Trump's Russian Collusion

[a fan]

Delay is the dumbest thing the Republicans can allow. This thing could EASILY last until next November.

Odds are very high that turning over Trump rocks will yield the soundbytes that the Dems are looking for going into the election.

Remember Benghazi? Just as I foretold, that's what's happening here. McConnell would do well to expedite the process.

[ggait]

Delay is the dumbest thing the Republicans can allow.

I don't think so.

If they had a do-over, would Trump voluntarily release the call transcript again? No way -- they'd instead make Shifty Schiff pry it from their cold dead hands via slow legal process. Would they let Volker freely stroll in to testify and bring all his documents along? Doubtful. It is the rapid disclosure of very bad info that has given the Uke thing traction that Mueller never gained.

I think the GOP knows what it is dealing with. If there's bad info, Mueller teaches that it is best to suppress/delay the release of that info for as long as possible. And then you use all that time to discredit the investigators, project your offenses onto the opponent, and generally suck the momentum away from the story.

If it lasts until next Fall, Trump will have no problem skewering Pelosi and Schiff with attack ads during the campaign. Might actually be a good thing for him to be talking about.

[seacoaster]

Great; two of our wisest posters disagreeing on fundamental tactics in the impeachment inquiry. Just what I needed. Back to work I guess.

[3rdPersonPlural]

Delay is the dumbest thing the Republicans can allow. This thing could EASILY last until next November.

Odds are very high that turning over Trump rocks will yield the soundbytes that the Dems are looking for going into the election.

Remember Benghazi? Just as I foretold, that's what's happening here. McConnell would do well to expedite the process.

What if this thing drags out, due to Trumps obstinancy rather than the Dems incompetence, until next summer?

New revelations every day (and we know that the wheels will keep coming off of Trumps grift for the next decade). Trump as a petty criminal pasted in media for the next 6 months.

By the time it gets to the Senate for a vote, the window for the Senators to get primaried by Hair Furors machine will have passed. They can voter their conscience, and Pence becomes the nominee as Trump is marched out of office.......

[jhu72]

Delay is the dumbest thing the Republicans can allow.

I don't think so.

If they had a do-over, would Trump voluntarily release the call transcript again? No way -- they'd instead make Shifty Schiff pry it from their cold dead hands via slow legal process. Would they let Volker freely stroll in to testify and bring all his documents along? Doubtful. It is the rapid disclosure of very bad info that has given the Uke thing traction that Mueller never gained.

I think the GOP knows what it is dealing with. If there's bad info, Mueller teaches that it is best to suppress/delay the release of that info for as long as possible. And then you use all that time to discredit the investigators, project your offenses onto the opponent, and generally suck the momentum away from the story.

If it lasts until next Fall, Trump will have no problem skewering Pelosi and Schiff with attack ads during the campaign. Might actually be a good thing for him to be talking about.

Actually I think delay works for the democrats. The courts are going to find for them in a large % of the cases. If they don't get the documents and the testimony they are asking for it is very obvious and easy for the American people to see the obstruction. It is death by a 1000 cuts, but I believe effective. You are never going to get the 35 - 40%, but their is 5 - 10% that can be had when the lawlessness is so obvious, plus the 5% that just don't know. Also as we get closer to the election, people will be paying a lot more attention.

I have never bought the argument that this needs to be over before the primary starts.

[jhu72]

Delay is the dumbest thing the Republicans can allow. This thing could EASILY last until next November.

Odds are very high that turning over Trump rocks will yield the soundbytes that the Dems are looking for going into the election.

Remember Benghazi? Just as I foretold, that's what's happening here. McConnell would do well to expedite the process.

What if this thing drags out, due to Trumps obstinancy rather than the Dems incompetence, until next summer?

New revelations every day (and we know that the wheels will keep coming off of Trumps grift for the next decade). Trump as a petty criminal pasted in media for the next 6 months.

By the time it gets to the Senate for a vote, the window for the Senators to get primaried by Hair Furors machine will have passed. They can voter their conscience, and Pence becomes the nominee as Trump is marched out of office.......

Excellent point!

[ggait]

If they don't get the documents and the testimony they are asking for it is very obvious and easy for the American people to see the obstruction.

2017 Bob Mueller agrees with you. 2019 Bob Mueller, not so much.

[Trinity]

Steve Bannon was right— we sent a Marine when we should have sent a hit man.

[seacoaster]

Tribe:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 909558002/

"Here, the obvious public value and importance of Ambassador Sondland’s testimony, especially in light of reports that he called the president between the two most pertinent text messages, plainly carries the day. But even if that weren’t the case, the Trump administration’s stonewalling becomes constitutionally indefensible where the underlying conduct — pressuring a vulnerable ally by using the president’s powers over foreign and military policy for purely personal gain — could not be more clearly impeachable.

