↓
 
Home » Impeachment trial: it’s possible…

Impeachment trial: it’s possible…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that it won’t just be a few RINO Republicans who defect from the party line on calling more witnesses. The Democrats may harbor some defectors as well: Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey are saying they are contemplating voting against calling more witnesses, or at the very least they might support calling witnesses for both sides.

Usually these rumors come to nothing, though, and it’s the Republicans who defect while the Democrats stick together. But one never knows. This is an unusual situation, and these Democrats know that the public has tired of this mess.

I certainly know that I’ve tired of this mess. But what’s happening is both repulsive and important.

If you want to follow more closely, you can watch it live here:

Comments

Impeachment trial: it’s possible… — 33 Comments

  1. My prediction skills suck big time but I cannot conceive of any situation where Democrats get to call their witnesses but Trump gets nothing. Republican Senators would legitimately be at risk of physical harm when they returned to their states.

    Mike

  2. Ukraine is not an ally. At best, it’s a problematic and puny client state. Enough already with this ally crap.

  3. The one thing I’ve always noted about the Dems is their party discipline. No one strays from the fold. And, if by chance they happen to say the wrong thing they are quickly brought back into line. It’s the most obvious trait showing their totalitarian nature.

  5. physicsguy,

    Lots of dems aren’t smart enough to think for themselves. They can only regurgitate talking points or say things that appeal to their victim bases.

  6. I called my senators and posed this question. Have the House managers made their case for impeachment? If you believe they have, there is no reason to call further witnesses. Further witnesses are only necessary if you believe the managers haven’t made their case. In that case, you must take responsibility for the ensuing millions of dollars and months of time needed to continue. If you believe the President is guilty, you should proceed to a vote.

  7. My prediction skills suck big time but I cannot conceive of any situation where Democrats get to call their witnesses but Trump gets nothing.

    Not since Jeff Look-at-Me Flake shuffled off into retirement.

  8. [physicsguy] “The one thing I’ve always noted about the Dems is their party discipline. No one strays from the fold. And, if by chance they happen to say the wrong thing they are quickly brought back into line. It’s the most obvious trait showing their totalitarian nature.”

    A very insightful comment! I have often wondered why Dems fall into line as they do. All for the good of the Party. Individual thought not needed or wanted.

  9. Kate: “A very insightful comment! I have often wondered why Dems fall into line as they do. All for the good of the Party. Individual thought not needed or wanted.”

    It’s been my experience that people who are strong Democrats are more group oriented. They don’t like to make independent decisions. They are the team players. They love committees, shared decisions, and round table discussions. It’s in their DNA.

    Those who tend to be Republican oriented are usually more independent minded and tend to be doers, not those who wait for group approval of decisions. They dislike committee meetings, round table discussions, and shared decisions. Their individuality is important to them and they like to see themselves as independent of the herd. It’s in their DNA.

  10. I certainly hope the Dems are stupid enough to want to get their witnesses, and enough Republicans go along. Let’s see, John Bolton testifies that Trump said that he was going to hold up aid to Ukraine unless the Bidens were investigated. Hunter Biden testifies he doesn’t know any reason he was hired by Barisma other than his last name was Biden. Mike Mulvaney testifies, yes, the President wanted aid to Ukraine held up until the Bidens and Barisma were investigated. Pres. Zelensky testifies (via video) that he did not know the aid has being held, he never felt any pressure to investigate the Bidens, and he got the aid anyhow.

    That helps the Democrat case how?

  11. Dear Senator Romney:

    I donated $xxx to your 2012 presidential campaign.

    Can I have my money back?

    Yours,

    JFM

  12. Whaddaya expect?
    The MSM is 95% pro-Dem, 100% anti-Trump, per the Media Research Center, which says “Media Research Center study of broadcast evening news coverage of the opening arguments of both sides, found ABC, CBS, and NBC did not live up to the standard they demanded of Republicans. They gave Democrats double the airtime and showered their arguments with mostly praise, while expressing only criticism of the President’s legal team.”

    Will the sheeple buy it?
    C-Span is watched by few.

    Let’s get it over with and secede into an extended Confederacy.

