Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Dueling Legal Experts
CBS had two legal analysts on their morning show, the question before them was: did the House do enough to move forward with impeachment?
The “conservative” on the panel was Kim Wehle of the Bulwark. She said in no uncertain terms that the Democrats had enough to move forward. That was basically all she had to add. No context, no pointing our the weakness, just remove Trump. So basically what you would expect from the Bulwark.
The other expert was Jonathan Turely. Mr. Turley is not a Republican and does not seem to particularly like Trump. He is not a guy who drank the Trump Kool-Aide and thinks Trump can do no wrong. He did not think that the Democrats did enough. This was the narrowest impeachment with the thinnest record. Every direct conversation before and after the whistleblower Trump said he did not want anything. He also points out that the rules change when the Senate is in charge. Hunter Biden might be the first witness called and this might end up being the trial that Trump wants.
He claims that whether it is on purpose or not this whole thing seems designed to fail.
When I heard that last bit that this was designed to fail, my first thought was that this was over the top. Why would the Democrats set this whole thing in motion knowing it would fail?
My next thought was, of course they had to know it would fail. To move the Senate they had to show a fair and open process. The treatment of the Republicans on the committee was enough to harden Republican opinions. Why would they set up this type of hyper-partisan hearing and limit Republican witnesses and questions and expect the Republican Senate would be ok with this?
I have no clue what the master plan is here, so maybe Mr. Turely is right. Maybe this was never designed to succeed.
Published in General
New bombshell from CTH. The FBI lawyer altered an email from Carter Page to justify the FISA application.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/11/25/disturbing-likelihood-fbi-lawyer-manipulated-carter-pages-own-communication-with-fbi-to-target-him/#more-176947
There is a very strong likelihood the documentary material that FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith falsified was actual communication from Carter Page to the FBI where Page was seeking their help in 2017. This revelation would explain and reconcile two seemingly contrasting points:
This outline will highlight a VERY disturbing picture:
Start by remembering the timeline of the Carter Page targeting through the use of a FISA application to the FISA Court (FISC). The original application was submitted on October 21st, 2016. The first FISA renewal was January 12, 2017 (84 days from origination). The second renewal was April 7, 2017 (85 days from prior renewal). The third renewal was on June 29th, 2017 (83 days from prior renewal).
We know from the Washington Post and the New York Times leaks, again based on principal reviews of the IG report content, that FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith modified an email:
That means Kevin Clinesmith modified an email, which then became part of the woods file evidence (citation by FBI FISA warrant lawyer Sally Moyer) to support either the April renewal or the June, 2017, renewal of the FISA application.
How did he think this would not get caught? The email was from the subject of the warrant !
I haven’t read all the comments so apologies if someone has already made this point. But…stretch your minds a bit. Really open them up. And consider this:
Yes, the Democrats really are that stupid. Yes, they think there is some there, there. Yes they think (or thought) they’d uncover the smoking gun.
The idea that someone from The Bulwark gets on national television on this issue tells you all you need to know about both the media and The Bulwark.
Dem and Rep voters will vote respectively. The ‘middle’ will choose as they do, but a large contingent of that middle are people who don’t much care about politics, but might vote if they are sufficiently excited. For these people, there are gut checks and gestalt knowledge.
For some of these people, the fact of Trump being under investigation is tantamount to him being guilty of something, and means he is bad and shouldn’t be President.
Look to the political ads of whatever Dem slouches roughly to the nomination to capitalize on this show trial regardless of how much we think it only makes the Dems look bad.
That’s important to keep in mind. People like us here might debate from different points on the objective-subjective axis, but we’re all equally involved intellectually. Most people are much less so.
I don’t have a problem with that; there are more intellectuals in our society than we need or can support. Raising and supporting superfluous intellectuals is at the root of our troubles today.
I’ll go a bit further. I think they are bat**** crazy.
Maybe. Or maybe they are simply grasping at straws as they have done since election night in 2016. They are desperate and desperate people do desperate things.
Maybe. I haven’t spoken to Schiff nor Pelosi in a while, but I speak to a lot of liberals. They are think they got this in the bag.
BOLD PREDICTION
The House will vote to censure Trump. No impeachment.
Why?
The Senate will not vote for removal. It is possible Pelosi could cobble together a bipartisan majority for censure. All the Democrats plus some Republicans in purple districts.
In other words, declare victory and move on.
“There have been four cases in U.S. history where the House of Representatives or the Senateadopted a resolution that, in its original form, would censure the president. However, the censure of President Andrew Jackson “remains the clearest case of presidential censure by resolution”.[4] In 1834, while under Whig control, the Senate censured Jackson, a member of the Democratic Party, for withholding documents relating to his actions in defunding the Bank of the United States.[5] During the waning months of Jackson’s term, his Democratic allies succeeded in expunging the censure.[6]”
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do censure, but not at least until after the filing deadlines have passed for the Super Tuesday primaries, which for the most part should be within the next month. Censure instead of impeachment would make life easier on the purple district Democrats who were first elected in 2018, but the AOC-Tlaib-Omar types who were first elected in ’18 and the Dems’ angry progressive primary base will go wild if they back off impeachment for censure, and could try to primary some of the House members they think chickened out. That’s not an option if the primary filing period’s over.
