak and petulant little man that I personally believe he is. He still would have had his nugget of support but he was a vastly diminished presence after the riot. Now, thanks to this stupidity, he's being given more power. He's regaining support. Trump was defeated, but then the Democrats said "You know what we need? More Trump!" And they are doing everything they can to get more Trump! And they are too stupid to see it.
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@lufins-dad said in Impeach!:
The thing is, there was never a chance to remove Trump from office before the inauguration. Never. And very slim chance that the impeachment would remove the chance that he could take Federal Office again. It was purely political theater. Throwing red meat to both mobs. And here is the biggest problem and issue. Trump looked the fool last week. He looked like the weak and petulant little man that I personally believe he is. He still would have had his nugget of support but he was a vastly diminished presence after the riot. Now, thanks to this stupidity, he's being given more power. He's regaining support. Trump was defeated, but then the Democrats said "You know what we need? More Trump!" And they are doing everything they can to get more Trump! And they are too stupid to see it.
They see it.
It is all they see.
They need him, they have nothing else.
Except maybe the green new deal, they have that. And pretty soon, so will we all.
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@lufins-dad said in Impeach!:
The thing is, there was never a chance to remove Trump from office before the inauguration. Never. And very slim chance that the impeachment would remove the chance that he could take Federal Office again. It was purely political theater. Throwing red meat to both mobs. And here is the biggest problem and issue. Trump looked the fool last week. He looked like the weak and petulant little man that I personally believe he is. He still would have had his nugget of support but he was a vastly diminished presence after the riot. Now, thanks to this stupidity, he's being given more power. He's regaining support. Trump was defeated, but then the Democrats said "You know what we need? More Trump!" And they are doing everything they can to get more Trump! And they are too stupid to see it.
Agree. I think it was (is?) incumbent upon the dems who now are in charge to slow down the velocity of madness rather than feed it. Were the Republicans in the same position, an argument can be made that they too would have done the impeachment - but that isn't an argument for doing the same thing. This past year has seen a lot of manufactured madness. It is worth spending some time to better understand the devils of our nature.
Sadly, I think Biden is not our best choice to achieve that. Looking back at recent Presidents, GWB might have had the right demeaner to pull it off. Actually, almost any of the past few Presidents (excepting the current one) would be better at pulling it off.
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And today, we learn from the FBI that this riot was planned in advance of Trump's speech.
But that doesn't matter because Orange Man Bad.I think that makes it much worse for Orange Man. Why rile up angry people (who you made angry), further?
Unless he was given no heads up by national security folks that he may be making people violently angry (though it doesn't take a genius to figure that out). His false claims on the election is what made people foreseeably angry.
And as I've said before, you don't even need there to be any violence for the action of sending a crowd to the capitol pressure the VP and congressmen to overturn electoral college votes to be deeply unconstitutional.
EDIT: the only reason I can think of why no one cared about Trump's election stealing non-sense before this, is because everything is a nothingburger with Trump and his words don't matter. We've been conditioned to ignore everything he says and only judge him on outcomes. No one expected any sort of real outcome on this.
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@xenon I'm being very picky here about the articles of impeachment which you suggested I read.
Both counts, the speech on the 6th, and the call to Rafensperger on the 2nd occurred after we know that the riot was being planned.
I get it, he said a lot of things that people could consider "incitement," but those are not mentioned in the impeachment, and therefore, moot. The articles specify two things. The planning of the riot antedated those two things.
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@xenon I'm being very picky here about the articles of impeachment which you suggested I read.
Both counts, the speech on the 6th, and the call to Rafensperger on the 2nd occurred after we know that the riot was being planned.
I get it, he said a lot of things that people could consider "incitement," but those are not mentioned in the impeachment, and therefore, moot. The articles specify two things. The planning of the riot antedated those two things.
In the preamble to your screenshots are the words:
In the months preceding the Joint Session, President Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people or certified by State or Federal officials. Shortly before the Joint Session commenced, President Trump, addressed a crowd at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. There, he reiterated false claims that "we won this election, and we won it by a landslide."
So - the argument for impeachment does begin with bringing up the false statements on the election.
And on Jan 6. they use the term "reiterated". Meaning continuing a previous pattern.