  14. I highly recommend reading the first link from Ace’s post.
    Lots of good quotes from Dershowitz, including his (law) schooling of Sen. Warren.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-mulls-aggressive-plan-b-if-moderates-continue-to-demand-witnesses-in-impeachment-trial

    Separately, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, who delivered a spirited constitutional defense of the president on Monday night in the impeachment trial, took aim at Elizabeth Warren after she said she couldn’t follow Dershowitz’s argument.

    “He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent and that we should not be using the president’s intent as part of understanding impeachment,” Warren said Monday. “Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That’s the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it.”
    …
    Dershowitz replied on Twitter that Warren, who formerly taught at Harvard Law School, “doesn’t understand the law” and had “willfully mischaracterized” his argument.

    “If Warren knew anything about criminal law she would understand the distinction between motives – which are not elements of crime—and intent, which is. It’s the responsibility of presidential candidates to have a better understanding of the law,” Dershowitz said.

  17. Kind of funny, really – do any of these people believe anything they say at any time?

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/01/29/apparently-schiff-randomly-decides-when-bolton-lacks-any-credibility-n2560366

    According to a report from the New York Times, Bolton claims President Donald Trump made $391 million in military aid to Ukraine contingent upon Ukrainian officials launching an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, for corruption.

    The new claim directly contradicts what he said in August, just a month after Trump’s call with Zelensky. In that interview, he described the calls as “warm” and “cordial.” Now his story has changed now that he’s dropping a book.

    What makes this a headscratcher: on numerous occasions, Schiff has talked about how horrible Bolton is and “lacks any credibility.” If that’s the case, why would Schiff want Bolton to testify? Why would he rely on Schiff to make his case? Probably because he knows he has absolutely zero facts on his side.

  18. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/01/29/watch-bolton-described-trumps-call-with-zelensky-a-month-after-it-took-place-n2560363

    Democrats are citing this excerpt as yet another reason to have witnesses testify in President Trump’s impeachment trial and, in particular, to hear from Bolton.

    But, if you remember, the former national security adviser took part in an interview back in August. In that interview, he describes the United States’ foreign policy position relating to Ukraine. He even went so far as to mention Trump’s call with Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky.

    “I will be meeting President Zelensky. He and President Trump have already spoken twice. The president called President Zelensky to congratulate him on his election and then on his success in the parliamentarian election. They were very warm and cordial calls,” Bolton said. “We’re hoping that they’ll be able to meet in Warsaw and have a few minutes together because the success of Ukraine maintaining its freedom, its system of representative government, a free-market economy free of corruption, and dealing with the problems of the Donbass Crimea are high priorities here. Obviously it’s high priorities for the United States as well.”

    President Trump met with Zelensky at the end of September at the United Nations, just as Bolton had hoped. During that meeting, Zelensky thanked Trump for meeting with him.
    …
    Why is Bolton suddenly changing his tune? Is it because he has a book that’s dropping soon? Sure sounds like it. If he was worried about quid pro quo he would have said something throughout the entire impeachment inquiry. He wouldn’t all of a sudden have some shocking revelation to reveal.

  19. https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/01/29/wailing-commences-as-democrat-sen.-joe-manchin-now-says-hunter-biden-is-a-relevant-witness

    With every Republican, and now a Democrat as well, saying that Hunter Biden will be called if Bolton testifies, it means Democrats have to choose between not hearing Bolton testify or letting Republicans grill Hunter Biden. There’s no scenario where the latter goes well for them but if Bolton testifies, it’s going to happen.

    In response, Adam Schiff and Company are wailing to every network camera they can find that Hunter Biden’s testimony is irrelevant. That’s nonsense. He’s at the very center of any question dealing with the legitimacy of Trump’s investigative requests. If the younger Biden testifies, it risks helping the President by showing there was clearly reasonable suspicion in his actions. Schiff wants no part of that and had hoped to avoid it.

    Things are extremely fluid right now, but the Democrat strategy appears to be collapsing.

  20. This puts the questions about impeachment articles very clearly, especially these points made by Patrick Philbin:
    https://www.redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2020/01/29/impeachment-trial-former-law-clerk-for-clarence-thomas-destroys-schiff%e2%80%99s-abuse-of-power-charge/

    The second flaw is their divination of what an illicit motive is by the President, which requires essentially reading his mind, and they would determine that by comparing what he did to what staffers in the executive branch said he ought to do.
    The House managers claim that the President “ignored, defied, and confounded every agency within the executive branch.” Under the Constitution, the President cannot defy agencies within the executive branch. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution vests all of the executive power in a president of the United States. He alone is an entire branch of government. He alone sets policy for the executive branch. Their argument is unconstitutional on its face. The President is empowered by the Constitution and democratically accountable to the people; the bureaucrats are not.

