Zombie Post about Zombie Impeachment Trial
Not only is the trial DOA because it’s unconstitutional, the Democrats really don’t care about the Democrats’ Trial Brief. They would vote to convict Trump if all the House submitted were doodles on a cocktail napkin.
You’re not going to make me actually analyze the Trial Brief filed by the Democrats in Trump’s upcoming unconstitutional and illegitimate Senate impeachment trial, are you? You can do it and post comments.
I refuse to do it. Because this is a Zombie Trial:
Senator Rand Paul brought a motion today declaring that the upcoming trial of former president Donald Trump was unconstitutional, because the Senate has no constitutional authority to try a former president.
Paul is completely correct, for reasons we have explained in detail before:
- Impeachment 2.0 – No, the Senate cannot convict Trump after he leaves office
- Impeachment Problem? Chief Justice Roberts May Not Have Constitutional Authority To Preside At Trial Of FORMER President
- Report: Senate Republicans Negotiating Terms of Unconstitutional Post-Departure Trump Impeachment Trial
- Mitt Romney on board with post-departure impeachment trial of Trump
- Reports: Chief Justice John Roberts Will Not Preside At Upcoming Trump Senate Trial
Not only is the trial DOA, the Democrats really don’t care about the Democrats’ Brief. They would vote to convict Trump if all they submitted were doodles and a cocktail napkin.
Trump also submitted his Answer to the single count of impeachment for “inciting insurrection.” You can post comments on that too. His Trial Brief is not due until next Monday.
Nothing actually matters about any of this. It’s all Democrat Kabuki Theater.
Of course we will cover the trial. As theater critics.
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The Grand Impeacher Pelosi holds the record for bringing the most impeachments in U.S. history.
Right now she’s tied for most losses. “Here Chuckles, hold my ice cream”, she said.
She is woman, hear her roar!
This is a political show trial. And, unfortunately, for the Democrats, Donald Trump is a showman. When he is testifying, the Democrats will need to interrupt and browbeat him at every turn to keep him from scoring points with the American people. And, that is going to make the Dems look worse than the Kavanaugh Impeachment.
No! Tell me it isn’t true! Why, I’ve heard a number of media interview Important Concerned Democrat Senators who have opined at great length how they have not yet decided to vote to convict, although there are vast piles and heaps of incriminating evidence that nobody has really seen yet and really exists, honest! They hem and haw about this Great Constitutional Burden and how such Violent Attacks Upon The Great Institution Must Never Happen Again, and how Serious Steps Need To Be Taken To Stop Any Future Attacks, then the reporter makes a close with some blathering nonsense about how the results will not be known until the vote.
Bull. We know the results now.
-Romney will vote to convict. Romney would vote to convict Trump on *any* charge no matter how stupid.
-The Dems will stand united and vote en bloc to convict Trump.
–*Maybe* one or two Dems will defect. Probably not. Defectors will be treated much like the USSR treated defectors.
–The usual suspects in the Republican party stand about a 50% chance each of defecting, like they did on the unconstitutionality question. There will be no punishment for them in the Senate.
-*After* the failed vote, the Dems will try to steamroll a vote through on the “And you can’t hold office again” charge. As blatantly unconstitutional as it is, they will get 51 votes, and proudly declare Trump can no longer run for the Presidency. (which is a giant steaming pile, but they’ll try)
And the inevitable:
-Every MSM host will cluck their tongues and agree with every single word the Dems say.
This is me, not watching and not reading.
I still believe the trial is constitutional. But the charges are ridiculous. If I were a senator I would have voted against Sen. Paul’s motion declaring it unconstitutional; but I’d support a motion to cut to the chase and give Trump summary judgment. He has no case to answer.
Some doors should never be cracked open. Giving the enemy entrance is just asking for it to go wrong. A firm “No” can avoid future mischief.
What you BELIEVE is immaterial. The truth is what it is. In the United States of America, a man can not be tried, if the court has no authority to impose any penalty. Also, a man can not be tried for a criminal act, if there is no probable cause that the person committed the crime charged. Both conditions apply in this case.
In the first place, the Senate could “try” Trump for the next two weeks. But, even if they “convicted” him, they can not impose any penalty, constitutionally. If they impose one, unconstitutionally, they are liable, civilly, criminally and subject to potential impeachment, themselves.
In the second place, the members of the House, who investigated this case, can be subject to the same penalties, if they did not establish probable cause that Trump committed a criminal offense.
In this case, no penalty can be impose by the Senate, so no trial can take place. And, no probable cause exists that Trump intended to foment insurrection. And, intent is necessary for the crime of insurrection. So, technically, the impeachment was unconstitutional.
Also, a man can not be tried for a criminal act
But impeachment is not a criminal process, it’s a political one. A President need not have committed a criminal act or any act at all to be impeached; he could be impeached for eating a ham sandwich.
Personally I think Milhouse probably has an academic argument about impeachment, but as a practical matter that isn’t how impeachment is understood today, nor within living memory. For better or for worse, it’s one of those areas where we’re caught on the horns of a dilemma – pedantically parsing ambiguous, archaic language vs. penumbras and emanations.
Read the Constitution. The President can ONLY be impeached for committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
“Article 2 Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
People continually try to make the argument that impeachment annd trial, by the Congress, is a political process, not aa judicial one, based upon the fact that the Congress is a political body. However, when acting within the impeachment process, the Congress takes on the aspects of a judicial body, in that it acts as prosecutor, judge and jury and imposes a binding sentence upon the official impeached. In fact, we can even surmise that the Founders understood that impeachment was a quasi-judicial process, at least, because they specifically exempted it from double jeopardy constraints:
“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.” – Article 1 Section 3
If one wants to actually argue that impeachment and trial, by the Congress, is strictly a political process, then one has to acknowledge that it exist for the sole purpose of removing a sitting official, from office, for commission of criminal acts. The above portion of Article 1 Section 3 would also support that argument. And, when one reads Article 2 Section 4, it strengthens the argument that the sole purpose of impeachment and trial by Congress is for the removal of said sitting official.
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” – Article 2 Section 4
In fact, it makes it mandatory that said official SHALL be removed from office upon conviction.
If political, rather than judicial, in nature, impeachment and conviction is moot, if the official is no longer in office, as he can not be “removed” from an office which he does not hold.
Mac, that’s illogical. Just because impeachment is a trial for “high crimes and misdemeanors” (non-political offenses) does not mean that the impeachment is not political.
If impeachment is not political, how do you square Art I, sec 3 with the 5th Amendment’s prohibition on “double jeopardy”? Because if impeachment isn’t a political process (conducted by politicians in judgment of other politicians and political appointees), then what is it? It is not “quasi-judicial,” because the 5th Amendment doesn’t amend Art I, sect 3. It’s not anything “-judicial.” Art I, sec 3 specifically says that an impeached president may be tried (judicially) for the same crimes that led to his impeachment. Therefore impeachment can’t be a judicial process (conducted in a court of law), otherwise the V Amendment would have altered Art I, sec 3 to make the clause permitting post-impeachment trial inoperative.
Impeachment is conducted by politicians, against other politicians, and imposes political penalties. It is a political administrative process by which a politician suspected of crimes may be removed from office so that he can subsequently by tried by an actual court at a time when the criminal proceeding won’t interfere with the administration of the government and can’t be viewed as intended to sway an office-holder’s policies or agenda.
A few points.
Double jeopardy does not state that any court case dealing with the same set of facts is impossible. An acquittal doesn’t prevent a civil suit with the exact same allegations made and yet you would hardly claim that a civil suit is not a judicial proceeding. Similarly, the Impeachment trial is not a criminal process. Its remedy is not punishment but removal from office and possibly disqualification for office, not as a punishment for the officeholder but as a measure to ensure the integrity of the administration of a constitutional republic. Penal consequences require a trial with all due process protections afforded by law, as opposed to the British Impeachment, where judgment could reach any and all remedies the House of Lords thought appropriate.
Impeachment historically is a trial that is not before a court but before Parliament, where the House of Commons (the House of Representatives) impeaches someone, and the House of Lords (the Senate) sits as court and tries the case. The language in the constitution confirms this. The Impeachment is a tried, no person shall be convicted without concurrence of two thirds, the Judgment in Cases of Impeachment cannot extend to punishment beyond removal from office and possibly disqualification.
And Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment shall be by Jury. (Art. III, section 2).
Mac, that is all high-grade bullshit. Impeachment is not a criminal process, so none of the “rules” you assert apply.
Second, even if you were correct, neither the house members nor the senators involved can ever possibly be liable for what they do here, whether criminally or civilly. The speech or debate clause gives them absolute immunity. The judicial branch can never tell the legislative branch what it may or may not do, or sit in judgment on what a legislator has done. Nor can congressmen be impeached.
Totally untrue.
First you make the assumption that impeachment is a political, rather than quasi-judicial function. Assumptions are dangerous things. As I have pointed out, the nature of impeachment and trial, by Congress, causes the Congress to act as a judicial body, not a political one. It brings charges against a member of another branch of government, tries that official while seated as a JURY and imposes a binding sentence upon that official. his is exactly the same thing that occurs within the judicial sphere.
And, therefor, it is likely that the same constitutional safeguards would apply. While the House, sitting to vote upon articles of impeachment, may enjoy the same safeguards against liability as a grand jury, the investigators, who collect and present evidence may have the same liability for their actions as those in the judicial sphere. The same would be true for the trial in the Senate. Immunity from liability, for “speech and debate” taken by a legislator on the floor of the House or Senate, does not extend other actions. And, the House does not have carte blanche to impeach a sitting official on a whim. Sufficient evidence has to be presented, prior to impeachment, that establishes probable cause to believe that the official actually committed criminal act.
While the judicial branch may not tell the legislative branch what it may or may not do, the judicial can prosecute for violations of the law based upon Constitutional provisions, such as those found in the Bill of Rights, with regard to due process.
Wrong again.
To start with your last point the judicial branch cannot prosecute anyone. That is a fundamental limit on its power. This is not Europe, where judges can turn into tyrants and inquisitors.