Given the hopelessness of those standard arguments, Trump and his attorney general, William Barr, have turned to an even more insidious justification: denying the broader legitimacy of the entire House impeachment inquiry and branding it a “kangaroo court.”

Such an argument is wholly without constitutional merit: Article I, Section 5 plainly provides that each House “may determine the rules of its proceedings,” something the House has done here by empowering individual committees to inquire into whether the president has committed impeachable offenses, and to pursue those inquiries with subpoenas voted by the respective chairs of those committees without the need for any vote by the full house. No court attentive to the most elementary separation of powers principles would seriously contemplate permitting the White House to intrude into the internal affairs of a coequal branch.

It is not for the president to decide what makes the impeachment inquiries of the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff sufficiently authorized to carry the imprimatur of Congress. That, to put it bluntly, is none of the president’s business. Nor is his self-interested characterization of the Schiff inquiry as a “kangaroo court” entitled to even the slightest respect from anyone.

It is tempting to say that this latest desperate gambit simply illustrates the sad truth that little if anything this president says or does can be trusted, and that it is only fear of further exposure of the guilty truth that could possibly explain a line of argument that any court worthy of the name would quickly dismiss as meritless. But one needn’t go that far to conclude that the House clearly cannot permit such brazen obstruction to carry the day. It should instead forge ahead with articles of impeachment now, independent of whatever further detours to court it might deem necessary and proper to pursue facts that the American people are entitled to know.

The House is overwhelmingly likely in the end to prevail in enforcing in federal court the various subpoenas it has issued — or is about to issue — to uncover the facts about the president’s corrupt dealings with foreign governments to interfere with the forthcoming presidential election. But judicial proceedings, even expedited ones, move at best “with all deliberate speed,” by which lawyers really mean “at a stately pace.”

The three-year and still ongoing efforts to gain access to President Trump’s federal income tax returns perfectly illustrate how effective even a legal team barely able to formulate a coherent pleading can be at stalling judicial proceedings — despite a federal statute dating to the 1920s that makes handing over such tax returns mandatory at the request of the House Ways and Means Committee chair.

Testing the House’s dormant power of inherent contempt to take Trump’s cronies into custody (or subject them to escalating fines) until they testify or produce the documents demanded, while an appealing thought and likely within Congress’ constitutional prerogatives, is likewise likely to spawn legal challenges and further delay. Neither the House, nor indeed the country, has that time to spare.

Nor does moving forward with articles of impeachment for the “high crimes” that are already plainly evident mean letting Trump and his gang escape having to testify or produce documents pursuant to congressional subpoenas either. As Schiff told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, Congress can continue to issue new subpoenas and enforce existing ones in the courts while simultaneously drafting and voting on articles of impeachment for impeachable offenses already clearly demonstrated.

Further, since nothing in the Constitution limits the House to a single set of articles, pursuing impeachment charges now for Trump’s essentially confessed substantive abuse of power and his brazenly open obstruction of Congress doesn’t foreclose the prospect of future articles as additional information comes to light. Indeed, if anything, drafting and voting on articles of impeachment sooner rather than later should prove a major boon to Congress’ ongoing investigations, further strengthening its already overwhelming case to enforce its subpoenas in federal court, escalating the pressure on the White House and potentially inducing other individuals with information bearing on this administration’s wrongdoing to come forward, and catalyzing an even greater shift in public opinion.

The impeachment power was envisioned by the Founders as an emergency mechanism, one to be deployed in the event of grievous and continuing harm to the nation caused by an abuse of the power entrusted by voters to a high officer of the republic. Donald J. Trump is Exhibit A of what those who designed our Constitution had in mind. They believed they had provided the device we might one day need to preserve constitutional democracy. Yet with each day’s passing, as the walls close in ever more tightly, Trump grows ever more desperate and dangerous.

His more than shameful capitulation to Turkey and abandonment of our Kurdish allies is a case in point. Indefensible on its own terms even though not in itself impeachable, it illustrates what this cornered man might do to distract as the constitutional system blocks his every available exit. Every day he’s allowed to stall, evade justice and remain in power, the country is in still graver danger.

The House must move expeditiously to vote for articles of impeachment based on President Trump’s already evident “high crimes,” including abuse of power and obstruction of justice, even as it pursues the truth through relentless investigation that resorts as needed to the still independent judiciary."

[jhu72]

Right first president to be impeached multiple times.

