House Democrats Admit They Never Had an Impeachment Case Anyway

 

This morning we are graced with “news” that House Democrats will present two articles of impeachment to the full House. The two “charges” are probably the two most vague, unspecific, unconstitutional things they could manage to throw out without dropping the whole thing altogether, proving that at this point mostly about the 2020 election and doing as little damage to their brand as possible.

If they fail to add to these two, they will be left with “charges” that not only have nothing to do with law or the Constitution but are flaming examples of exactly what the Founders/Framers were trying to prevent. It would be hard to think of two that would better illustrate the “maladministration” suggestion rejected by Madison and the rest of the Constitutional Convention, including the man who originally suggested it.

This across-the-board coup attempt by media, Democrats, and Never Trumpers of both the open and closet varieties has moved from one hoped-for offense to another as each proved to be empty when exposed to sunlight and fresh air. Bribery, for instance, was such a buzz word only a few days ago but is nowhere to be found so far in these charges, much too specific and requires something that at least resembles evidence.

Monday’s hearings proved to be just another Democrat embarrassment to any who bothered to look or listen beyond the selected network soundbites. I have truly been surprisingly proud of the fight and focus Republicans have shown during the House proceedings. I hope that their Senate brothers measure up. I do not have my expectations as high as I would like. But this nation deserves for the GOP Senators to step forward as clearly as the members of the GOP House have.

What are these “other high crimes and misdemeanors” which the Democrats have landed on?

Abuse of Power is not only vague beyond description but can be applied to almost any political opponent if one lets their imagination wander very far. In far, it is almost comical considering that this administration has followed what might well be considered the most constitutionally impeachment president we have had. There was hardly a day, and certainly not a week, that went by when BHO did not thumb his nose at either existing law or the Constitution with an executive order or open act. I believe it can be argued that this president has closely followed constitutional guidelines more faithfully than in any in quite some time.

Obstruction of Congress, not obstruction of justice mind you, refers to nothing more than a separate and equal branch of government exercising its rights. Never has a president been required to provide papers to Congress without either consent or a ruling of the courts. President Trump has done little more than claim that right. What these charges suggest are powers of an equal branch that Congress simply does not have. This alters if not destroys the very foundation of our system.

We will see if they can invent something else that they hope can pass the smell test for 2020 voters before any vote of the full House next week. But so far, they have only had to retreat more and more as this years-long coup attempt plays out.

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  1. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Ole Summers: I have truly been surprisingly proud of the fight and focus Republicans have shown during the House proceedings. I hope that their Senate brothers measure up. I do not have my expectations as high as I would like. But this nation deserves for the GOP Senators to step forward as clearly as the members of the GOP House have.

    The Repubs. were outstanding in their pushback at the hearings, and have been in other settings recently, too. I was so proud and pleased. Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back. It’s about time. Great post, Ole!

    • #1
  2. DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back.

    Some of them anyway.

    There are still too many Romneys in the party.

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back.

    Some of them anyway.

    There are still too many Romneys in the party.

    That may be true, but the fighters are setting a good example and getting credit for it. Let’s hope others step up, too!

    • #3
  4. Ole Summers Member
    Ole Summers
    @OleSummers

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back.

    Some of them anyway.

    There are still too many Romneys in the party.

    exactly, you will note that we are only talking about some House Republicans. Almost all in the Senate still have much to prove – and live down !

    • #4
  5. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    If there is abuse of power its congressional Democrats. As far as obstruction of congress Democrats are mad that they invited Trump to a lynching and he refused to get on the horse and put the rope around his neck. What nonsense for heavens sake.

    • #5
  6. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    The one positive take-away from this morning’s Democrat articles of impeachment announcement is that Jerry Nadler was able to make it through the entirety of the presentation without having to use a drool towel.

    • #6
  7. DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey
    @DrewInWisconsin

    And “bribery” wasn’t among the charges! The Nevers assured us that would be the thing that would end Trump’s presidency for sure! I mean, I just read it here yesterday!

    • #7
  8. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    The party of the ‘feels’ had a base that wanted to feel both good and morally superior to the others, and get their perpetual Two Minutes of Hate in against Trump, where emotion was in the driver’s seat. They thought they’d be able to do impeachment on the Mueller report, but when that fizzled, any concerns about what exactly Trump would be charged took a back seat to simply charging Trump.