The whole impeachment process is not a criminal proceeding and is not bound by any of the limits on criminal proceedings. There is no right to due process, no protection against self-incrimination or double jeopardy, no nothing. And yes, the house can impeach on a whim. The only limits are those the constitution imposes: That conviction is by two thirds of the senate, and that the maximum penalty available is removal from office and disqualification for future appointed offices. The senate, having convicted someone, can’t impose fines on them, or throw them in prison, or even bar them from elective office. It’s because the potential penalty is so limited that there’s no need for other safeguards.
All of that said, the charges here are ridiculous. Trump didn’t do any of the things they’re accusing him of, and that’s why he should be acquitted. He’s been very foolish, and has listened to very bad advice, but he has not done anything wrong.
Ignoring some of the other points that others have discussed about your post isn’t their a more fundamental issue here. Ignoring the specifics of the Trump case if it’s unconstitutional to impeach someone when they are leaving office doesn’t that give them carte blanche to do do what ever the hell they like. That’s a practical problem. If that’s true it means that there is zero recourse for a sitting president provided they are willing to resign after whatever crime they commit. That’s a pretty bad flaw in that context Milhouse’s points about the historic understanding of the impeachment clause have considerable weight.
So cringey, mark311. I taught for many years, and you’re the guy I spent a lot of time on but who just never ever got it.
On to your babble: Here’s the thing, Trump never incited anyone to riot any more than Bernie Sanders incited his lunatic fan to shoot up the GOP practice game. If you think that a pol, in this case Trump, is responsible for what his most unhinged supporter does, then I want you to condemn, right now, Bernie Sanders for “inciting” that nutjob to shoot at 30 GOP reps as they practiced for their charity game.
If you agree that Bernie is solely and completely responsible for that attempted mass assassination, then I’ll think about whether or not Trump incited some tiny fraction of his supporters to storm the Capitol.
Yet you’ve missed the entire point of what I said. I have say Fuzzy you haven’t really understood any aspect of my argument.
I specifically say to ignore the Trump impeachment. In other words imagine a scenario where a president commits a crime that’s absolutely 100 percent true and every senator and every congress person and every single member of the public thinks and knows them to be guilty. The problem is under the Professor’s reading of the constitution that president could just resign or wait until the end of there term before committing a crime. Being president they couldn’t be indicted so it would in effect mean that a president was above the law without recourse. That’s the real implication and the question I pose.
As for your nonsense fallacy about condemning Sanders. That’s a classic strawman. Not relevent at all to the argument at hand nor even relevant to whether Trump did or did not commit incitement.
For all your bluster, ad hominem and bullshit you aren’t able to argue your point at all.
Wrong. Even if a sitting president can’t be indicted, the minute they’re no longer president they can be.
No, it’s a straight comparison. Sanders did the same things Trump did. And one of his followers who took him seriously decided to kill him a dozen or two Republicans. He came a lot closer to murder than any of the Jan 6 rioters did. (Note that the stories we were fed about a cop being bashed with a fire extinguisher turned out to be high-grade male bovine waste product.) If Trump is guilty than so must Sanders be; and vice versa.
@milhouse
Yes its a strawman, Bernie Sanders didn’t run around inciting anyone even Steve Scalise was clear that Bernie Sanders wasn’t at fault. Sure you can blame some of the commentators who used vitriolic language but none of those people were in positions of authority.
Then there is this what relevance does another person or persons guilt in a separate crime have on a separate incident. Its a distraction to not address the point I made.
Sure blame the state of discourse but be honest about the role Trump has played.
Sanders did exactly the same things that Trump did, and with less justification. Scalise doesn’t blame him for the shooting for the exact same reason that he doesn’t blame Trump for the Capitol riot.
@ Milhouse
I’m not convinced that there is a direct comparison at all, that said im struggling to find many references to any Bernie Sanders speech prior to the shooting of Scalise etc. All the references are to other parties such Kathy Griffin and her ‘comedy sketch’. For clarity I think that her particular sketch was inappropriate nor funny.
Given the lack of source for what Bernie Sanders actually said I’m struggling to find evidence pointing in either direction.
Since you are a stickler for references, please quote and cite any and all (or even ONE) direct reference President Trump made to his supporters urging them to engage in and commit violence.
Or do you just think justifiably questioning the election results is ‘incitement’? If so, then how is Sanders’ and the Democrats’ insistence that Republicans are evil, racist, blah blah fascists who colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election any different? Spin, mark311, spin!
You can’t be this stupid. There’s no way an adult human being is this woefully moronic, ignorant, and dumb. Are you trying to invoke our pity because you are too slow to compete on the merits (or lack thereof) of your ideals and worldview.
You seem to be advocating the impeachment of past presidents to hold them accountable. This is a petty, ugly, evil stance, but if you insist, I want Clinton and Obama impeached immediately. Yesterday, even. Accountability starts with Obama (or maybe GWB, with Obama second). Both are corrupt to their very core.
Again with the ad hominem.
The question at hand is Trump not Obama , not Clinton. Try and focus on the question not your petty grievances.
If you want to dwell on impeaching some other party then sure go ahead. That’s absolutely fine. Now you just need to prove that the committed an impeachable offence, and that it isn’t a waste of everybodies time. Frivilous use of time don’t you think given that there was plenty of time during the course of Obama’s administration to carry out an impeachment. Why return to it, oh that’s why because the case would be riddled with gaping holes.
But that is simply not the case.
If the President resigns and leaves office, the purpose of impeachment is fulfilled.
If the President committed a crime the (then-)former president can then be prosecuted for it – as any other person can be prosecuted for a crime.
Impeachment is no hindrance, the Party impeached
Taking a look at the British impeachment the main point of this clause seems to be that Impeachment may not lead to criminal punishments unlike the British version, so if criminal punishment is warranted it needs to be determined “according to Law” according to the rules established for criminal trials.
If anything, one might argue that acquittal precludes any “Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment” of the underlying conduct. Perhaps that is one point of this hasty Impeachment, come to think of it. After all, with help of their presstitutes Democrats will claim the Senate only acquitted for partisan reasons but, sadly, that means that no impartial judge and jury can deal with it. Convenient, given that any impartial judge would throw this ridiculous accusation out with prejudice at the first opportunity.
That’s not the case, or at the very least there is significant debate around that point. According to the DoJ a sitting president cannot be indicted that’s there stated policy. Hence why the Mueller report didn’t draw a criminal conclusion he said something along the lines of Trump did X and y but there is nothing you can do about it.
That results in no other mechanism for legally challanging a presidents wrong doing other than at state level and impeachment. Thus in many instances impeachment is the only mechanism to hold a president to account. Further the impeachment process is more than just about removal it’s about fitness for office by virtue of being able to disqualify someone from running for office.
Judge Sullivan wouldn’t throw it out. He would appoint Pelosi as Prosecutor and Schumer for the Defense.
And for good reason. That applies only to a sitting president, though.
Not quite.
There can be no debate that disqualification from office is a punishment, and thus falls under the prohibition of bills of attainder. The only way it can be permissible is an express constitutional provision that allows this particular bill of attainder. And indeed, there is a special provision that allows the Congress to do just that, namely
Because this is an exception to an otherwise expressly forbidden practice its construction must be as narrow as possible. That means a disqualification depends on conviction and removal from Office as consequence of that conviction. The “Judgment … shall not extend further than” gives the utmost limit of possible consequences of the Senate’s judgment, it does not change the nature of Impeachment as removal from office. Where that cannot be achieved because the officeholder already is out of office, the jurisdiction of the Senate has ended.
By the way, since the House Managers dishonestly claim President Trump was impeached in 2021 while he was in office (p. 49 of their rancor-filled pseudo-trial memorandum): while the Pelosi House voted while President Trump was still in office, the article was deliberately not delivered until several days after President Biden assumed office.
Delivery is an integral part of Impeachment, which therefore wasn’t performed while Trump was in office. Instead of being the first President to be twice impeached during his tenure, he is the first to be unconstitutionally impeached after completing his term in office.
Some fair points there,
I think the difficulty for me leading on from that logic is that the president should really be held to a high standard. I fully appreciate that under criminal law the standard for incitement is very high thus a criminal prosecution is unlikely. However given that the law makes no distinction between who incited ,as far as I’m aware, therefore a president who holds tremendous power should be held to a higher political standard hence impeachment. There is no doubt that Trump was inflammatory so from a impeachment perspective he is clearly guilty ( I know you’ll disagree and that’s fine) on a criminal charges level though no I don’t think there is a case due to the standard required by that statute.
No. Just no. Impeachment is the remedy for the President, and certain other officers that had some sort of immunity to prosecution due to their positions. If you can’t prosecute them criminally, you need another corrective mechanism. Thus, impeachment.
Once out of office, impeachment no longer applies, but the standard criminal system does. The proper remedy at that point is to arrest, charge, and try them in court for their offenses, just like any other private citizen.
So where are the court cases against former President Trump? Civil, or criminal? If he’s guilty of incitement to insurrection, and the proof is ironclad, where is the case number?
There are plenty of court cases relating to Trump just not relating to incitement
Read both Art 1 Sec 3 and Art 2 Sec 4 of the Constitution. These two sections clearly state that the purpose of impeachment and trial, in Congress, is for the purpose of REMOVING a sitting official from public office, for commission of criminal acts. So, if the official is no longer in office, he can not be removed and therefore the impeachment is moot.
Leaving office, prior to conviction for impeachment, only ends the impeachment process. If probable cause exists that the official did, in fact, commit criminal acts, while in office, then he can be indicted, charged, tried an convicted of those charges.
Now, if the Congress so chooses,, they can hold public debate and harangue the former President for days. They can call him all sorts of vile names and spread malicious lies about him. What they can not do is impose any real penalty upon him.
You’re ignoring the bar to future office-holding. This is a punishment specifically applicable to the impeachment of a former president because “removal from office” is no longer viable. Please see my argument elsewhere based on my review of Madison’s Notes.
mark, there are several remedies for a president who commits crimes, or merely misbehaves.
Crimes:
Impeachment – meant to remove him from office to that he can be indicted, and to prevent him from holding office in the future as a known bad egg.
Indictment and trial post-term (whether impeached or a “natural” departure from office) – meant to punish him for crimes, whether impeached or not, and applicable to crimes committed while president or before being seated as president (I’m presuming we’re not discussing crime committed after leaving office).
Misbehavior & policy disagreements – the ballot addresses general bad (but not criminal) behavior or disagreement with policy or agenda, applicable both to an initial term (keeping a candidate from achieving the presidency) and to a second term (preventing a president from attaining a second term).
