Renzatic on 14/11/2019 at 17:40
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-weve-already-learned-from-the-democrats-impeachment-witnesses/) FiveThirtyEight sums the whole thing up quite well.
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What Democrats don't appear to have at this point is a witness who can testify directly about why the White House withheld the aid. Sondland has only said that he “presumed” the funds were tied to an investigation. And the other witnesses didn't speak with Trump himself about communications with Ukraine. But the testimony Democrats already gathered contains plenty of circumstantial evidence. What we have yet to see is how they'll stitch those threads together, and how compelling their story will be for people tuning into the hearings.
The Democrats have a case where a number of people are commenting on how weird and suspicious and not quite right everything was, but lack the proverbial smoking gun. Though on the flipside of that, the Republicans don't have much of a defense against what's been presented, other than saying that whatever highly suspicious thing that was going on didn't succeed, because Trump released the funds two days after the whistleblower did his/her thing, and HEY LOOK, THE BIDEN'S, GRR!
If we're all expecting a highly entertaining, no holds barred fist fight trial of the century where Trump is either exonerated to the heavens high, or damned straight to hell, it's going to be highly disappointing. It's going to be dragged out, and none of the people at the center of it all, Giuliani, Mulvaney, Bolton, et al., can even be compelled to testify because Trump's cited executive privilege to ignore all the congressional supoenas, which can't be circumvented without going to SCOTUS to see if his take on it is constitutionally kosher.
Starker on 14/11/2019 at 18:03
The Republicans are so desperate they are now resorting to attacking the whistleblower and complaining how unfair the rules are that they themselves created instead of challenging any of the substance of the case.
And this is just the opening of the impeachment hearings. As comparison, the first witness in Nixon impeachment hearings was someone who just explained the structure of the reelection committee. Likewise, William Taylor and George Kent are just career diplomats who explained how things should normally work in their area and why what happened is so abnormal and against the national interest of the US.
The facts are already pretty clearly laid out. The question at this point is not whether Lord Dampnut did it, but whether he will get away with it. He has ordered most of the people who have direct knowledge of the events to not testify and has refused to hand over evidence that would shed light on it, such as diplomatic cables, State Department memos, and whatnot. Obstruction of justice is in full swing right about now.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/heres-what-to-watch-for-in-the-impeachment-hearings)
Donald Trump withheld US military assistance to Ukraine until it agreed to help Trump's re-election campaign. That is an abuse of power of the highest order - a corruption of American democracy that undermines national security - and requires that Trump be removed from office.
As Congress begins public hearings to determine whether Trump's actions merit impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate, it's vital that the process focuses on these simple facts of Trump's corruption. Over recent weeks the House has conducted depositions of current and former officials, all of which have corroborated Trump's abuse of power. But since the deposition transcripts from those officials are thousands of pages long, the details can get lost in the endless spin by politicians and the media. Don't expect much new information from the public hearings because the facts are already clear and conclusive. Rather, this is an opportunity for the public to hear directly from participants in this saga and for the American people to understand just how dangerous Trump's actions are.
So, what should the American people watch for in the hearings and the process that could lead to impeachment?
First, focus on the facts. As the 2020 campaign began, Trump tried to force Ukraine to manufacture a scandal about Trump's domestic political opponent - the former vice-president, Joe Biden - despite zero evidence of wrongdoing. Trump also wanted Ukraine to fabricate evidence of a false conspiracy theory that somehow connects Ukraine to the 2016 campaign. Trump withheld military assistance from Ukraine and a White House meeting with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, until Ukraine agreed to smear Trump's opponents. And Trump got numerous US government officials - including the vice-president, Mike Pence, and US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland - as well as his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to take part in the extortion scheme.
The bottom line is clear, and confirmed by the transcript of the 25 July phone call between Trump and Zelensky released by the White House: Trump abused his power and admitted to it.