[seacoaster]

I am thinking that Tribe is right. But there is a procedural question: once the House votes on Articles, can the Senate then take up the trial of the impeachment? Or is there an orderly period of investigation and evidence gathering that can occur, by the House "managers -- prosecutors -- before the Senate trial is convened?

I can see Moscow Mitch putting any article adopted and approved in the House to a Senate vote ASAP.

[Farfromgeneva]

Frampton Comes Alive!


Peter Frampton
@peterframpton

What is the point of a subpoena if, when handed it, you can just say “No” and we go, “Ok, sorry to bother you”. Raid the f_ckers and get what we are asking for!

3:27 PM · Oct 8, 2019

Get some of those IRS agents to kick in his revolving door and run up the escalator!

“Do you feel like I do!”

[Farfromgeneva]

There is no doubt an investigation needs to take place. But it needs to take place in THE OPEN for the people to see.

I am tired of things getting done in smoke-filled rooms. And I think a lot of reasonable (eg folks not blinded by r's and d's) think the same way.

FarfromG likes Pete. I am hoping, beyond rationality, that Tulsi gets a shot.

I’m a registered republican who’s just likely sitting this dung fest out, but yeah if I’m looking at dems my top two choices would be Pete and Yang.

[seacoaster]

"There is no doubt an investigation needs to take place. But it needs to take place in THE OPEN for the people to see."

Exactly; this is where compliance with requests for documents, and with subpoenas and testimony come into the picture. If I'm reading you right, I think you're mixed up about which "side" is deep sixing the investigation and keeping "the American People" in the dark.

[HooDat]

"There is no doubt an investigation needs to take place. But it needs to take place in THE OPEN for the people to see."

Exactly; this is where compliance with requests for documents, and with subpoenas and testimony come into the picture. If I'm reading you right, I think you're mixed up about which "side" is deep sixing the investigation and keeping "the American People" in the dark.

You are right. It seems to me that BOTH sides are keeping us in the dark for their own perceived benefits

[Trinity]

Republicans want to know what Volker spilled to safely align their testimony. They can know when this is over. Just tell the truth. Assume that he did.

[ggait]

I can see Moscow Mitch putting any article adopted and approved in the House to a Senate vote ASAP.

The Senate rules seem to require some sort of trial. And the presiding officer/judge of a presidential impeachment trial is Chief Justice Roberts.

Hard to see Mitch getting institutionalist Roberts to jam something through without some kind of reasonable process. Clinton's trial lasted a little bit more than one month start to finish.

[ggait]

You are right. It seems to me that BOTH sides are keeping us in the dark for their own perceived benefits

Wrong. False equivalence.

It is quite fair for the investigators (i.e. Dems) to build their case out of the public glare. That's how all investigations proceed. Leon Jaworski, Ken Starr, Bob Mueller all did it that way. The FBI isn't required to tell the mobsters in advance what evidence and witnesses they will seek. Because the mobsters would then be able to obstruct the investigations in numerous obvious ways.

The Dems will be required to present their case publicly and convincingly in due course when it comes time to consider impeachment articles in the House and then later with a Senate trial.

The current GOP demands for a House vote and various other "due process" things are just mechanisms to prevent the evidence from being gathered. Total bull shirt.

They'll have plenty of time to respond and defend Trump. What they seek now is solely to obstruct the investigation.

[wahoomurf]

At around the 1:32 mark in this video, listen to a private citizen, who was at one time a U.S. Congressman, give what is IMHO, an eloquent and pointed statement that any person, including the President of the United States of America, CAN NOT withhold information from the U.S. Congress. He is obviously quite familiar with the U.S. Constitution. Would that more of the current members of the U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government took a closer look at that magnificent document. (Thumbs Up and Clapping Emoji)

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-trey- ... -congress/

[MDlaxfan76]

There is no doubt an investigation needs to take place. But it needs to take place in THE OPEN for the people to see.

I am tired of things getting done in smoke-filled rooms. And I think a lot of reasonable (eg folks not blinded by r's and d's) think the same way.

FarfromG likes Pete. I am hoping, beyond rationality, that Tulsi gets a shot.

I’m a registered republican who’s just likely sitting this dung fest out, but yeah if I’m looking at dems my top two choices would be Pete and Yang.

(lifelong R)
I like Pete and Amy the most, not sure I understand Yang's pitch as yet.
There are aspects of Tulsi I like, but I'm not 'all in' on her like some on here.
I'd be fine with Kamala, serious person, not a flamer.
I'd be disappointed by Biden, but put up with it for 4 years if that's what it takes.
I'd be semi-horrified by Bernie or Warren...

But a 'piece of wood' gets my vote over Trump. Including the flamers.