I don’t understand how you think any interpretation of the rules of impeachment provide a means for a president to escape judgment for either actual crimes or for mere bad behavior. There are always potential consequences, just not all behavior is addressable by impeachment, and impeachment explicitly (Art I, sec 3) creates no bar to criminal prosecution.
But only appointed office. Nothing bars him from elected office, if the voters, knowing his record, decide to elect him anyway.
I do see your point and certainly there is a debate around how best to deal with a situation like this. I suppose it could be broken down into a set of questions 1) what was the offence 2) what position commited that offence 3) what is the nature of that person to the public.
The reason I phrase it like this is because as some other have correctly stated the USA is a republic precisely because of situations like this. A man who is very popular but functioning like a demagogue has used there position in a highly negative way to the detriment of the Republic. You can debate that phasing but that’s the principle position of many Democrats and a number of moderate Republicans. The next part of the context is that Trump remains despite of the things he has done, been given a free pass by a lot of Republicans at large on a populist basis. Further to that he has just won a huge amount of votes, not enough to win sure but enough to be a populist threat something the founders would agree poses a danger given Trumps nature. Again for clarity that’s the lense in which I discuss his impeachment so let’s not dwell on whether that’s a fair lense it’s just a lense that is widely supported.
So on the basis of that context what’s the appropriate solution. Well criminal law rightly has a very high standard of proof, it requires proof beyond reasonable doubt but as we all know politics and politicians are messy and anything regarding inflammatory commentary. That makes the pursuit of such a thing difficult and rightly so. Then there is the point that the nature of Trump’s crimes in a sense is outside the scope of criminal law (when talking about the Capitol riots) he holds a position of enormous power with a massive following and he used his words deliberately and consistently over a long period. That’s not something that the law really takes into account.
Then we have punishment by the electorate well that won’t work because he has just been kicked out of office. His position as a lame duck thereby rendering him immune to electoral punishment. All he has to do is wait until 2024 and do his populist piece all over again. This is especially true given the consistency of his base despite all the things he has done.
So we are left with impeachment which fits the crime. He abused his position of power to incite a riot so take that away. In other words the punishment fits the crime. I don’t think Trump intended for people to die, but I don’t really think he cares either. The speech was purely to advance himself and his personal cause.
That’s my reasoning for what it’s worth
I don’t “debate the phrasing”, I call it absolute bull****.
Because they’re full of ****. And those aren’t “moderate republicans”, they’re Democrats who for convenience occasionally pretend to be Republicans.
@Milhouse
Well we reach the crux of our differences, to me its blindingly obvious that Trump is a man of poor character (insert long rant here). There is so much evidence of his behaviours, lying, abusiveness, cronyism and egoism that it beggars belief that you don’t see that.
To me the consequence of this is simple if you dont hold your own ‘guy’ to the same standard as the opposition then you create a situation whereby the next time someone else does something wrong all they do is point that out and carry on whether they be Republican or Democrat or something else. Its a slippery slope indeed.
The recourse is to charge them and prosecute them in a criminal court with the same protections that anyone else has.
There have been four Presidential impeachments in US History. NONE have removed a President. Impeachment is a Paper Tiger.
The trial is constitutional. . . maybe, probably, I think so. But that is moot at this point because the point of that vote was to show Dems and the public that Dems were tilting at windmills, wasting time sucking on top-drawer ice cream bars while many cannot pay their rent.
You know if you gotta turn the text on its side and squint your eyes then the thing you think you are reading probably isnt the thing you think you are reading.
True, since the House of Representatives sent over the article, the Senate needs to dispose of it.
A very informative and concise description of the original Impeachment proceedings can be found in a 2016 briefing paper on Impeachment for the House of Commons.
There are differences, while the British Parliament claimed the power to impeach any commoner or peer whether in office or not, the American Impeachment only reaches officeholders. And the Federal Impeachment only during tenure, while in certain States Impeachment was only allowed after tenure.
Federalist 39 plainly shows the framers were aware of the possibility to impeach after tenure and did deliberately reject this for the federal Impeachment:
Therefore, the Impeachment deliberately transmitted by the Pelosi House only on January 25 at 7:12 p.m. several days after the end of the term of President Trump is unconstitutional and the only constitutional way to dispose of it is its dismissal by the Senate as unconstitutional, or at the very least as moot.
The Federalist’s stricture is not mentioned in the Constitution. In departing from the British model, why didn’t the authors indicated that it was their intent to do so?
I have just reviewed every instance of the consideration of impeachments recorded by Madison in his Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention. I see no discussion that would even imply the intent to bar post-term impeachment. I did notice that an early draft had only the punishment of “removal from office.” I could find no discussion pertaining to the addition of the punishment of barring the impeached person from future office. One might argue that this additional provision was meant to provide a punishment for persons already out of office, as “removal from office” was no longer a viable consequence.
Dave, I’m really sorry, I somehow missed or ignored your comment until now.
I think the framers did indicate the change quite clearly in the text of the constitution. The English impeachment was a criminal trial at its core, as far as I can tell the House of Commons claimed the right to impeach every peer and commoner.
The constitution rejects the Impeachment as a criminal proceeding with respect to the possible sentence (removal from office, and if added, disqualification to hold office).
The problem the framers wanted to address and which seems to be the focus of their debates, was how to get rid of bad officers or presidents without making them creatures of the legislature.
The remedy is removal, and since that is impossible if the person holds office no longer it is impossible to remove that person. That seems to be a sufficient indication, albeit admittedly it is not impossible to argue about it, because they also allowed, with respect to avoiding future problems, to add a disqualification.
I don’t think that’s what your citation means. It’s contrasting the constitution’s provision with the one that applied in Delaware and Virginia. It’s saying that unlike those states’ legislatures, congress doesn’t have to wait for the president to leave office before impeaching him; it can impeach him immediately and thus make him leave office. It’s not saying that he can’t be impeached later, it’s saying that he can even be impeached earlier, and a fortiori later.
I don’t think you’re correct, I’m sure that assessment comes as a shock to you.
Let’s look at the Delaware and Virginia constitutions and see if it is the only point of contrast.
The Delaware Constitution of 1776 says
while the Virginia Constitution of 1776 provides
Madison provides an overview of the wide variety of the existing rules about the chief executive and rules for possible impeachment in the states at the time.
That is not a valid a fortiori argument.
The differences of the matters at hand are too great, chief among them who elects the President on the one hand and the “president or chief magistrate” or “Governor” respectively on the other.
and in Virginia both houses elected the Governor annually
In other words, Impeachment of the President of the United States reaches an official elected for four years by the Electoral College, not by the Congress, impeachment in both states reaches an official elected for three years (Delaware) or even annually by both Houses, and in both states, the president or chief magistrate, or the Governor would leave office after three years of tenure and would only be eligible for reelection after three or four intervening years.
Given that the prosecutor of impeachment would have to have elected the person, and the members of the court of impeachment would have done so as well, and that (very) recently impeachment during tenure would be politically next to impossible. The solution for this problem the States chose was to allow impeachment post-tenure that aims primarily at disability.
Neither Representatives (the prosecution) nor Senators (the Court of Impeachment) would be in a similarly conflicted position (but for rarest of circumstances, and in under no circumstances are both so conflicted at the same time). Also the President’s term is only longer and allows for immediate reelection (and at the time without any term limit).
These differences more than justify the difference in treatment. And the reasons that lead to the necessity of post-office impeachment of the highest government official in these states do not apply on the Federal level. The remedy is different for the same reasons.
Go ahead and cite sufficient legal authority for your incorrect “belief.”
As I understand it, under English law (as practiced at the timeo f the founding of the United States) an impeachment could be brought against a former office holder. Because the authors of the Constitution did not note that they intended to depart from that model (with language like “except that no president, having departed from office, may be charged or tried for impeachment”) it can’t be presumed that they intended such a departure.
Even given the speculative language above, some would still argue that Trump was not a “former” president at the time of his impeachment, and once started, the process must be concluded in the Senate. So additional language like “nor shall an impeachment process continue after a president leaves office”.
Given the complete absence of any such language, the precedent was set by English juris prudence and the authors of the Constitution indicated no deviation therefrom. Post-office impeachment proceedings are constitutional. (Although the Constitution requires the chief justice of SCOTUS to preside over the Senate trial of a president, it is silent on the question of who may preside over the trial of a former president. It neither requires the chief justice from presiding at Trump’s Senate trial, nor does it prohibit the chief justice – or anyone else, for that matter – from presiding.)
Interesting thank you
You’re welcome.
I see I didn’t complete my thought in the second paragraph:
Even given the speculative language above, some would still argue that Trump was not a “former” president at the time of his impeachment, and once started, the process must be concluded in the Senate. So additional language like “nor shall an impeachment process continue after a president leaves office” would be necessary to specifically prevent the continuation of an impeachment such as we have in the present situation.
Its a welcome change to have a friendly response. I very much appreciate that.
Yes, the British Impeachment could be brought against someone no longer in office. This is not surprising since it could be brought against every commoner or peer.
Are you saying that the (American) Impeachment can be brought against anyone even if he never held any office subject to impeachment? If not, why do you think there is sufficient textual basis to reject this while it is insufficient to exclude those that cannot be removed from office because they are not any longer in office?
Ditto, Milhouse, ditto.
I disagree, having “A TRIAL” without the judiciary is not a trial and is unconstitutional. As for impeachment, what the house did is constitutional. Since Trump is not in office it is moot.
They can do whatever they want, but they can not charge him with a crime unless it goes to the courts. It is a clear Bill of Attainment. They tied this crap during the McCarthy area and the SC rules against it.
That said, they can do whatever they want, but it is not two things Constitutional or a Trial.
If they succeed, then the rule of law is moot. So nothing is Constitutional.
Huh? What are you talking about? What judiciary is ever involved in a senate trial of an impeachment? When Alcee Hastings was tried and convicted, the only judge present was the defendant!
Well there was a Grand Jury Investigation before it all and he did not challenge the impeachment to which he ran for office and succeed.
