Nothing will be gained by appeasing Democrats on impeachment witnesses
This is not a good faith impeachment, Republicans in the Senate should stand firm, but of course, there are weak links.
Consider me blessed. I was traveling and then attending to personal matters most of today, so I didn’t get to watch the Senate impeachment trial proceedings.
What did I miss? Adam Schiff and other Democrats scratching their nails on a blackboard?
I’ve seen this show before for two years of permanent crisis news cycle about supposed Russia collusion and then during the House impeachment ram-job on Ukraine. Does anyone need to see it again? Will ANY minds be changed?
I was able to check in on Twitter from time to time, and I take it the president’s lawyers did well because those supporting impeachment were in full fury at Pat Cippilone, the president’s chief lawyer at the trial. They want to disbar him, to hound him out of the legal practice, and so on.
Late in the morning, before the trial started, I was on the Tony Katz Radio Show.
The subject was my post If Senate Republicans take the hard vote now on impeachment witnesses, they will not regret it in November.
[If player doesn’t load, click here]
KATZ: Let me bring in William Jacobson, Cornell law professor, the brains behind LegalInsurrection.com, taking a swing at impeachment saying, and I’m quoting here from the headline at legalinsurrection.com “If Senate Republicans take the hard vote now on impeachment witnesses, they will not regret it in November.” You know, I gotta tell you, sir, this is a little bit different coming from you because I do want to get into, whether or not Mitch McConnell can actually make this happen, about limiting the witnesses and trying to get this done in two weeks. But rarely do I see you in the full on advocating for a position. Why do you come to this conclusion?
WAJ: Yeah. Hi Tony. I’ve come to the conclusion because this impeachment is completely in bad faith. They promised it before he was elected. They promised it after he was elected. They’ve been running through possible grounds to do it for over two years. So this is completely bad faith.
What they want to do here is just make this into a spectacle. They want to do what they did to Brett Kavanaugh during his hearings. They want to have the evidence come in and then when they don’t seem to be winning, they want to bring in more witnesses and they want to do this. They are trying to turn this into a circus.
This is not a good faith impeachment. And therefore the Senate is under no obligation to turn the floor of the Senate over to Adam Schiff and his crew. So I would say that, let them make their case, let the president’s lawyers make their case based on the record that’s been presented so far, and then either dismiss it as not satisfying the constitutional grounds for impeachment or go straight to an up or down vote, acquit or you know, guilty.
But there is no reason to allow Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Nadler to turn this circus that they ran in the House into a circus in the Senate.
And I think people should be fed up with it. And I think if Republicans in the Senate stand firm on this and say, you had all the time you wanted to investigate this, you had all the time you wanted to subpoena witnesses and get court rulings, don’t come here and think that this nonsense is going to carry over to the Senate. I think there will be no political price for them to pay in November because the people who are against them are going to be against them no matter what.
But if they do not stand firm on this, I think they are really risking a disaster electorally because it will completely demoralize the people who would vote for Trump to see that Nancy Pelosi gets her way, not only in the House but also in the Senate.
KATZ: So in this conversation goes the idea that Mitt Romney is correct to limit opening statements and try and get this done before February 4th. He wants it all wrapped up before the State of the Union … That doesn’t take into consideration Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, possibly Ben Sasse, Susan Collins and possibly Mike Lee of Utah and others. So if you get to them, if Mitch McConnell has to convince these people to vote in a way to limit this opportunity, what happens if he doesn’t get them? If he doesn’t get those people? And if we get to witnesses, how long does this thing last?
WAJ: Well if Mitch McConnell can’t get it done. And I do recognize that when I’m advocating that this should be their position, I recognize there as there always are, are several very weak links in the Republican chain, and Susan Collins and Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski and you only need one more. And they get four people, so I, I’m not sure they, they have the backbone to get it done given the nature of the Republican party in the Senate.
So I’m advocating they should get it done. I’m not saying that they necessarily will be able to, if this thing gets opened up, then there is going to be an endless stream of new demands from the Democrats. Just like there was with Kavanaugh. Remember first it was Ford, then it was Swetnick, then it was some anonymous person on a boat in Rhode Island and one after the other. It will never end.