    Sharyl Attkisson had a great post recently about that mind-reading act.

    https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/12/impeachment-democrats-can-read-minds/

  21. https://spectator.us/john-bolton-war-trump/

    Why John Bolton won’t win his war on Trump
    Far from damning Trump, his intervention suggests the president was acting in a reasonable manner BY Daniel McCarthy
    (as quoted at HotAir)

    The principle that foreign aid can be used as leverage to get another nation to investigate something that the US wants investigated is not something that Democrats would deny in other circumstances. Nor is the possibility that foreign corruption would implicate a Republican leader something that would cause Democrats to hold back from pressing for an investigation. They would insist that politics really had nothing to do with it — they were just honestly pursuing truth in an important matter reflecting on the integrity of, say, US elections. Naturally, with the roles reversed, Republicans would be making many of the arguments we now hear from Democrats. But the idea that suspected corruption should be overlooked because it might have partisan overtones is absurd: one of the very reasons we have a competitive party system is so that each party will check the abuses of the other. If the parties were to agree informally that no awkward questions would be asked about Biden business deals with foreign oligarchs so long as no such questions were asked about Bush or Trump business deals with similarly sketchy figures, that bargain would rightly be called ‘collusion’.

    Democrats naturally don’t want to think the worst of the Biden clan — and they insist on thinking the worst of Trump. But even as embittered a figure as John Bolton appears to report that President Trump was concerned about much more than the 2020 election. The collateral damage Joe Biden’s presidential campaign might suffer from Ukraine’s investigations (and if he’s so totally above-board, why would he suffer any damage at all?) would be the price to be paid for guaranteeing that there was no undue influence in the 2016 election. After all, this is the same line Democrats take about the Russia investigation — sure, it might turn out to be a dead end (as in fact, it has proved to be), and yeah, it might cripple a Republican administration for two years and help Democrats in the 2018 midterms, but that’s just the price that must be paid for taking foreign interference seriously.

    On that latter point, see this:
    https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/01/29/774064/

    Sekulow Just Nukes Schiff Over His Hypothetical About Using ‘Foreign Solicited Dirt to Start Sham Investigations’
    Posted at 7:30 pm on January 29, 2020 by Nick Arama

  22. More mind reading?

    https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/01/29/question-collins-murkowski-trump-ever-mention-biden-corruption-towards-ukraine-biden-entered-presidential-race/

    Date: July 25, 2018, months before Giuliani’s Ukraine effort against Biden got going. Trump was being asked about Biden even before that story appeared, telling CBS a week earlier that Biden would be his “dream” opponent. But of course that’s not true, and virtually all of the head-to-head polling this past fall bore it out. Biden consistently does better against Trump than any other Democratic candidate tested, an outcome Trump himself foresaw per Axios.

    That is to say, just because Biden didn’t formally announce until April 25, 2019 doesn’t mean that he wasn’t on the White House’s radar long before then as a likely candidate and probable nominee.

    “What did Trump know, and when did he know it?” is what AP wants to know.

    BTW, defense lawyer Philbin is really impressive.

  23. If what is claimed regarding the Chief Justice high-handing the Senate is true, perhaps he should be standing impeachment for it next year.

  24. Why the Media is rightfully despised.

    https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/01/28/fact-check-cnn-manu-raju-falsely-claims-gop-concedes-trump-may-have-withheld-aid-but-says-not-impeachable/

    There are several other quotes — all of which fit a similar pattern of arguing that what the president is alleged to have done is not impeachable, not that the Senators believe him to have actually done what is alleged.

    Of course, there are some Republicans who believe Trump did do at least some of what the Democrats allege, but they aren’t in the Senate (or if some of them do believe it, they aren’t saying so).

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/impeachment-questions-that-need-answering/

    What is the evidence that announcement of a Ukrainian investigation would have had any material impact on the U.S. election?

    [answer: none]

    What is the evidence that President Trump is actively corrupting the 2020 election?

    [answer: none]

    Why not subpoena John Bolton for four hours of narrow testimony on a single aspect of his communications with President Trump, or alternatively draw a negative inference against the president?