So was the Trump impeached as President? If the condition of Impeachment is “President” then the “Trial” would require the Chief Justice preside. Since the issue with Impeachment has to do with the Office, if the Chief Justice is not present, they it does not meet the require of Article 1
Article I, Section 3, Clause 6:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Without the Chief Justice, there is no “Impeachment of the President” So what is it? The milk has expired. I guess Congress can go around and impeach anyone one the they. It is meaningless, childless and stupid.
Tell me who they are impeaching? President? or Citizen? Impeaching a citizen holds no value in law or does it?
Tell me where in the history of the United States a non-office holding Citizen has been impeached?
Belknap. And Blount, except that then they decided congressmen, whether in or out of office, aren’t subject to impeachment.
So they went after Belknap and failed. Not sure what they hope to accomplish even if they had. When a criminal charge was mounted, Grant shot that down.
Right now the Mich. Ag is going after any lawyer that was fighting election fraud to be debarred. Lets talk about more abuse of the system.
Belknap:
The 1876 impeachment of War Secretary William Belknap is unique for being the only Cabinet secretary (or former Cabinet secretary as it was) to face impeachment.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-impeachment-william-belknap-tells-us-about-second-trial-donald-trump-177142
As for Blout, they dismissed it. Based on the process, it sounds like it was because he was on considered a civil servant anymore, but it was not clear. Process seems to reflect it.
In January of 1799, after three days of exhaustive arguments, the Senate deliberated behind closed doors, then voted on two resolutions. On January 10, 1799, the Senate failed to pass the following resolution by a vote of 11–14:
That William Blount was a civil officer of the United States within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore liable to be impeached by the House of Representatives; That as the articles of impeachment charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors, supposed to have been committed while he was a Senator of the United States, his plea [to dismiss the charges] ought to be overruled.
On January 11, 1799, the Senate approved the following resolution by a vote of 14–11:
The court is of opinion that the matter alleged in the plea of the defendant is sufficient in law to show that this court ought not to hold jurisdiction of the said impeachment, and that the said impeachment is dismissed.
more here:
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The-First-Impeachment.htm
So both “citizen impeachments” failed with Blount likely being because he was no longer in office.
So, back to the original question Is he being impeached as the Presidents or a citizen?
He is entitled to protection of impeachment “AS PRESIDENT” when his actions were acting as President, so I would believe that he is entitled to have the SC justice at his trial.
Many democrats and Republicans have directly or indirectly benefitted from corruption. Imagine being an outsider (PDJT) accusing the insiders (schumer, pelosi, romney, et al) of corruption. Then, as the outsider, becomming the subject of quasi-legal cum political proceedings (impeachment trial), instigated and populated by the very people you accused of corruption. Imagine those people running the process from start to finish, including votes for removal/no removal. This is why I believe PDJT gathered iron clad, indisputabl evidence AND THE MEANS to deliver said evidence. Not only to some kangaroo impeachment court, but directly to the American people. I have said here before and often: I believe we are in for a heII of a ride the next few months. We’re in for some big and hard truths soon. “Let’s just see what happens” is soon to become “I can’t believe that all just happened.”
We have a zombie, backstabbing Republican party, which is a lot more dangerous than the rabid imbeciles of the democrat party.
The House Republican Steering Committee on Tuesday night did not reach a decision on whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) will retain her committee assignments, two GOP sources familiar with the talks said:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/537079-greenes-future-on-house-committees-in-limbo-after-gop-meeting?amp
We’ve either got to do a massive job of throwing these rino scumbags out, or let’s just get the hell OUT of the GOP, and start a new party – expense and challenge be damned: we’ll wind up a lot better in the long run.
“You’re not going to make me actually analyze the Trial Brief filed by the Democrats in Trump’s upcoming unconstitutional and illegitimate Senate impeachment trial, are you? ”
If you were a comedy writer I would.
A necessary step in the education of the dupes to finally see and come to grips with Democratic malfeasance.
Would like some explanation how it’s even slightly remotely Constitutional, especially if Roberts is running away from it?
But a Democrat Congress, Democrat Senate and their hand picked Democrat judge thinks they get to rule if DJT can run for office again.
Why are we pretending the game has rules?
Like the various Democrat states changed election rules illegally to allow their input of massive fake votes – the Senate’s corrupt leaders will not hesitate change the rules to prevent President Trump from getting due process rights.
They will do all in their power to prevent his right to a hearing of the evidence of the stolen election.
Thought sworn to protect it, they consistently act against legal rights, justice and truth.
Already pointed out this a political only sham, just wondering from someone who thinks it’s legal what leg they have to stand on.
It’s already been explained several times. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t change the arguments.
The constitution does not say that a person can only be impeached in order to remove him from office. It does not say that the sole purpose of impeachment is removal. Those words cannot be found anywhere in the constitution.
Those who make this argument imagine that impeachment was a brand new procedure that the framers invented, and therefore it’s only valid for the purposes they explicitly mentioned. But that’s not true. Impeachment was already a thing, and the framers didn’t like how it had been used historically, so they severely limited it. But those limits have to be found in the constitution’s text. Wherever the text doesn’t limit it, it remains as it was before. Since former officials could be impeached before 1788, and the framers didn’t say they couldn’t, it follows that they can be, and that explains why the congress historically took that view, as did President J. Q. Adams.
I will repeat:
Article I, Section 3, Clause 6:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Without the Chief Justice, there is no “Impeachment of the President” So what is it? The milk has expired. I guess Congress can go around and impeach anyone one the they. It is meaningless, childless and stupid.
Tell me who they are impeaching? President? or Citizen? Impeaching a citizen holds no value in law or does it?
If he is treated as a citizen, it is a Bill of Attainment, if he is treated as a President, he is entitled to the SC Justice under the articles.
It is not resolved and you seem to state.
This could prevent President Biden from passing any legislation in his first 100 days. I can’t tell if that’s good/bad, intentional/accidental. It also makes the current President much easier to impeach in 2023.
It’s become easy to imagine a future in which every US President gets impeached every term.
Will the ‘trial’ provide a final venue for President Trump’s team to present the evidence and proof of election fraud and of Trump’s landslide victory – evidence that the courts and congress refused to consider – or will the DemonRats and RepugnantCons permit this to occur?
Since that evidence doesn’t exist, no, it won’t.
Most of the fraud that took place can’t even be proven, because the election rules were deliberately designed to make it impossible to detect fraud. It’s like fishing for five-inch fish with a six-inch net. The water may be teeming with them, but you won’t catch any.
Doodles on a cocktail napkin are great! Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch. Four elephants inspecting an orange.
Google Droodles.
Fuzzy Slipper’s assessment of mark311 seems on point. While a president might escape criminal indictment while in office, there is nothing that prevents an indictment afterwards for crimes committed while the president was in office.
But, Fuzzy also wrote this:
Milhouse expressed the same thought.
My question to them, based on the following hypothetical, is this: I’m free, American and over 35. I have never held a civil office of the USA. I commit an act that every single Democrat in Congress believes is a high crime (e.g., I publicly state that Biden won the presidency solely by virtue of voter fraud). The Democrats hold a majority of seats in the USA House of Representatives, and each of the Democrat members of the House believes to his or her core that there is no way I should ever hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United State because of the act I committed. Would either of the following be unconsitutional and if so why: (i) the House’s impeachment of me, or (ii) the Senate’s convicting me?
Impeachment as a prophylactic method to prevent a popular person winning an election. Yes, I could see them considering this a viable strategy.
In what respect is Fuzzy correct. *Gets popcorn
I find it entertaining that you think a series of insults that distract from Fuzzy’s lack of argument is evidence of an substantiated position.
I’d recommend a philosophy course, the art of argument seems to have been lost. Sure I clearly have failed to persuade but at least my points are based on arguments not fallacy.
Your point is well taken and brilliantly made.
obviously should read
Multiple negatives are tricky. Editorial review before hitting submit is advised.
They can’t do that because Congress doesn’t have jurisdiction to impeach anyone who does not, or who has not, held an office subject to its impeachment authority, because impeachment is a remedy for crimes committed while in office. Crimes committed while not in office are fully addressed by prosecution at law.
Dave, what is the basis of your comment that “impeachment is a remedy for crimes committed [only] while in office”? (I added “only” because that is clearly what you meant.)
Art. I, Sec. 1, states, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”
Art. 1, Sec. 3, states, “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”
Art. II, Sec. 4, states, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
So, Dave, where to you see Congress’ jurisdiction being limited to impeaching anyone who holds or has held an a government position???
I’m not Dave, but I believe it is baked into the definition of “impeachment”.
I would venture to guess that the answer is no, that the definition of impeachment relates to officials, and strictly speaking should relate only to their official actions.
I don’t think it’s legitimate to impeach anyone for crimes they committed before they held their office. (By way of analogy, although there is no constitutional support for such a view, Congress has a very long history of taking the view that the power each of its chambers holds to expel a member by a 2/3 vote applies only to offenses the member committed since the last election. This view of Congress is so well-entrenched that the Supreme Court, while not endorsing it, has taken official notice of it, and said that it can be presumed that Congress still takes this view, and thus would not vote to expel a member for anything that happened before the current term began. If Congress truly holds that view then I think it follows that it would also take the same view of impeachment.)
But even if officials can be impeached for things they did in their private capacity, I don’t think non-officials can be impeached, simply because that’s baked into the definition of the term.
However, I’m informed that before 1788 there was such a thing as impeaching people who had never held any office. If that is so, and the common understanding of impeachment in 1788 included such a thing, then I would have to conclude that yes, you could be impeached.
Note, however, that you could only be excluded from “offices under the united states”; that term does not include elected office. So you could still be elected to congress, the vice presidency, or the presidency.
Thanks for your 2 responses, Milhouse.
I think that the way Fuzzy and you are interpreting the power provided by the Constitution for the House of Representatives to impeach POTUS 45 Donald J. Trump, and for the Senate to subsequently convict, both of you would be forced by logic to conclude that any of us could be impeached and convicted by Congress and, if so voted by the Senate, thus prevented from holding any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States, which as far as I know includes elective offices, even congressman and president. From where did you get the point that that the phrase “Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States” in Art. 1, Sec. 3 of the Constitution does not include elected office? Isn’t the Democrats’ impeachment effort aimed at preventing Trump from running in 2024?
In any event, I agree with you that the definition of “impeach” is baked into the Constitution, but not the way you think it is.