And if the Republicans do try to finally cut it off, you will hear exactly the same arguments from the Democrats. Oh, we have more witnesses. We have new issues. What about Lev Parnas. What about emails? What about … it will never end. And when it does end, it will end exactly the same way. It could end in three or four days, which is Democrats claiming there’s a cover-up. So nothing will get done by simply appeasing the Democrats on this because they are not acting in good faith. This is not a good faith impeachment….
KATZ: So now I’m gonna play devil’s advocate with you. I don’t, I don’t usually get to do this. This is fun. William Jacobson, legal insurrection.com Cornell law professor. Is there a case to be made as you see it? And by the way, I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I’m with you. I just think it’s going to go the other way. But I’m with you and I appreciate the strong point and you make the great point that people hate you anyway. They’re going to hate you no matter what happens, unless everything goes their way and they’ll still hate you. Is there a case to be made that if you had witnesses and if you had, uh, other witnesses and you finally said, okay, we’re done here, you can say, wait a second. You called this witness, you called that witness. We had to stop you. We’re going to call witnesses for forever. Isn’t there a case that that could be helpful for the Republicans come 2020?
WAJ: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I think are the Democrats going to go after Susan Collins next for any less vigorously, regardless of which way she votes on impeachment, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference. I think that they’re going to savage her no matter what. And I think what she needs to do is to keep the Republicans behind her. It’s her only chance of surviving 2020, politically. So I don’t think there’s a case to be made for that. When has it ever work to appease the most aggressive wing of the democratic party? I don’t think it has. And so I don’t see anything to be gained by that. Just like in the Brett Kavanaugh case there were a lot of people who were saying, you know, if, uh, Susan Collins votes for Kavanaugh, she’ll never get reelected. Well, she voted for Kavanaugh and she’s still in a good position for reelection. You never gain anything in these situations by appeasing the people who not just hate you, but want to destroy the Republican party,
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Comments
If you are a corrupt GOPe hack, a LOT is to be gained – in the short term, at least – by selling out the base to swamp/left/islamic money.
Just ask firth like flake, corker, romney, murkowski and mccain (if you can get him by seance).
Thus far there have been zero defectors. I don’t know what if anything McConnell has for a strategy, but at the moment it looks like he’s just letting the Dems burn up their time offering dead end resolutions. It would be an interesting turn of events if, when the Republicans get their time, that they started offering resolutions to subpoena the Bidens et al. The Dems can complain, but given that they’ve been doing the same thing, they wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
Sure, this it always the way it looks just before the GOP marches 99 years to the goal line only to hand the ball to the Democrats who score on the winning touchdown. There is always a “so far, so good” phase. That is where we are. But I asked you before. After everything these swamp rats have put us through, hy do you still cut these guys so much slack? These are the very same rats who are ALWAYS snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Almost to a man.
Don’t you think you should be deeply cynical by now? Wouldn’t you think keeping a raging fire licking their butts is warranted by now? Remember, if they cave this time, who do we vote for? When everyone is totally corrupt and “our side” strikes the final blow to permanently disarm the voters across the board, who wins? When democracy is gone, who wins? Won’t these guys still be in power to continue the kabuki? Your naive wishful thinking won’t get it done.
The Republicans don’t deserve your unwavering loyalty. Let’s keep them on a very short and tight leash and keep kicking them in the ass until this is over. They earned it.
“”Doom, despair, and agony on me. (wail)
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery (wail)
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all (wail)
Doom, despair, and agony on me “”
BR-549
Subpoena Ciaramella.
Orrin Hatch – the saying on the Hill was “Don’t count [on] your Hatches until he’s chickened.”
I like Senator Hatch, but he did cower quite a bit to the McCains of the world.
I wasn’t watching–or listening–but my wife had the TV on (she was out in the backyard pruning roses) and I heard Adam Schiff say something about the “third amigo”. I figured Adam was writing another fantasy script and didn’t bother following.
What the Dems are doing is presenting resolutions to call specific witnesses, apparently (I’m not listening, but I pick up bits and pieces from Fox/FBN), in “violation” of McConnell’s proposed rules (which apparently haven’t been voted on yet). Guests on Ingraham’s show are complaining that the Dems are being allowed to do so, plus offer “evidence” not included in the House impeachment report. Don’t know what, if anything, the Republicans can do about it, but apparently at the moment they’re just voting down each resolution as it’s offered.