    The vaguery of the charges here is simply because the more specific the charges are, the more they dump a train wreck in the lap of Chuck Schumer and the other Senate Democrats, since they no longer have total control of The Narrative there. Mitch McConnell doesn’t have total control, either, since the networks are likely to be extremely selective in covering any Senate impeachment trial, just as most of them cut away on Monday from the House hearings when the Republicans started asking questions that the networks didn’t want their viewers to hear. But with McConnell running the show, any selective editing of what’s shown — or the decision not to show the trial at all other than in selected sound bites — would even further expose the deliberate slanting of the coverage.

    Keeping the charges as non-specific as possible allows the Democrats to better spin what they actually mean by the charges in a Clintonian “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” sort of way. They know Trump’s not getting convicted, but they do want to go out in 2020 and say he was impeached, while at the same time be able to bloviate on what he was impeached about without getting called on it.

    • #8
  9. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    As most of us said here in these past few weeks, this was all fabricated nonsense based on Democrats’ delusions of Trump as a person.  It was all false hype and I wish specific Congressmen would not only lose their seats but actually be charged with crimes.  This was a total sham.

    • #9
  10. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    I wonder if  others here would help  contribute to the cause: 435 of these Trumpenol meds are needed to be shipped to Capital Building ASAP:

     

     

    • #10
  11. PHenry Inactive
    PHenry
    @PHenry

    At a time when a person who is born a man becomes a woman the moment he ‘feels’ like he is a woman, and a baby isn’t a human until the mother ‘feels’ like it is a human, and speech is violence if anyone ‘feels’ threatened by its ideas, does it really seem surprising that a president can be impeached because someone ‘feels’ like he rates impeachment? 

    The left knows they have no evidence.  They just don’t ‘feel’ like they should have to have evidence, because their ‘feelings’ already have proven what they want to be true is true.  

    And don’t you dare question those feelings. That would be violence.  

    • #11
  12. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back.

    Some of them anyway.

    There are still too many Romneys in the party.

    I heard Graham state he wouldn’t call any witnesses or take any testimony, just vote  because it was “tearing the country apart”.  I sure as hell hope they don’t go that route.  I want every scoundrel in the Deep State dragged in to testify, from Obama on down.

    • #12
  13. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    The one positive take-away from this morning’s Democrat articles of impeachment announcement is that Jerry Nadler was able to make it through the entirety of the presentation without having to use a drool towel.

    • #13
  14. DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Kozak (View Comment):
    I heard Graham state he wouldn’t call any witnesses or take any testimony, just vote because it was “tearing the country apart”. I sure as hell they don’t go that route. I want every scoundrel in the Deep State dragged in to testify, from Obama on down.

    Same. This action by the Democrats requires reciprocal action.

    • #14
  15. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Manny (View Comment):

    As most of us said here in these past few weeks, this was all fabricated nonsense based on Democrats’ delusions of Trump as a person. It was all false hype and I wish specific Congressmen would not only lose their seats but actually be charged with crimes. This was a total sham.

    This is incredibly damaging to the country.  The bar for impeachment is now “we hate the guy”.  

    • #15
  16. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    The one positive take-away from this morning’s Democrat articles of impeachment announcement is that Jerry Nadler was able to make it through the entirety of the presentation without having to use a drool towel.

    • #16
  17. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    The Repubs. were outstanding in their pushback at the hearings, and have been in other settings recently, too. I was so proud and pleased. Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back. It’s about time. Great post, Ole!

    Agree.

    • #17
  18. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    The “obstruction of Congress” charge is nonsense and filler.  It ought to be rejected 100-0 by the Senate (although in these hyper-partisan times, it obviously won’t get a rebuke that large).  

    The abuse of power charge is more significant.  While the Democrats were in too big a hurry to actually gather iron-clad evidence, it does appear to me likely that Trump did abuse, or at least attempt to abuse, the powers of the presidency by withholding aid to Ukraine and conditioning its release on the announcement of an investigation into the Bidens.  