As you observed in not so many words, the meaning of “impeach” has taken on a particular meaning in modern parlance, namely to charge a public officer with a crime with the aim of removing him or her from office.
But the plain meaning of the term until its use in our Constitution, was, and in many places remains, to charge anyone with a crime. See the following
The definition of “impeach” that is baked into the Constitution is to charge a PUBLIC OFFICIAL so as to REMOVE HIM OR HER FROM OFFICE if convicted. It is that meaning of “impeach” that SUBSEQUENTLY became common among Americans. Heck, the Constitution even anticipates that a subsequent criminal trial, “according to law,” might follow.
So, because the House of Representatives delivered its article of impeachment to the Senate when Donald Trump was not a public official, the House of Representatives had lost its jurisdiction over Trump. If Trump had committed a crime while in office, jurisdiction to handle that crime has now passed on to the prosecutors and courts sitting as courts (as opposed to Congress acting as prosecutor and court).
In any event, I repeat my new question:
From where did you get the point that that the phrase “Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States” in Art. 1, Sec. 3 of the Constitution does not include elected office?
If you are correct, then the House of Representatives’ impeachment is completely meaningless.
Q: Could Trump, who now is a private citizen, demand a change of venue, from the senate to a public court for jury trial by his (private citizen) peers?
The jury selection process would be a hoot!
No, because Congress has jurisdiction over impeachments and the judiciary does not. There is no other venue in which an impeachment may be tried.
Nice little take on Bill of Attainder.
I think Trump has case law on his side.
https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/62/bill-of-attainder
All I say is:
ubi jus, ibi remedium
Nothing there supports your case. Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, it does not impose a criminal penalty, therefore it is not a bill of attainder. In any case the constitution explicitly provides for impeachment; therefore it cannot be unconstitutional.
This is argumentative legerdemain, Milhouse.
Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding only insofar as it is not before an Article III court and jury. But for the fact that it is not before a regular criminal court and that the crimes are undefined (or unwritten in the English version) or remarkably malleable (“high crimes and misdemeanors”), it is precisely that. In England it certainly was a criminal proceeding.
How do you define “criminal penalty” and how is a bill of attainder imposing a “criminal penalty” but sentence after conviction following impeachment is not? It cannot be because the bill of attainder skips the entire trial stage while an Impeachment is tried. And since historically Impeachment and bills of attainder (in the broad sense) have been used more or less interchangeably in England to claim that stark of a difference between the two requires some justification.
The argument that impeachment is not unconstitutional is compelling. MarkSmith does not say that Impeachment is unconstitutional but that what the Pelosi House did is unconstitutional, presumably because it cannot be seens as an Impeachment in conformity with the constitution.
Thanks Filex,
“And the Constitution specifically says, ‘The President shall be removed from office upon impeachment.’ It doesn’t say the former president.
Given the current timetable, according to ex-U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig who also worked in the Reagan and G.W. Bush administrations, the effort might amount to perhaps just political theater.
“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,” Luttig wrote.
“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 an 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,” Luttig asserted, citing Article 1, Section 3, and Article II, Section 4, of the founding document.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/01/13/former-fed-judge-says-senate-has-no-constitutional-authority-to-impeach-trump-after-he-leaves-office-1015950/
Fuzzy, it isn’t that mark311 is stupid. He’s just playing a losing game. He’s a leftist troll trying to pose as a voice of reason. Naturally, he has to take preposterous positions to affect the pose because this whole trial of Trump is a political lynching, pure and simple, and as a leftist troll he has to pretend it’s not.
“Ignoring the specifics of the Trump case if it’s unconstitutional to impeach someone when they are leaving office doesn’t that give them carte blanche to do do what ever the hell they like. That’s a practical problem. If that’s true it means that there is zero recourse for a sitting president provided they are willing to resign after whatever CRIME they commit.”
Trump committed the “crime” of engaging in speech that is well within the bounds of what the Constitution protects. If he, or any other President, committed a crime on his way out the door he could be prosecuted. But this will never see the inside of courtroom because it would be laughed out of court.
This is simply the left attempting to criminalize the speech of its enemies. Yes, enemies, not opponents. We had eight years of George “selected, not elected” Bush.
Did I say George Bush? I meant Chimpy McHitlerburton.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chimpy_McHitlerburton
Under George Bush (for anyone who has a memory longer than a mayfly’s) dissent became patriotic again. According to Hillary Clinton, author of the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” theory when her hubbie was in office. Dissent was criminal then. Dissent caused the OKC bombing in 1995, doncha know. Rush Limbaugh caused it, according to Billy Jeff.
Then dissent became racist under Obama. And Mitt Romney became the next GOP Hitler in 2012. He was a “cancer-causing, woman-bindering, hair-shaving, Cold War-fixated, vampire capitalist.” I’m no Pierre Delecto fan, but no amount of slander was too much for the Dems.
Mark311 is trying to pretend that Donald Trump engaging in normal political speech is somehow some sort of unique, unprecedented threat to “our democracy” (It’s a #$%@ing Republic, leftists; you can search the Constitution until your last few brain cells fall out and you’ll never find the word democracy in our founding documents, and if you search the Federalist papers you’ll learn why the founders had contempt for democracy as a form of government). Great. If “fight like hell” is criminal incitement, then every leftist pol who signed onto the “campaign” (gee, isn’t a campaign a military operation?) to “fight for $15” needs to be rounded up and thrown into the grey bar motel.
Oh, and Bernie Sanders, AOC, and her squad need to be prosecuted for incitement. After all, James Hodgkinson actually did try to assassinate Republican house members and nearly succeeded in killing Steve Scalise. AOC is now running around accusing Cruz, Hawley, and possibly other GOP officials of “attempted murder.” Turnabout is fair play. They’re not guilty of the charge, but she and Bernie are. So said Hodgkinson.
All mark311 demonstrates is that Stalin and his political show trials had its cheering section. Oh, and Trump was such a dictator, we need to militarize D.C. (Pelosi wanted crew-served vehicle-borne machine guns but Trumps acting DHS director nixed that) and we need a KGB to counter the “reich-wing domestic terror threat.”
An actual surveillance/police state. No doubt modelled on the Democrats’ and Biden family’s benefactor, the CCP.
Don’t cheer too loudly, mark.
I’ll repeat because none of your points actually address the substance of what I say.
“Ignoring the specifics of the Trump case if it’s unconstitutional to impeach someone when they are leaving office doesn’t that give them carte blanche to do what ever the hell they like. That’s a practical problem. If that’s true it means that there is zero recourse for a sitting president provided they are willing to resign after whatever CRIME they commit”
The point I’m making with the above is that the impeachment process can be abused by just resigning or by virtue of being a lame duck. You can’t get around that by bleating on about Trump.
As for your point about “fighting like hell” again in previous posts context is everything . Trump has continuously peddled lies and his rhetoric is inflammatory. Making his base angry at imaginary crimes. He has been doing that for months and months. Hell he even claimed it was fraud in 2016 when he fucking won.
America still has democratic values so stop pretending it’s something other than an integral part of America.
With regard to James hodgekinson I seem.to remember there was a lot of distortion, lying,cherry picking and twisting of videos and speech at the time so you are going to have to be specific when you make that accusation. I’ll judge whatever you send through on its merits.
Yeah you are right the founders hates direct democracy because that has a propensity to encourage demagogues people like Trump. Which is why it’s entirely plausible that the founders framed the constitution with a situation like this in mind. A mechanism by which a character like Trump who consistency breaks constitutional norms and values. And don’t fucking dare to tell me hasn’t he has shat on the constitution from day one. Using it to make himself money, expanding his business empire and abusing his position, getting guilliani to run around with Russian foreign agents to dig up dirt on his political opponents.
What did you expect to happen after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol building for them to just sit back and let it happen again. Dont be daft. If you can’t see that Trumps behaviour has undermined America then you are foolish. The left is trying to hold him to account that’s an important principle in society. When someone does something wrong to that extent there should be consequences.
“As for your point about ‘fighting like hell’ again in previous posts context is everything . Trump has continuously peddled lies and his rhetoric is inflammatory. Making his base angry at imaginary crimes. He has been doing that for months and months. Hell he even claimed it was fraud in 2016 when he fucking won.”
I think the point was that all politicians talk this way, but have testimony (from the perpetrator) that a particular crime was committed after incitement by rhetoric, and that the spouters of that rhetoric were not held to a similar standard. It’s doubtful if we should want that to happen, considering how many politicians could be caught it what isn’t a very well-defined trap. You could catch up some who in no wise deserve to be caught. So we usually let them all get away under a presumption of innocence. The current impeachment of Trump is a clear message that this will no longer by the case. Is this something we want?
An interesting and valid point. One that merits thought and discussion. The principles for me are as follows:
-Impeachment related to political office and therefore the penalty is limited to only disqualification or barring from office. Thus we are not talking about a criminal act with associated penalties
-The President is in a unique position with words that have power, a great deal of power.
-Where a presidents words are inflammatory is one aspect of it but further it needs to be that the nature of this speech needs to be illegitimate in order to merit impeachment. In other words to me its the fact that it was inflammatory lies nit just inflammatory
-There were real world effects ie protestors illegally entered the building and that resulted in a number of deaths.
So I think the impeachment should be framed in tight terms
To answer your point in simple terms. Impeachment is for people in office. The courts are for people not in or no longer holding office. Looking back at the 2 impeachments in my lifetime that were not purely political the people impeached could have been tried in the courts except that Nixon received a pardon as part of his resignation and Clinton was acquitted. To be honest if you truly believe someone is guilty indictment from a criminal court is what you want.
I appreciate your points, but the criminal law isn’t a silver bullet for all circumstances. Impeachment allows the flexibility to deal with an issue more broadly but with sufficient process to ensure its legitimacy.
An interesting article from the Atlantic makes the point
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/what-does-high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-actually-mean/600343/
You lost me on credibility when you bring in the Atlantic.
He hasn’t shat on the constitution, from day one or any other day.
He has never used the constitution to make himself money. Nor has he used his office for that purpose. But supposing he had, there’s nothing in the constitution forbidding it.
He hasn’t expanded his business empire in the past four years, because he’s been too busy; but if he had found the time to do that what would be your objection?