    For reasons that continue to baffle me, the president has not limited his defense to the positions that (a) the House has failed to charge impeachable offenses that approach the constitutional standard of egregiousness, and (b) nothing of consequence happened here — the Ukrainians got their defense aid; President Zelensky got an audience with the president; there was no undermining of Ukrainian security, much less of American national security; Ukrainian investigations were neither conducted nor announced; and the Ukrainians say they did not feel pressured.

    Instead, the president’s team continues to claim that everything was “perfect,” nothing inappropriate whatsoever happened, and there was no quid pro quo tying the transmission of congressionally authorized American security aid for Ukraine to Kyiv’s conducting of investigations President Trump wanted — probes of the Bidens and Ukraine’s alleged interference in the 2016 election.

    The president does not need to establish these facts in order to demonstrate that he should not be impeached and removed. But he has nevertheless insisted on putting these matters in issue.

    [answer: nobody really knows what Bolton would say]

  25. “For reasons that continue to baffle me, the president has not limited his defense…”

    Politics, how does it work??

    For reasons that continue to baffle me, legions of what I presume are otherwise smart people are numbly unable to comprehend that they aren’t going up against reasonable people making reasonable arguments who will admit they’re wrong just because silly things like facts prove they are lying scum.

    That’s why the GOP managed to get so thoroughly defeated by the left, and why the party also managed to get Donald Trump as nominee despite its flailing impotent rage against him and his supporters.

    Anyway, what this NR writer recommends is Trump defend himself using the same tactics the GOP used when it was going after Bill Clinton- i.e., keep it limited to technical, narrow questions that non-lawyers won’t care much about, if at all. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.

    Trump is accused of political crimes, not legal crimes- and limiting arguments to the written law simply aren’t good enough. Trump needs to defeat the political arguments against him, because the legal arguments are utterly baseless.

    I think an even better political defense might be to say that, yes of course we wanted something in return for the billions of dollars we give Ukraine, why wouldn’t we?

    Since Trump isn’t making that argument, I suspect that no, in fact there wasn’t any sort of quid pro quo here.

    Instead, we are just giving them money for nothing, which is stupid. The democrats should accuse Trump of that.

  26. About that Bolton Book:
    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/john-bolton-attorney-responds-to-nscs-threat-to-block-book-over-classified-information/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=first

    On January 23, the NSC had said that the draft of Bolton’s book contained classified information “at the TOP SECRET level” and could “cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security.”

    “The manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information,” the administration wrote in the letter, citing federal law and a non-disclosure agreement Bolton signed.

    Has anyone ever expressed any concern about the number of secretaries, agents, editors, and whatever they call typesetters these days who have already seen all of this TOP SECRET material?

  28. One thing I have grown fond of is President Trump’s sense of humor.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/01/29/president-trump-remarks-during-usmca-signing-ceremony-video-and-transcript/

    Welcome also to many members of Congress who were key to getting the deal done, including Senator Grassley. Where is Chuck? Where is Chuck? Oh. Oh, he was brutal. (Applause.) He would call me; he would say, “How is it going? How is it going?” And with Chuck, you just don’t mess around. You said, “We’ll get it done. Don’t worry.” Thank you, Senator, very much.

    And Pat Roberts, Martha McSally.

    And I want to just, if I could, mention — because we do have some incredible people that worked so hard, and — senators. And maybe I’m being just nice to them because I want their vote. Does that make sense? (Laughter.) I don’t want to leave anybody out. Hey, congressmen, I already got your vote — 196 to nothing. The hell with you. (Laughter.) I think I have to mention some senators that are here.

  29. So CJ Roberts refuses to say the name “Eric Ciaramella” when a Senator uses that name in a question, and therefore refuses to read the question altogether. Seems counter to “good conduct”, to me. Riding roughshod over the Senate in its own chamber? Oh, no, it’s all fine — that’s the essence of impartial justice — go right ahead.

  31. Here is Senator Paul’s question:

    Sen Paul, Twitter: “My exact question was:

    Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings.”

    Sen. Paul goes on: “My question is not about a ‘whistleblower’ as I have no independent information on his identity. My question is about the actions of known Obama partisans within the NSC and House staff and how they are reported to have conspired before impeachment proceedings had even begun.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

↑