    Assuming I’m right (and I’m only about 80% sure of the facts due to the rushed process and decision not to pursue better evidence), whether that’s a sufficiently serious offense to merit impeachment and removal is really in the eye of the beholder IMHO.  I certainly think it merits censure if true.

    I think, however, that it’s hard to untangle it from partisanship.  While I think it a likely abuse of power, I’m not sure how it stacks up against other abuses of power that no one seriously considered pursuing impeachment over.

    I’m thinking of recent events like the IRS scandal, and the lie about the Benghazi attack having been due to a Youtube video.  Both were abuses of power.  Both were efforts effect an election.  Were they worse than what Trump did?  I don’t know.  The IRS scandal was never shown to go all the way to Obama, but it was probably a worse abuse of power.  The Benghazi/video lie almost certainly did go to Obama, but maybe it was a slightly more conventional abuse than the charge against Trump.  All three instances have their own unique facts.

    But the things I think we can say with confidence are that: 1) we tolerate and expect, even if we don’t like, a certain amount of abuse of power from our presidents in pursuing re-election; and 2) where we don’t tolerate them it’s usually the opposing party, motivated more by partisanship than principle, that gets worked up about them.

    I think I can also say with confidence that a Republican controlled house would not be pursuing impeachment over these charges, and that this Democrat controlled house would not be pursuing impeachment if a President Hillary Clinton had done exactly what Trump apparently did.  In that sense, this impeachment is unavoidably partisan.

    On the other hand, when you know that your political opponents have been looking for an excuse to impeach you since the night you were elected, how dumb do you have to be to hand them this stick to beat you with?

    • #18
  19. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    As most of us said here in these past few weeks, this was all fabricated nonsense based on Democrats’ delusions of Trump as a person. It was all false hype and I wish specific Congressmen would not only lose their seats but actually be charged with crimes. This was a total sham.

    This is incredibly damaging to the country. The bar for impeachment is now “we hate the guy”.

    Agreed. 

    • #19
  20. Fritz Coolidge
    Fritz
    @Fritz

    I do not see much chance of a conviction in the Senate this time around, but the Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) have already indicated this may not be their only try to remove this president. So what might happen if impeachment ends in no conviction in the Senate, and then Trump wins re-election?

    The current Senate has a 53-seat GOP majority, the Senate that will decide on the current impeachment effort. But three GOP senators have already indicated they are retiring so their open seats will be up, along with 18 GOP incumbents, in the 2020 election.

    Given that three other current GOP-ers seem consistently opposed to (or at least cannot be counted upon to support) the president (Murkowski, Collins, and Romney), then if the three open seats of the retiring Republicans were to go to the Democrats, the split would at best be 50-50. Does anyone doubt that the Democrats would look at those numbers and not want to make another attempt to impeach him?

    Hopefully, the GOP can make significant gains in the House. Perilous times, indeed. 

    • #20
  21. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Kozak (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back.

    Some of them anyway.

    There are still too many Romneys in the party.

    I heard Graham state he wouldn’t call any witnesses or take any testimony, just vote because it was “tearing the country apart”. I sure as hell hope they don’t go that route. I want every scoundrel in the Deep State dragged in to testify, from Obama on down.

    Hear! Hear!

     

    • #21
  22. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    The one positive take-away from this morning’s Democrat articles of impeachment announcement is that Jerry Nadler was able to make it through the entirety of the presentation without having to use a drool towel.

    Before or after his nap….

     

    • #22
  23. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Perhaps that is an unexpected positive outcome of this impeachment mess is that Republicans are no longer afraid to protest and fight back.

    Some of them anyway.

    There are still too many Romneys in the party.

    That may be true, but the fighters are setting a good example and getting credit for it. Let’s hope others step up, too!

    The issue is this: Jordans and Gowdys are only kabuki theater. Show me the Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell directed strategies, ruthlessly enforced with credible threats of loss of committee assignments and even expulsion from the caucus. No? Then it is just a scam, added and abetted by your favorite Congress critters who have not ganged up and compelled real leadership on threat of breaking the caucus if it continues to run the long con.