So far 5 Dem amendments have been defeated on straight party line votes. No defections from the Republicans.
One would hope this will continue but then again the current version of Republicans never stand.
Very annoying that your comment would earn a down twinkle. When did McConnell, Graham and most of the rest become “one of us”? I never trust weasels. If they do cave again, won’t it be obvious how they skillfully led us into yet another trap?
I’ll believe that we won when we win. I’m not predicting losing. I am just pointing out the obvious that these guys cannot be trusted, even with a gun at their heads. They are hard-core weasels. Let’s win this time. Otherwise, the last four years of Trump have been wasted.
I guess I’ve become jaded to most politics because we have only seen in the Kavanaugh fiasco that they can stand. Otherwise they do what serves them.
The GOP would sell us out in a hearbeat if it was politically expedient. Don’t fool yourselves.
Except for the conservative caucus, they are fair weather friends at best.
Mishka: no defections SO FAR. The RINOs are waiting for higher bids.
Appeasing the democrats? Letting them run their lying mouths is an appeasement. They have less than nothing in this impeachment scam… no evidence, no direct/fact witnesses… they don’t even have any real circumstantial evidence. All they have are lies, misrepresentations, hearsay, rumor and innuendo crafted to put PDJT in the worst light possible. The only good I can see coming out of this sham, this farce, this absolute scam is that the democrats are going to pay dearly in November 2020. The end result being 4 more years of MAGA/KAG, majorities in the House and Senate, and more judicial appointments.
Only if the Republican senators don’t cave. Otherwise, who do you vote for? Trump and who else?
If you give them 2 witnesses, they’ll want 4. If you say only 4, they’ll say your rigging the trial. If the witnesses give testimony they don’t like, they’ll claim they are lying. If you limit the witnesses to only first hand knowledge, they’ll claim you’re rigging the system. No matter what the Republicans do, the Dems will claim that they are colluding with Trump, so you might as well end it in the beginning and just say no witnesses.
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Personally, I’m curious to see if they allow the secret testimony that Schiff refused to release in the House investigation. That is where the landmines lie.
The biggest risk for Trump politically is if they have a vote and it’s 51 votes for impeachment. Not enough to kick him out but enough for the Dems to say the majority found him guilty. Trump needs all of the Republicans in line and a few Dems to jump ship in a best case scenario. That is why you may need to appease a few people and allow a couple witnesses.
Allowing “prosecution” witnesses isn’t going to change the vote one way or another. It would just allow them more opportunity to play to the audience.
Dr. Jacobson, just FYI, when I tried to access Legal Insurrection this morning, as I do every morning, my security provider, ESET, blocked and said the site contained unwanted information. I was using the Microsoft Edge browser. I switched to Google Chrome and was put through with no problem.
unwanted information !? As if “this site tells you things we don’t want you to read”?
Give the Democrats NOTHING.
The Constitution says the House impeaches and the Senate tries that impeachment, and not some other impeachment that did not come out of the House. The Dems are trying to make a case that wasn’t made in the House. They are attempting to have an impeachment tried in the Senate that is not the impeachment that came from House. The Senate not only has not obligation to hear that case, they have no authority to do so.
The trail is a complete waste of time, should be dismissed today with preduice.
For the first time in my memory–over 50 years–Republicans are acting as if they have spines. Let us only hope that there is no osteoporosis.
Should they cave, my prediction will be unprecedented voter turnout for Trump and who else? Are enough Libertarians running?
The alternative isn’t Libertarians, it’s Democrats. Many of the people whining and moaning here are the same people who were whining and moaning about the Republican House two years ago. Their solution was to stay home and let Dems have the House. How is that working out? I get that there are a lot of RINOs and anti-Trumpers. I understand that they frequently abuse our votes. Turning the government over to Marxists isn’t a viable alternative. The internecine battle is in the primary. If you carry it over to the general election, we all lose, and the stakes are too high.
From Breitbart’s summary of the day’s action:
9:35 PM: Schiff predicts more emails and witnesses will come out and asks the Senators if they want to know the full truth now rather than later. He says the “full truth” about the “scheme” and “corruption” will come out.
So there you have it: confirmation that the Democrats plan to use the same strategy they used against Brett Kavanaugh.