Impeachment Inquiry 2: Now It's Official!

[fraurosena]

Oh.

Is this the tide turning-- or wishful thinking?

Dem senator says he knows 'handful' of GOP colleagues considering vote to remove Trump

Quote

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Friday said that he has spoken with a "handful" of Republican colleagues who would consider voting to remove President Trump after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the House will move to impeach him. 

Asked during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" whether he has spoken with "a single GOP colleague in the Senate who's even considering voting for impeachment," Murphy answered affirmatively.

"Yes," he said while declining to name any colleagues.  

"It's a small list, on one hand," Murphy said. 

The senator also pushed back against calls for an anonymous removal vote. 

"I don't buy this secret ballot thing. If there was a secret ballot, there'd still be only a handful of them that would vote to impeach this guy," he said. 

If the House votes to impeach the president, the focus would shift to a Senate trial to decide on if Trump should be removed. Two-thirds of the GOP-held Senate would have to vote to remove Trump for him to be forced from office, meaning at least 20 Republican senators would need to support the move.

Murphy said he thought there was a maximum of five Republican senators who might vote to remove President Trump.

Pelosi said Thursday that she has asked House committee chairmen to "proceed with articles of impeachment" following weeks of impeachment hearings.

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Is this the tide turning-- or wishful thinking?

I'll believe it when I see it.  I'm sure Trump and cronies will pull out all stops to help him stay in office, with corresponding protections and benefits.  GOP senators, IMO, will think twice before straying from the main group; i.e., if a main group can't pull it together for removal then it'll be up to voters and voting machines next year.

[Smash!]

if a main group can't pull it together for removal then it'll be up to voters and voting machines next year.

Here, fixed that for you [emoji4] Silly you, dictators don't care about the voters [emoji1787]

 

[fraurosena]

Good grief. This is an official missive from the White House counsel, signed by Pat Cipollone himself. Who is a well educated lawyer, by the way. This has to have been personally dictated by Trump; the childish and accusatory tone are a dead giveaway. 

 

[Audrey2]

14 hours ago, Smash! said:

Wow Laurence Tribe says the word dictator It's something every damn Democrat should be calling 45 (I refuse to say his name), because he's nothing less.

Well, Trump does put the dick in dictator.

[Smash!]

Wohooo! As opposed to other popular figures in my Twitter bubble (looking at you Seth Abramson) I deeply respect Laurence Tribe and I'm thrilled he's involved in the impeachment [emoji3]

[fraurosena]

House Judiciary Committee releases report outlining historical arguments for impeachment

Quote

The House Judiciary Committee on Saturday released a report ahead of Monday's impeachment hearing laying out historical arguments for impeachment.

The report does not accuse President Donald Trump of committing impeachable offenses, but it lays the groundwork for Monday's hearing, where evidence against Trump will be presented by the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, as well as the possible introduction of articles of impeachment next week.

"The Framers worst nightmare is what we are facing in this very moment," House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said in a statement. "President Trump abused his power, betrayed our national security, and corrupted our elections, all for personal gain. The Constitution details only one remedy for this misconduct: impeachment. The safety and security of our nation, our democracy, and future generations hang in the balance if we do not address this misconduct. In America, no one is above the law, not even the President."

The report is an update to the Judiciary Committee reports that were issued in 1974 and 1998 during the impeachment proceedings of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

"The earlier reports remain useful points of reference, but no longer reflect the best available learning on questions relating to presidential impeachment," Nadler wrote in a forward introducing the report. "Further, they do not address several issues of constitutional law with particular relevance to the ongoing impeachment inquiry respecting President Donald J. Trump."

Here's a link to the official report

Apparently there's going to be a hearing on Monday and the Intelligence Committee's counsels are going to testify. 

 

[fraurosena]

Good grief. "He has not told me what he's found.. but I hear he's found plenty." 

 

Edited December 7, 2019 by fraurosena
punctuation matters

[fraurosena]

Makes you wonder what kind of intel they got that has them so afraid.

 

 

[apple1]

@Smash!

What's wrong with Seth Abramson?

[Smash!]

1 hour ago, apple1 said:

[mention=23517]Smash![/mention]

What's wrong with Seth Abramson?

First: I officially hate Tapatalk and will delete the app. I made such an effort to document with tweets why I don't like Seth Abramson and then this stupid app deleted some of the link and formatted my post extremely weird... including links where they don't belong... and I can't make it normal, neither in the app nor on the FJ website.