What “Russian foreign agents” has Giuliani been “running around with”? And what is wrong with digging up dirt on his opponents, whether in the USA or out of it? Isn’t that exactly what Clinton did, when she hired Steele to go to Russia and get made-up dirt on Trump from his Russian government contacts? Didn’t she also approach Ukranian officials for dirt on Trump? If the dirt on someone is to be found in another country, where else should one look for it? You sound like the fellow who was frantically looking for his keys under a lamp post, because there was better light there than where he dropped them.
Yes Trump from day one failed to separate himself from his business. The trust arrangement was hardly sufficient. His business is heavily involved with foreign money and he makes plenty of money of the back of the presidency.
https://www.opensecrets.org/trump/trump-properties
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/9419-1
Guilliani has strong associations with Andrii Derkach a Ukrainian politician who has been linked with Russia. The US intelligence services have stated as such.
To be clear H Clinton hired a research firm who then hired Steele who was an ex British agent so that’s far less controversial than going to a known adversary.
So yes it’s a big deal digging up dirt from a foreign adversarial power who were involved in trying to manipulate US elections.
You seem to think that it’s ok for Trump to have two jobs one running his business and the other the country. Is that really acceptable? Surely you can see that’s a can of worms. Conflicts of interest, a time sink when he should be doing more important things like idk fighting covid.
He has left the country a mess, and maybe if he wasn’t concentrating so hard on making himself money he might have handled Covid a tad better.
Karen, you better quit, you are way over your head and just spouting talking points. Figure out who Joseph Cofer Black is and take notice who was on the Burisma’s board of directors while Hunter Biden was also serving on the board. Open Secrets does not tell you anything. Follow the evidence boy, follow the evidence. As your self what role did Podesta play in the Ukraine? Game is over and you are spouting 2016 BS. You might want to dig in down thread about the CIA and drug deals too.
Democrats, including Sanders, have been doing that for four straight years.
There was fraud in 2016. He fucking won despite it. Which is why there was so much more of it in 2020.
Yes there was some fraud in Trumps favour, the well known but hard to measure influence of the Internet Research Agency spewing out pro Trump propaganda. Other than that there have been some good take downs of this issue. Honestly fraud in the USA is pretty limited and you cant argue that it wasn’t investigated this time because Trump set up a commission on this very issue, it then disbanded because it couldn’t find anything. In other words your argument for fraud in 2016 is even more limited than your argument for 2020 fraud.
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/trumps-bogus-voter-fraud-claims/
You cannot be serious.
Your “source” is a “fact check” (thus virtually guaranteed to be disinformation casting the Democrat narrative as absolute truth – and as it turns out, that is exactly what it is) that was published on October 19, 2016, thus clearly irrelevant for the question of whether election fraud in 2016 happened.
It misquotes Trump and deliberately removes context and adds false context to “fact check” this strawman.
See the telephone game transformation:
It is quite instructive, if not surprising.
As a rule of thumb, any rating other than “true” provided by an MSM fact-check for a non-leftist’s claim is at least one step closer to “true” on the scale the fact-checker claims to use. Often is misrepresents an opinion as a factual claim and proceeds to rate it false because there is a different opinion out there.
@felixregidus
Oh dear you are really going to make that your argument. Trump is famous for saying he ‘won the popular vote if you deduct the 1.8 million votes counted illegally’; and the basis of his argument was misconstruing the Pew report. So no the fact check was not incorrect.
I appreciate your point about the date of the fact checking but that doesn’t diminish the points made within it in regard to the specific issues raised by Trump.
Additionally you haven’t really dealt with the elephant in the room which is that Trump had 4 years to investigate election fraud and he tried too but failed completely. Milhouses entire narrative (and I assume you support his position) is that fraud is endemic in the United States. Yet there is no real evidence of system fraud. Sure there are isolated incidents but if you count them they are a miniscule fraction of the total votes made. I think there is a Heritage report on this very subject it lists circa 1300 cases over 20 years so you are looking at an average of 65 cases of individuals carrying out voter fraud on a tiny scale.
I do appreciate your answer, as most of the time.
Quick takes.
You cannot substitute “what everyone knows someone did say” for what he actually said and pretend that it is the same. In this particular fact-check, the reported version is rated as wrong in an aspect that is not in the actual quote.
It is not the elephant in the room that the fact-check purported to fact-check.
We do not know how many successful cases of irregularities there are. For one, successful voter fraud by definition is not detected in time, and when the winner is certified prosecutors do not exactly scour the land in search of possible voter fraud. They have quite enough crime to keep them occupied even without it.
So Karen, some fraud in Trumps favor? Really, where?
BTW, just by my self, I did a little research about Detroit. I checked the State’s Voter Registration count and compared it to the Census’s of 2019 tally. Guess what, there are over 74 K of people registered to vote that are not eligible based on age. Also, viewing population size to registered voters, Detroit dropped by 100 K since 2009, but after cleaning the rolls, the % of registered voters jumped by 64K between July 2020 and Nov. 2020. Annual increases were like 2k per year. Something smells rotten in Demark (Detroit). We will never know the answer to this because there is a huge cover up. So what is that voter fraud you heard about?
Hey Karen, if you are going to claim Factcheck.org
you should know the following:
But before you read this, look up who blow up A Bomb in the capital and who pardoned the idiot.
The Annenberg Foundation was originally founded by Walter J. Annenberg, a conservative who supported Ronald Reagan. However, when Walter Annenberg died, his family took over the management of the foundation and it took a turn to the far left and has ties to radical left individuals such as Bill Ayers and his friend and fellow left wing radical collegue Barack Obama. How is factcheck.org associated with these people:
To start, Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Geesh, that alone connects all three. Well, it branches out even more from there.
link from above statement:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2923825/posts
I appreciate your point Felixrigidus but it doesn’t change the substance or merit of the fact check.
Yes an interesting point but problematic. If you have no evidence of a crime how do you go about proving it, what’s your reasonable suspicion. We know that historically there have been incidents of fraud in some elections and this identified weaknesses in the voting system which makes voting more secure. We also know that it’s hard to commit voting fraud at scale, sure a single ballot here and there is achievable but that’s hardly going to change an election. Fraud at scale is a challenge because you need more parties involved and you need to tailor your fraud method to each state because there systems and processes all differ. The larger the fraud the more risky and this the higher the chance of detection that applies to paper ballots and in person voting. As for the machines well the audit trail could be improved but they are at least able to cross reference to paper ballots and tablature records so there is a robustness there too.
I do agree there should be a forensic look at voting practise as I’ve mentioned before confidence in the system is very important.
WT actual F? How is that fraud? If misinformation now counts as fraud, then Trump did “win” by a landslide this time, since you have to discount all the votes he lost through the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop information, the Wuhan hoaxes (i.e. the hoax that it was a plague of Spanish flu proportions, rather than merely like a bad flu year; and the hoax that Trump wasn’t doing anything about it, that he was promoting dangerous and ineffective treatments, that Biden had a plan to conquer it, etc.; and the Russia hoax, which is perhaps the biggest political scandal in US history; and the hoax that he called dead soldiers “losers”; and at least two dozen other hoaxes that I can’t even think of right now. If you deduct all of those votes Trump comes out way ahead. But of course you don’t do that. So even if Russia buying a few thousand bucks’ worth of facebook ads supporting Trump actually gained him some votes, and even if those ads didn’t tell the truth (which you have not even asserted), you don’t get to count that as election fraud.
You cannot possibly be for real. Fraud is extensive. And no, it was not investigated. You’ve already had this answer at least three times that I remember, so I find it hard to believe you’re still pushing this line. Trump’s commission failed to find the fraud because the states refused to give it the information it needed. Without that how was it supposed to find anything?
Further to Milhouse’s point:
And the hoax that a regimin that includes HCQ does not work to reduce the effects, including death, from Wuhan virus.
According to the latest stats, Covid does not make the top ranks of a bad flu year in comparison to total deaths and years like 2009.
Milhouse: rather than merely like a bad flu year;
Oh, on HQ, don’t forget about Ivermectin.
https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/
Also there just was an article about HQ that is proving successful in NY. So glad the Dems are kill grandma….
but those “Shoots in the Arm” are working…..and drink more Coke.
“Shots in the Arm” sorry, needed to “circle back” on that one.
From Karen:
I’ve mentioned before confidence in the system is very important.
LOL, sure…….
How about I help you out, try watching a few liberal shows about how well our election systems are secure. Try starting with Kill Chain and HACKING DEMOCRACY.
This election cycle just proves there is limited confidence in it. John James was screwed by the cheating.
@ Milhouse
Of course propaganda is fraud, its a specific attempt to create a false narrative to change behaviours. Its much more subtle that ballot stuffing for example but it doesnt change the nature of it being fraud.
Quick takes on the specific references:
Hunter Biden laptop – that’s an ongoing investigation so no its not pertinent. IF the investigation had completed then sure a verdict could be given but at this stage the circumstances are highly suspect. It has been noted in some quarters that the nature of it bears a lot of resemblance to a misinformation tactic used by the Russians.
Covid 19 – Sorry but you are being daft here claiming its a bad flu is just stupid. flu doesnt kill 400,000 americans in a year. Trump did a rubbish job on Covid. Bad messaging, bad policies, conspiracy theory peddling, taking no central action on PPE, allowing states to compete for essential PPE, inability to understand the basic science. You cant even lay the vaccine at his door really that was down to the various Pharma coops doing extensive and rapid research, sure ill give him some credit for operation warpspeed. Then he fucked up the vaccine delivery lying about the reserved stocks and now 20 million doses are missing. Wonderful.
As for Bidens plan yeah he did but when the transition is blocked for accessing the relevant information and then they discover 20 mil missing doses of vaccine combined with new variants of Covid that might change things don’t you think. As Mike Tyson once said (I paraphrase) the plans great until you get punched in the face.
The Russian Hoax – hardly sure have a debate about the meaning of his conversation but it certainly looked bad to threaten no military assistance and then block the delivery of weapons, the Mueller report clearly showed a case for obstruction as well just didn’t state it clearly because of the DoJ policy on sitting presidents. Having his minions in every branch of gov helped too.
With regard to Trumps comments on war dead given his horrific comments on McCain they certainly sound like Trump.
two dozen other hoaxes eh – no offense but you have a tendency to call anything that’s critical of Trump a Hoax so colour me cynical but I don’t buy that.