Second, the impeachment process must show Americans why Trump's actions were so bad. Trump abused his official power to get a foreign country to help his re-election campaign. Trump potentially disobeyed the law by withholding aid that Congress had already ordered be given to Ukraine. And Trump subjected a key US foreign policy goal - supporting Ukraine's sovereignty in the face of Russia's invasion - to his personal goals. These are devastating consequences that strike at the heart of American national security and democracy.
Some of Trump's supporters have argued this is how foreign policy works. When asked whether the extortion scheme was a quid pro quo, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said, “we do that all the time in foreign policy.” As the impeachment process continues, we are likely to hear Trump supporters attempt to gaslight Americans into believing that this behavior is normal.
But it's not normal. Many of those deposed - and whom the public will hear from in the coming weeks - are life-long, highly trained national security officials who told Congress that Trump's attempt to extort Ukraine for personal gain was wrong and that many of them tried to stop it and reported the wrongdoing. Trump even ousted the US ambassador to Ukraine for trying to stop this extortion.
And while so much of the recent public debate has swirled around the question of a quid pro quo, the American people must not let this debate distract them. Even if there had been no explicit quid pro quo - and there was - Trump still grossly abused his power. Any conversation with the president carries tremendous official power, and Zelensky knew exactly what Trump was asking and felt the pressure of the world's most powerful country pushing him to advance the personal interests of its president. Furthermore, it is illegal to ask for campaign help from a foreign entity.
While Trump and his supporters claim that Trump was attempting to root out corruption in Ukraine, in reality Trump was pressuring Ukraine into committing corrupt acts - acts the Ukrainians knew were wrong, and repeatedly tried to resist despite desperately needing US military aid. In a telling moment from the testimony of deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent, we learned that when former US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker objected to Ukrainian officials investigating the previous Ukrainian president, Ukrainian officials responded by pointing out American hypocrisy: “You mean the type of investigations you're pushing for us to do on Biden and Clinton?” The sad fact is that Trump was turning the US government into a corrupt enterprise in the service of his own personal interests, making America look like just another kleptocratic dictatorship.
As the impeachment process heats up, Trump and his allies will do whatever it takes to try to muddy the waters. They will throw around the words “Clinton,” “Biden,” and “corruption” to distract. And when all else fails they will admit that Trump's actions were wrong, but not impeachable, as some have already begun to do.
But this is a slam dunk case. The question is not whether Trump did it - it's whether the members of the House and Senate will live up to their oaths of office and vote to impeach and convict. Allowing Trump to get away with this would be to condone wrongdoing at the highest levels, and to make a mockery of the constitution. And if Trump is not removed from office, it will give him the green light to further abuse his power - and it would make clear that future presidents can too.
Starker on 14/11/2019 at 18:13
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Trump released the funds two days after the whistleblower did his/her thing, and HEY LOOK, THE BIDEN'S, GRR!
Apparently, the funds might have been released on Bolton's orders, because it was concluded they had no legal standing to withhold them.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-09/state-department-freed-ukraine-money-before-trump-says-he-did)
President Donald Trump says he lifted his freeze on aid to Ukraine on Sept. 11, but the State Department had quietly authorized releasing $141 million of the money several days earlier, according to five people familiar with the matter.
The State Department decision, which hasn't been reported previously, stemmed from a legal finding made earlier in the year, and conveyed in a classified memorandum to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. State Department lawyers found the White House Office of Management and Budget, and thus the president, had no legal standing to block spending of the Ukraine aid.
[...]
Congressional appropriators were frustrated when their inquiry on Aug. 29 about the status of the State Department funds was greeted by silence. Days passed and on Sept. 9, when they asked again, the State Department's Legislative Affairs office told them there was no hold on the $141 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
What they didn't know, according to one of the people, was that shortly before Sept. 9, Bolton had relayed a message to the State Department that the funding could go ahead. It's not clear whether Bolton, who resigned from the job a week later, did so with Trump's approval.