So here it goes:

Political strategist Alexandra Chalupa (sister of Gaslit Nations Andrea Chalupa) has been the target of death treats coming from Russia. Andrea Chalupa (@AndreaChalupa) hat getwittert:
My sister @AlexandraChalup is the target of state sponsored hacking and death threats. The far-right and Kremlin are trying to bankrupt her and harass her into silence. Listen to her story to understand why sloppy coverage of her is dangerous: https://t.co/IJwVxgq7SY

 

This is why it's extremely important to cover her with the correct facts https://twitter.com/andreachalupa/status/1199705286619123713?s=21

 

Well Seth Abramson spread false claims about her and refused to apologize or correct his statement (as far as I'm aware of). Here's Chalupas reply to Abramson and if you click on the tweet and scroll up you have the (very long) thread of him https://twitter.com/alexandrachalup/status/1198673289218056192?s=21

Another tweet from her  (don't know if it's linked to the thread linked above)  https://twitter.com/alexandrachalup/status/1198674990398357505?s=21

https://twitter.com/alexandrachalup/status/1198693465510432768?s=21

Here's Abramsons thread defending himself https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1198688776056377345?s=21

 

Some more back and forth https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1198688776056377345?s=21

This is why I lost all respect and unfollowed him. I mean Chalupa is getting death treats which means she's onto something that makes certain people very uncomfortable. Abramsons reaction cast a bad light on him. Instead I discovered Laurence Tribe (Professor on constitution law at Harvard) and Glenn Kirschner (ex federal prosecutor) and the good news is they don't write extra long threads ?

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Smash!

[fraurosena]

Holy moly, there goes another trumplican defense right out the window. 

 

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus. So now his followers feel the need to kill anyone who opposes him... 

 

[fraurosena]

Calling Nunes an asshole is an insult to assholes.

Small thread about how he reacts to questions about his phone calls with Lev Parnas.

 

[fraurosena]

Of course I agree with Aunt Crabby's sentiments, but the main reason I'm posting this is her use of #RudyColludy. 

 

[smittykins]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Calling Nunes an asshole is an insult to assholes.

Like the saying goes, assholes have a purpose.

[fraurosena]

Oops, I forgot there were hearings today! It's a bit late, but here's a link if you want to follow along.

 

[fraurosena]

You're not missing anything. The Trumplicans are pulling the same old shenanigans, their defense is to attack the Democrats and the witnesses are again making all the same points that show how Trump is guilty.

However, the Trumplicans do have a new argument against impeachment! 

 

[fraurosena]

 

[Smash!]

the laughing smilie is not against you @fraurosena their argument is just so... hilarious. Thanks for posting the link to the hearings, I'm on now.

"This is not corruption this is just a call" by Steve Castor this guy makes me sick.

[fraurosena]

 

[Smash!]

I won't tell y'all anything new but it's mindfucking that we have two parties telling two completely different stories in those hearings. I'm so glad I'm watching parts of it because otherwise I wouldn't believe it. It is so surreal that this is happening live in the USA.

Now Mr. Gohmert is trying several times to interrupt the hearings. Now others start interrupting, among them Mr. Biggs. Fuck all of them!!!

Edited December 9, 2019 by Smash!

[GreyhoundFan]

I've not been able to watch today's hearings as I've been in appointments all day. The WaPo published this a short time ago: "4 early takeaways from the House Judiciary impeachment hearing"

Spoiler

We could see articles of impeachment against President Trump this week. The precursor to those was a hearing Monday in the House Judiciary Committee in which impeachment investigators explained the evidence they have gathered against Trump.

Here are four early takeaways.

1. Democrats are using Giuliani to push back on timeline critiques

Republicans’ strongest case on impeachment is not on substance — the facts as we know them largely bear out the allegations against Trump — but on the impeachment process as conducted by the Democrats.

While this impeachment timeline is in line with the time it took the House to impeach Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, Democrats are plowing through detailed, sometimes tangled allegations dealing with foreign diplomacy and multiple government agencies rather quickly. Last week, on Tuesday afternoon, we got a 300-page report of what Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee thought Trump did wrong. The House Judiciary Committee held its first hearing about articles of impeachment on Wednesday morning.

Democrats appear to recognize that the timeline is a point of contention, so they are starting to talk more about why they are in a rush. What they say is essentially: Yeah, we’re moving fast, but it’s because we have to. Trump asked a foreign government to interfere in our election by investigating Democrats, and that election is less than a year away.

“The integrity of our next election is at stake. Nothing could be more urgent,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).

Ukraine did not follow through on investigations that Trump wanted of the Bidens and Democrats, to our knowledge. But Democrats’ point is boosted by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer. Last week he met with officials in Ukraine. and The Washington Post reported Sunday that he has or has had his hand in other countries, too — despite having no official government role.