As for your comment on the Internet Research Agency buying ; a few thousands bucks’ of ads well it was more sophisticated than that since the Facebook algorithm would propagate it. I not clear how you know the value of the ads either but hey thats no biggy.
In summary you are correct what you have just said makes no difference to me because its so clearly refuted on so many different occasions. You seem to apply a far different standard to your ‘Covid Hoax’ compared to Election fraud. Overwhelming evidence doesn’t move the needle when it comes to Trump but no evidence at all is fine for making wild spurious claims about election fraud?
It is highly pertinent, according to polls a significant number of self-identified Biden voters would not have voted for Biden if they knew about the legitimate investigation.
The (successful) suppression of this information is absolutely pertinent, and it is propaganda.
Just compare the treatment the Mueller investigation received. 24/7 breathless media attention with “walls closing in” and unanimous prejudice by the MSM (unless you want to count Fox News among MSM, then there was one channel that also sometimes did caution against premature condemnation).
Phew I’ve called down now.
I think you do make a valid point about some in the lefts inability to have a dialogue with the right. The sanctimonious attitude doesn’t help from some quarters either. I don’t appreciate people who cry and winge about being offended by what someone says during the course of a conversation. Debate and dialogue is an important aspect of any functioning society and it should be inclusive.
Should have mentioned, when talking about leftist slander. Harry Reid lied repeatedly in 2012 about Pierre Delecto, claiming that the GOP candidate hadn’t paid taxes for years. After the election he was cornered and admitted it was all a lie. But he was proud of it because Obama got reelected. “It worked,” he said.
I’m actually going to link to the Huffpo, since even they found the lie indefensible.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harry-reid-gives-shameful-response-to-his-attack-on-mitt-romneys-taxes_b_6999996
Now, the party that lies continuously as it’s standard operating procedure wants a “truth and reconciliation” commissions, a “denazification” program, before Trump supporters are allowed to get into the back seat with their slurpees and shut up.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/11/12/when-democrats-tell-you-theyre-going-to-establish-truth-and-reconciliation-commissions-believe-them-n1140798
Nope, nothing Orwellian about any of this.
Mark311 thinks we should just let bygones be bygones, admit our guilt, and endure the Maoist struggle sessions the left wants to impose.
No sale, leftist troll. You can take your “unity” and shove it where the sun don’t shine. Sideways. In a sandpaper condom.
Admit your guilt? You presume I blame you in someway. You are entitled to your view and welcome to express it; I have no knowledge of you, your situation, whether you are good or bad or indifferent, whether you are a Nazi, a Communist, a Liberal, or a conservative, a social democrat, or some other persuasion I don’t know you so how can I judge you? I cant so I have no inclination to assign guilt or judgement because I have no basis for doing so.
No I don’t want you to let bygones be bygones. I think you should engage and see what evidence supports your position and revise it accordingly. Whether that topic be Trump as president, or the election or some policy position expressed by either party. I care little for labels they separate us; I can see that you are passionate and dont like liars so why let any politician get away with that. You claim some Democrats on the left have lies, i havent explored everyone of the links you have sent, I dont need too im sure you are right in many cases. Im no fan of the Democratic party, i proudly consider myself a swing voter and will choose whoever i think makes the biggest and most positive difference for the nation. BUT i have to say if you have a standard where you think something is bad then apply it to all politicians and leaders, that includes Trump. I find it disturbing that many on the right condone a man who so blatantly doesnt give shit about anyone other than himself and lies through his teeth.
The Harry Reid lie is well documented and was rightly admonished for that. I appreciate you highlighting it – its always worth remembering that no side is guilt free. I fully appreciate that the Democrats have there flaws, and in some instances are a shameful. Id put Hilary Clinton in that last category for example.
As for your example of Truth and reconciliation type committees. That’s a complicated subject, I don’t know enough about that topic to have an answer. I know on one hand that CRT is controversial on the right, I also know that on the other hand the outcomes of certain groups is poor compared to average. The big question is Why and I just don’t know nearly enough to even comment. Its a subject I keep meaning to read into but I’m rather distracted by other things rightly or wrongly. I guess I’m lucky that I don’t live in the USA anymore, the UK is much more stable in that respect.
Admonished!! Golly!!!
On the other hand, what tangible negative consequence befell Harry Reid or anyone he intended to benefit from his lie?
Trump should fire his attorneys, represent himself, walk in and say “Let’s just dispense with this sham and get right to the vote”
Trump should stop playing their game and just not show up.
Mark, have a read of this and explain what is the difference between what Schumer did and what you think Trump did.
@milhouse
Thank you for the link, there are a number of aspects to this.
Firstly I think that Schumer was poor in his choice of words, and was rightly admonished for that.
2nd the clear difference is the consequences of those words. Those protests didn’t end up killing anyone nor do I recollect any damage done. As far as I’m aware all that happened was a few protestors on the steps (I forget how many).
3rd Was there a continuum of incitement based on a lie? Well it was a subjective set of opinions so I’m not clear that the second part could operate.
I’ve laid out a clear set of principles in a previous post on this thread. I sympathise with the view that Schumer was foolish and inflammatory but it lacks some of the characteristics to qualify for more serious consequences. I think it would be entirely valid to admonish him for the tone beyond that no.
for clarity i copy and paste my entire set of reasoning for impeachment in the case of incitement.
“I do see your point and certainly there is a debate around how best to deal with a situation like this. I suppose it could be broken down into a set of questions 1) what was the offence 2) what position commited that offence 3) what is the nature of that person to the public.
The reason I phrase it like this is because as some other have correctly stated the USA is a republic precisely because of situations like this. A man who is very popular but functioning like a demagogue has used there position in a highly negative way to the detriment of the Republic. You can debate that phasing but that’s the principle position of many Democrats and a number of moderate Republicans. The next part of the context is that Trump remains despite of the things he has done, been given a free pass by a lot of Republicans at large on a populist basis. Further to that he has just won a huge amount of votes, not enough to win sure but enough to be a populist threat something the founders would agree poses a danger given Trumps nature. Again for clarity that’s the lense in which I discuss his impeachment so let’s not dwell on whether that’s a fair lense it’s just a lense that is widely supported.
So on the basis of that context what’s the appropriate solution. Well criminal law rightly has a very high standard of proof, it requires proof beyond reasonable doubt but as we all know politics and politicians are messy and anything regarding inflammatory commentary. That makes the pursuit of such a thing difficult and rightly so. Then there is the point that the nature of Trump’s crimes in a sense is outside the scope of criminal law (when talking about the Capitol riots) he holds a position of enormous power with a massive following and he used his words deliberately and consistently over a long period. That’s not something that the law really takes into account.
Then we have punishment by the electorate well that won’t work because he has just been kicked out of office. His position as a lame duck thereby rendering him immune to electoral punishment. All he has to do is wait until 2024 and do his populist piece all over again. This is especially true given the consistency of his base despite all the things he has done.
So we are left with impeachment which fits the crime. He abused his position of power to incite a riot so take that away. In other words the punishment fits the crime. I don’t think Trump intended for people to die, but I don’t really think he cares either. The speech was purely to advance himself and his personal cause.
That’s my reasoning for what it’s worth”
I would add that I find it besmusing that Hawley’s name crops up attempting to censor Schumer. What a hypocritical prick. A man that’s clearly playing games for personal advantage.
I think there is a bigger case against Harris for supporting Riots by requesting we support paying for their bail.
This protest didn’t end up killing anyone either. The only person undoubtedly killed was a protester. The stories we were fed about a cop being bashed in the head with a fire extinguisher turned out to be an utter lie.
And I don’t believe there was that much damage done, at least not by Trump supporters. The videos show that the people entering the Capitol were respectful, staying within the velvet ropes, and not even sweeping the papers on the desks onto the floor. Any damage I ascribe to the known antifa provocateurs that were seen working the crowd, since that is something they do regularly, so I assume it was their work.
But in any case incitement doesn’t depend on whether anyone was actually killed, or even on whether anyone actually did anything. You can be convicted of incitement even if nobody listened to you. All that’s required is that you intended to cause your audience to commit a crime imminently, and that it was also likely for that to happen. Whether it actually happened is irrelevant.
Again bull****. Hawley was right to want Schumer censured, and he had every right to challenge the Arizona electors. How does one contradict the other?
With respect Brians Sicknicks investigation is ongoing so you aren’t really in a position to say one way or another. Presently though its being treated as I understand as a murder investigation.
Sure there wasn’t wide scale destruction but there were plenty of crimes committed. You still seem to miss the point that fundamentally they tried to prevent the duties of a branch of government. That’s unprecedented so stop trying to minimise that.
As for Antifa – 1 person so far and overwhelmingly Trump supporters arrested and shown to be Trump supporters in the public domain.
Interesting point about incitement, thank you
Sure maybe there is a case for Schumer being censored at that time but my point is Hawley is a hypocrite.
Admonished!!!
The dreaded admonishment, there it is again.
What tangible negative consequence did Chuck Schumer endure?
So we are left with impeachment which fits the crime. He abused his position of power to incite a riot so take that away
____________________________________________________________
this is the essence of all your previous bullschyt–and you’re dead wrong–if you’re looking for a 24k example of speech intended to incite violence/a riot, look no further than auntie maxine’s outbursts which were intended(and did)incite numerous acts of intimidation/violence
and being black and dem, of course she was not subject to any sort of consequences–then there’s pelosi
your attempt(like many others) to justify the “process” is merely a smokescreen to hide the fact that the basis for your argument is false on its face
PDJT did not and was not intending to incite a riot–all your whining and blather will not change the facts
How am I wrong? And no that’s not the essence of my argument, my argument has to read as a whole.
I don’t really care what examples you cite of the alleged wrong doing of others. You might be right you might be wrong its not what we are talking about; we are talking about Trumps impeachment. That tactic of distraction is a fallacy.
The facts are clear he has lied to everyone, inflaming his supporters and now people are dead. You cant escape that because that’s objective reality. The only questions are 1) was his speech sufficiently inflammatory to be a direct cause (in my eyes and many others YES) and 2) will the Republicans grow a spine and vote with there consciences (Probably NOT).
Really:
The facts are clear
And you like cats! (inside joke)
he has lied to everyone,
What did he lie about? Oh, there was election fraud? Is that it? Well we don’t know either way do we.