Bolton's handling of the funding struck officials in the White House as violating protocol and caught Mulvaney by surprise, according to another person familiar with the matter.
An OMB spokeswoman denied that characterization, saying Bolton had done no such thing and didn't have the authority to do so. Nonetheless, Bolton at the time was waging a battle with senior-level OMB officials over the funding and opposed putting any conditions on the aid.
[...]
Renzatic on 14/11/2019 at 18:20
Quote Posted by Starker
The question at this point is not whether Lord Dampnut did it, but whether he will get away with it.
And the answer to that is "yes, he will." Without anything truly pearl clutching, the Republicans can say the evidence is concerning, but not convincing enough to commit to an historically significant move like removing an acting president from office, and thus choose not to vote to either impeach or remove him for office.
To use an analogy, if we were trying to charge Trump wtih attempted murder by stabbing, what we'd is evidence he had a personal grudge with the victim in question, openly threatened the guy during the weeks leading up to the attack, was overheard saying that he needs to find a good drycleaner to get a lot of blood taken out of his favorite suit the day after the attempt, was caught telling multiple people not to tell the investigators ANYTHING, was caught burying a large steak knife in his back yard during his arrest, and had no compelling alibi detailing his whereabouts during the attack.
...but without a picture of him standing over the victim, bloody knife in hand, along with a signed confession, it's all hearsay. And anyway, the guy lived, so there's no crime.
jkcerda on 14/11/2019 at 18:36
welcome to American horror story. where shit shows are more important than moving the country forward
Starker on 14/11/2019 at 18:37
What if the voting was secret?
Renzatic on 14/11/2019 at 18:46
Like they say, impeachment is a political process.
Right now, I'd say there's enough compelling evidence to say that Trump did withhold military funds to pressure the Ukrainian president into doing his personal bidding. The problem is, compelling evidence isn't necessarily exciting evidence, so any case built around it may fail in the sense that it doesn't inspire the American people into voting against Trump.
The biggest lesson we're all going to walk away from the Trump impeachment with is that if Political Party A doesn't risk anything ignoring the evidence, then why do anything about it, and if Political Party B doesn't gain anything but holding people in power accountable, then why bother at all? The law should be enforced upon ourselves only when it benefits us.
Renzatic on 14/11/2019 at 18:49
Quote Posted by Starker
What if the voting was secret?
A secret ballot wouldn't be a terrible idea, since it'd allow any vulnerable Republicans to vote their conscience in the senate without concerns of it costing them during the election. It gives them room to deny their pro-impeachment vote when stumping for Trump's base.
But it won't happen. Cuz McConnell.
Starker on 14/11/2019 at 19:20
What if three Republican senators were to block the rules on the Senate trial (which needs a simple majority to pass) and demand a secret ballot?
Also, if a president abusing the power of his office and undermining the country's national security in order to ratfuck his main political rival isn't exciting enough, you will be in for some pretty dark times. In the other hand, you'll likely see activism on a degree to rival the civil rights era. Nothing gets people up from their couches quite like injustice and already the Indivisible groups rival anything from the Tea Party era, though with none of the media coverage, for some reason.
Renzatic on 14/11/2019 at 19:28
Quote Posted by Starker
What if three Republican senators were to block the rules on the Senate trial (which needs a simple majority to pass) and demand a secret ballot?
You're hinting as if this is something possibly going on.
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Also, if a president abusing the power of his office and undermining the country's national security in order to ratfuck his main political rival isn't exciting enough, you will be in for some pretty dark times. In the other hand, you'll likely see activism on a degree to rival the civil rights era. Nothing gets people up from their couches quite like injustice and already the Indivisible groups rival anything from the Tea Party era, though with none of the media coverage, for some reason.
It doesn't have that prime time soap opera scandal appeal that the Clinton Blow Job had. Unfortunately for us, this is primarily what drives our politics.
If you want to remove a president from office, it can't over a mere gross violations of the Constitution and the public trust. It has to be shocking, undeniable.