'“If you do not believe he won’t do it again, let me remind you that the president’s personal lawyer spent last week in Ukraine meeting with government officials in an apparent attempt to gin up the same so-called favors that brought us here today and forced Congress to consider the impeachment of a sitting president," Nadler said. “This pattern of conduct represents a continuing risk to the country.”

And here’s Barry H. Berke, the committee’s Democratic lawyer, who presented evidence: “Our imagination is the only limit to what President Trump may do next and what a future president may do next to abuse his or her power to serve his own personal interests over the nation’s interests."

2. Democrats are arguing that the case against Trump is unassailable — even without top witnesses

Democrats have built a case against Trump from testimony of national security officials and diplomats who thought he wanted to extract political investigations from Ukraine in exchange for military aid and an Oval Office meeting, but they have yet to pin down whether Trump himself explicitly ordered the quid pro quo.

People who might be able to shed light on those conversations are in Trump’s inner circle and have avoided talking to Congress.

But Democrats have said they won’t wait months for courts to decide whether people such as former national security adviser John Bolton or acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney will testify about what they heard Trump say about Ukraine, so they are moving on with what they have.

That forces Democrats to make two sometimes at-odds arguments that could make their way into articles of impeachment: 1) that the president has obstructed the inquiry by not allowing witnesses and documents and 2) that the president clearly was behind the pressure campaign into Ukraine.

They tried to weave those two together like this:

“This scheme by President Trump was so brazen, so clear, supported by documents and actions and sworn testimony and contemporaneous records, that it’s hard to imagine that anybody could dispute those acts, let alone argue that that conduct does not constitute an impeachable offense or offenses,” Berke said.

And later: “The reason we have not heard from all the witnesses or documents is because President Trump himself has obstructed the investigation.”

3. Republicans are relying less on substance than process

Last week, Republicans in the Judiciary Committee focused on how Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president was aboveboard — even though they relied on misleading details and even outright inaccuracies to make that case. This time around, the process was their central complaint: that Democrats didn’t interview enough witnesses or that they were moving too quickly.

When Republicans’ counsel, Stephen Castor, did talk about substance, he didn’t have a lot to work with. He argued the July 25 call, in which Trump asks for a favor from Ukraine’s president, is the only thing Democrats have pinned on Trump. “To impeach a president 63 million people voted for over eight lines in a call transcript is baloney," Castor said.

Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman rebutted that in his opening statement, saying that reducing this case to eight lines “sorely ignores the vast amount of evidence that we collected of a months-long scheme directed by the president." He laid out how Democrats believe that at the time of his call with Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “fully understood” that he had to announce investigations into the Bidens and Democrats to get what he wanted from the White House.

Castor sought to undermine testimony from Gordon Sondland, accusing the U.S. ambassador to the European Union of lying. Sondland testified that he was doing Trump’s bidding to get Ukraine to announce political investigations in exchange for diplomacy, but he seemed to remember that only after other witnesses pointed at him as the communicator of a quid pro quo.

Finally, in the most bizarre line of attack against the Democrats, Castor argued, at least implicitly, that the Trump administration was not with it enough to corrupt foreign policy. “They’ll try to convince you that the Trump administration, the same administration Democrats regularly accuse of being incompetent, orchestrated an international conspiracy at the highest level,” he said.

4. The GOP engaged in a lot of interruptions

Why weren’t the staff committee lawyers sworn in? How could a witness say something that impugns Trump’s reputation? Why won’t Nadler let Republicans hold their own hearing?

The Republican points of order came over and over and over in the hearing, and many of them were not even germane to the testimony.

But that didn’t matter to Republicans. To the extent that they can make this hearing look hopelessly political, it helps them undermine the whole process.

Republicans are deliberately feeding into Americans’ skepticism, even cynicism, about Congress and lawmakers’ motives. They know Democrats have a potential perception issue with impeachment, and to this end, Republicans are hammering away on this point: The Democrats have made no secret about their dislike of Trump, and now they’re impeaching him.

“The steamroll continues,” the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), muttered into the mic as Nadler moved on to recognize a witness.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Some tweets from Rick Wilson about today's proceedings:

[fraurosena]

Usually I get a sneaky pleasure out of snarking at the trumplican antics in the hearings. Tonight I just can't stand their arrogant faux indignation and their disruptive shenanigans. So instead of actively following the hearing, I'm watching sappy saccharine hallmark christmas movies instead. just to balance things off.