That said, how do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
inflaming his supporters,
Really, I am a support and he did not inflame me. IN FACT his inaction is what inflames me.
and now people are dead.
Who is dead? Oh, those 5 at the rally? Except for the unarmed women that was shot, there is NO FACTS that other medical conditions did not cause 4 of those deaths. But if you wish to uses deaths as a marker, then look at all the deaths and damage that the BLM and Antifa are doing. Look at who is encouraging them. Not Trump but Harris and her fellow democrats.
You cant escape that because that’s objective reality.
In your Twilight Zone. What reality are you talking about? “Facts” give me a break.
The only questions are 1) was his speech sufficiently inflammatory to be a direct cause (in my eyes and many others YES)
OMG, you are really messed up. You better watch out because QAnon is spying on you, Covid is going to get you and you better get that “Experimental Vaccine”
“Inflammatory!” definitely a Karen.
Did you actually listen to his speech? I did. Actually, the paid Agent Provocateur were the ones doing the damage and inciting. Can you say John Sullivan (John Sullivan, the anti-Trump founder of Utah-based Insurgence USA.), can you say arrested FBI Informant, can you say Horned Climate Change Actor?
Are you brain dead?
and 2) will the Republicans grow a spine and vote with there consciences (Probably NOT).
Who cares about the Globalist Republicans. We as Americans and Patriots do not expect anything from Republicans. They lost our trust over the last 4 years and have been exposed.
74 Millions people voted for Trump and those are solid votes. No under the desk pulling of ballots, no “more registered voters in Detroit than eligible voting age people by 74K behind those 74M votes.
Your messed up dude. Time to take the blinders off. The only fear I live is the government oppression that I physically see with masks.
You have bought into the “fear” created by the lied of those in charge that is being used to control you.
Good Luck Karen.
Hey Karen,
Cute like article here:
No, Donald Trump is not responsible for the death at the Capitol
https://www.independentsentinel.com/no-donald-trump-is-not-responsible-for-the-death-at-the-capitol/
Well I had a good laugh at your statement so thanks for the comedy gold.
Well the number lies Donald Trump has said is so great that it’s been hard to keep track of. Some reports suggest 30,000 plus lies during his term.
Saying he didn’t inflame you personally doesn’t change the fact he inflamed many others. A number of those arrested have stated as such.
Sure some medical conditions were involved by Brian Sicknicks death is being treated as murder at this stage. The link you sent through didn’t say very much and provided a statement supposedly supported by ABC news which turned out to be nothing of the sort.
I’ve never endorsed Antifa or BLM violence or riots or any other criminal action. So for clarity any criminal action by any party should be treated as such. No one is above the law.
Qanon don’t know there arse from there elbow. What exactly is it you are trying to say, is that some kind of threat? Well Covid is unlikely to get me as statistically I’m not in an at risk group and take reasonable precautions so yeah whatever.
So your argument is that one antifa person who was a moron justifies the many other moronic trump supporters somehow. And that horned Viking is a Qanon Trump supporters. He is well known and indeed has asked to be a witness against Trump so your argument falls flat their too
Who cares about republicans, well Trump does because they will vote on whether he will be convicted. And as for you well I’m not sure anyone really cares what you think so maybe the feeling is mutual.
Again election fraud can’t be proven in any capacity what so ever.
This is the most interesting part for me. I find your psychology fascinating. You claim I’m afraid based on no knowledge at all. Nothing supports your argument at all, at least others here can come up with coherent thoughts you, not so much. It’s like you are desperate for something that just isn’t real. A fantasy of some magical unicorn to swoop into save you from the ugly truth.
The reality Mark Smith is that I follow the evidence and logical arguments. I listen to other including some here it’s true and try and come up with a reasoned position. It’s rarely perfect but that’s ok because I keep my mind open to the possibility that I might be wrong provided someone can show reason that’s all good. Maybe you should try applying some critical thought to what you say or perhaps engage more with actual evidence.
Sorry folks, I can’t help feeding the Karen cat loving troll:
Well the number lies Donald Trump has said is so great that it’s been hard to keep track of. Some reports suggest 30,000 plus lies during his term.
Well there are some reports that say you like cats.
The reality Mark Smith is that I follow the evidence and logical arguments. I listen to other including some here it’s true and try and come up with a reasoned position.
Quite a high opinion of yourself, eh?
There is more than enough affidavit reports (legal evidence probably in excess of hundred) of voter fraud and video footage. Stats support it, too. Logic is obviously something you are missing.
Well Covid is unlikely to get me as statistically I’m not in an at risk group and take reasonable precautions so yeah whatever.
You sure about that? who is telling you that? Hmmm, statistically you are not in the risk group? So you are 12? Oh, yes, that is right you are taking the reasonable precautions that the government is telling you too. Thanks for taking the Experimental Vaccine. We need guinea pigs like you.
I love this line:
A fantasy of some magical unicorn to swoop into save you from the ugly truth.
Sorry Karen, I doubt anyone here think this way except for you, but I am guessing you believe the Qanon crap, just like the scared Congressmen that have more troops in DC than are in Afghanistan and Iraq combine. Why would they do that.
The ugly truth is that many in the government are abusing their powers including illegally FISA warrants, having fun with Chinese spy’s and covering up election fraud to name a few of the many.
Catch this to find out how our government was one of the big drug pushers on the LA black population.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/gary-webb
What does not come out is drugs were flowing through AK with Clinton.
Follow the evidence about how Obama’s point man Clapper lied about weapons of mass destruction and got over a million people killed including over 6 thousand of our service men and 32 K injured.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50611.htm
You have no clue to your lack of critical thinking, for if you could, you would realize how deep the cover up goes.
But, hell, wear your mask and be a good little cat loving Karen.
Hey Karen, oops I mean Mark311, ask you self this question? Is it possible that there are people in the government that want to cover things up? If so, how would they do that?
From Rodney Stich’s Drugging America:
“Mena became famous in the 1980s for the arms and drugs shipping through this western Arkansas airport by the CIA and other government agencies. It involved Oliver North, Vice President and then President George Bush, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and others who became involved in covert activities…My CIA sources indicate that the profits from drug sales far exceeded what was needed for these [black] operations. They report that most of the profits are hidden in offshore financial institutions, and much of these funds come back in well-disguised forms and corporations, acquiring properties and businesses of all types…My CIA contacts described Bush’s heavy involvement in Central American operations in which drug trafficking constituted a major role.”
Mena, Arkansas was the key transit points for cocaine coming into the United States.
Wonder why they don’t like Trump?…….
@Mark Smith
Reports of me liking cats eh, well id like to read said reports .. moron.
Election Fraud: The affidavits were shown to be not credible in many cases due to the witnesses ignorance of what they were actually describing, some of those witnesses also turned out to be bat shit crazy. The data you refer to was rebutted, the supposed experts who wrote them were not experts at all and wrote a lot of shit riddled with errors and misunderstandings of basic concepts. Feel free to send me a link of a coherent argument supporting your election fraud case.
Covid 19: Yes im sure, the virus has been well studied and many many countries have approved a variety of vaccines. So stating something moronic liek are you sure doesnt mean very much in the context of mass clinical trials and review by multiple parties by many nations with various but exceptionally high knowledge of the subject. All compared to your knowledge which can be summarised with the word no.
Well there is hope for you yet, I’m very glad to hear you don’t believe in Qanon
As for your references I’ve no real interest in exploring them they don’t seem relevant at all to the topic at hand.
mark311, you often feign ignorance, but one of your wide-eyed “who me?” lines concerns your being the obvious leftie troll that you so very clearly are. This comment is pretty typical of your psychotic rantings: on the one hand, you are the privileged benevolent overlord hoping against hope that your pearls aren’t cast before swine, and on the other hand you undermine your entire presence here with one simple, condescending dismissal.
In response to MarkS, you wrote, in part:
First, who do you think you are? Do you imagine anyone here cares one teensy whit what you think about us? Or about anything? Declaring “there is hope” for any one of us is an insult and a clear sign not only of your own (demonstrably unwarranted) inflated sense of self but of your fundamental misreading of this blog’s audience. You–from your bizarrely self-congratulatory pedestal–may believe that your “hope” is a good thing. Newsflash: it’s not, no one here gives a damn what you think of us, so you just come off like a sanctimonious, self-important lunatic.
You’re probably used to that.
Just like Mac wasn’t losing any sleep over your disappointment, I can assure you that MarkS is not tossing and turning with the hopes and dreams of making you “glad.”
The last part of your comment to MarkS is also very telling. For weeks, you’ve insisted that we provide you links for . . . well, blah, blah, blah but when we do, you dismiss the linked material out of hand. But here you are, Link Demander, stating you have no “real interest” in links at all.
You keep saying you’re not a troll, but you are. And frankly, a very disappointing one at that. We usually get trolls with some modicum of intelligence (waving at the many Zachs), so it’s kind of disappointing that we are stuck with you, a sloppy, lazy thinker without even minimal understanding of basic grammar, basic comprehension of formulating and supporting arguments, or remedial demonstration of critical thinking skills. Can we trade you in? How do we get an upgrade?
Gollie Gee
Ken Starr: Impeaching Trump post-presidency ‘is a flagrant violation’ of the Constitution
Starr says it is a constitutional violation for the Senate to hold an impeachment trial without the chief justice.
Gee, I never would have thought that.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/ken-starr-impeaching-trump-post-presidency-flagrant-violation
Dam, I not an attorney and I knew this:
Starr explained that what the Senate would be doing with this impeachment trial is using it as a bill of attainder, which is prohibited by the Constitution.
I really like what he said, the process it shelf is a Bill of Attainder!
“If the Senate goes forward, what they are toying with is what I consider a bill of attainder,” he said. “They can’t remove President Trump from office, he has left in accordance with with law, he left peacefully and lawfully. So, what are they doing? They are seeking to visit punishment on the head of a former government official, the former president of the United States. I believe that constitutes a constitutionally forbidden bill of attainder.”
Except they are using the mechanism of impeachment so it cant be a bill of attainder and additionally a bill of attainder has its own process which includes the president signing it so on that basis it doesnt qualify as such.
That is actually a good point.
If the Senate continues with this zombie procedure and actually “convicts” they need the President to sign their bill of attainder before it can enter into force.
Of course, * signing it doesn’t change that it is unconstitutional.