I agree. Pelosi ain’t stupid and this makes strategic sense.
This is really good example of good and bad punditry. The expert from the Bulwark simply stated an obvious fact, having a majority in the House is enough to move forward with impeachment. No legal standard needs to be met it is a simply a political issue. Stating it the way she seems too is really kind of useless.
Turley on the other hand gave us useful information. If impeachment is about removal the Democrats are acting as if they do not want to succeed. They do practically nothing, you would expect them to do, if they wanted Trump removed. Turley does useful service there.
Even better punditry is to explore the why. Are the Democrats deeply incompetent as politicians? This question can’t be lightly dismissed. This may be the full explanation.
If it is not incompetence there has to be a different motive for impeachment besides removal like hurting Trump’s re-election chances or other similar motives. Exploring this should be what our news media does, at least the pundits should do it. Also pointing our the lack of effort the Democrats are making to convince Republicans to vote for removal or impeachment should be news and there should more stories comparing this impeachment to Clinton’s impeachment.
But our media is generally useless in this age….sigh….
You’re Pelosi. What do you do?
Give the extremists half a loaf. At best something turns up. At worst you cover Trump with mud and dominate the air.
Pelosi has to placate the fringe and appear to be at the head of the parade.
It seems to me that the plan is to keep Democratic Representatives from facing a primary challenge from the out-of-control far left if they don’t impeach. Meanwhile, Dems in districts that Trump won haven’t had to go on the record because there hasn’t been a vote. I’m guessing there won’t be a vote, either, until it is too late for a someone to mount a primary challenge. If it bloodies up Trump for the election, they figure, so much the better. But if it all backfires, they can blame it on Schiff.
Nobody has a learned a thing from the 2016 election. What we all should have learned is that the middle (and the middle of the ends) are tired of partisan politics. They just want Washington to do their jobs. If Pelosi and Co. were seriously interested in ridding themselves of Trump they’d have stopped with the shenanigans and started passing legislation and blaming Republicans for being the party of No. “See, we try, and they, lead by Trump, won’t let us get to work!”
The fringes on each end do not win the election. The middle wins the election. Trump appealed to the middle and he won the election. He will appeal to the middle again and (hopefully) win the election again.
That, IMHO, is the problem.We don’t agree on what Washington’s job actually is. I used to have mostly civil discussions with a co-worker. He is a Harvard graduate, a few years older than I am, a Jew from Boston who is comfortable with what WFB, Jr. used to call “collectivist formulations”. He believes that a legitimate function if the Federal government is income redistribution. I think the government already does too much of that and that the government has no legitimate authority to do that anyway. That is just one example of the partisan divide. I don’t see a way to bridge it.
I’m not really talking about our different ideologies. We all have our views on what the right and proper role of the Federal government is and isn’t. Pelosi does. And there are folks in the middle who don’t give a rip about ideology. They would prefer someone just going and getting done what they think needs getting done.
Now me? I’m more like you. And I figure as long as they are engaging in this impeachment nonsense they aren’t passing new laws to take more of my money and freedoms. But I don’t decide the elections, the people I described above do. Pelosi won’t ever get my vote, but she can get theirs.
I see. If you are giving Pelosi advice on how to get rid of Trump via the electoral process rather than failing to successfully impeach, I agree. Personally, I’d rather see her continue on her present path.
This would be even better understood through a look at recent political party history. It is true that close Presidential elections and a number of congressional elections are decided by the middle. That middle is a constituency that once actually had portions of both parties that answered to it. The process worked in a more predictable way before the political parties took on this ideological flavor test that has created these so-called fringes. The Democrats have a Left component and a Far Left fringe and perhaps a small middle, which might include some of those who won in districts Trump won in 2016 that keep coming up in these conversations. On many issues Pelosi has been able to hold them together 100% which to me is a strange phenomenon in itself. Republicans are less adamant on the ideological purity but the far Right fringe that supports Trump is not friendly with the establishment Right component that has consistently supported big government and continuous military conflict. This alignment is less predictable than before I think and it is much harder to do even legislation that is needed with divided government like we have.
In terms of Presidential elections, Clinton campaign mistakes in the battleground states that gave the 2016 election to Trump are unexplainable except in terms of overconfidence and consequent failures to do what what needed in those states. Trump won’t make those kinds of mistakes.
Evidence has nothing to do with it. Impeachment is purely political.
The Democrats just have to make the calculation Is it politically beneficial
There are older people who are Socialists. I think the appeal to the younger is on student debt. They all are burdened by it and want a way to get out from under. I think for many of them, this trumps (so to speak) all other issues. Plus, of course, they learned nothing with all that tuition. Something like half of all college students do not know anything about World War II.
The failure to repeal ObamaCare was the fault of one man, not of “Republicans.” My Senator at the time, John McCain, who had campaigned on repealing ObamaCare, then rose (basically from his deathbed) to cast the deciding vote against repeal.
I cannot know his motivation, but my opinion is that McCain was motivated by hatred of President Trump.
And his voters, who McCain described as “Crazies.” He also described the Tea Party as “Coocoo birds.”