    • #23
  24. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Cato Rand (View Comment):

    The “obstruction of Congress” charge is nonsense and filler. It ought to be rejected 100-0 by the Senate (although in these hyper-partisan times, it obviously won’t get a rebuke that large).

    The abuse of power charge is more significant. While the Democrats were in too big a hurry to actually gather iron-clad evidence, it does appear to me likely that Trump did abuse, or at least attempt to abuse, the powers of the presidency by withholding aid to Ukraine and conditioning its release on the announcement of an investigation into the Bidens.

    Assuming I’m right (and I’m only about 80% sure of the facts due to the rushed process and decision not to pursue better evidence), whether that’s a sufficiently serious offense to merit impeachment and removal is really in the eye of the beholder IMHO. I certainly think it merits censure if true.

    I think, however, that it’s hard to untangle it from partisanship. While I think it a likely abuse of power, I’m not sure how it stacks up against other abuses of power that no one seriously considered pursuing impeachment over.

    I’m thinking of recent events like the IRS scandal, and the lie about the Benghazi attack having been due to a Youtube video. Both were abuses of power. Both were efforts effect an election. Were they worse than what Trump did? I don’t know. The IRS scandal was never shown to go all the way to Obama, but it was probably a worse abuse of power. The Benghazi/video lie almost certainly did go to Obama, but maybe it was a slightly more conventional abuse than the charge against Trump. All three instances have their own unique facts.

    But the things I think we can say with confidence are that: 1) we tolerate and expect, even if we don’t like, a certain amount of abuse of power from our presidents in pursuing re-election; and 2) where we don’t tolerate them it’s usually the opposing party, motivated more by partisanship than principle, that gets worked up about them.

    I think I can also say with confidence that a Republican controlled house would not be pursuing impeachment over these charges, and that this Democrat controlled house would not be pursuing impeachment if a President Hillary Clinton had done exactly what Trump apparently did. In that sense, this impeachment is unavoidably partisan.

    On the other hand, when you know that your political opponents have been looking for an excuse to impeach you since the night you were elected, how dumb do you have to be to hand them this stick to beat you with?

    The Bidens and Clintons do not have any special aristocratic grant of privilege. If their obscene abuses of power and crude kleptocracy cannot be corrected by criminal investigation because some family member is always either a current or potential candidate (else the graft seriously slows), then we are truly a nation of different laws for different classes.

    • #24
  25. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Fritz (View Comment):

    I do not see much chance of a conviction in the Senate this time around, but the Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) have already indicated this may not be their only try to remove this president. So what might happen if impeachment ends in no conviction in the Senate, and then Trump wins re-election?

    The current Senate has a 53-seat GOP majority, the Senate that will decide on the current impeachment effort. But three GOP senators have already indicated they are retiring so their open seats will be up, along with 18 GOP incumbents, in the 2020 election.

    Given that three other current GOP-ers seem consistently opposed to (or at least cannot be counted upon to support) the president (Murkowski, Collins, and Romney), then if the three open seats of the retiring Republicans were to go to the Democrats, the split would at best be 50-50. Does anyone doubt that the Democrats would look at those numbers and not want to make another attempt to impeach him?

    Hopefully, the GOP can make significant gains in the House. Perilous times, indeed.

    Yes. And. We are likely in a different political space, with a different set of candidates more likely to keep and hold office in different states. Murkowski is up for reelection this year. She should be primaried and McConnell pinned down, with his own reelection, to not throw her a lifeline again if Republican primary voters throw her out again. 

    McConnell should be ruthlessly beaten down about his sabotage of a young, black, combat veteran, family-businessman in Michigan last time and compelled to go all in on John James in Michigan, taking a seat from the Democrats while keeping the state for President Trump. Or is the senior senator from Kentucky threatened by a strong black man? 

    President Trump’s campaign is already working to greatly expand the electoral map, based on his delivery of results to those states.

    • #25
  26. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

     

    The Bidens and Clintons do not have any special aristocratic grant of privilege. If their obscene abuses of power and crude kleptocracy cannot be corrected by criminal investigation because some family member is always either a current or potential candidate (else the graft seriously slows), then we are truly a nation of different laws for different classes.

    I’m less sure about the Bidens but the Clinton family fortune testifies to this being their out in the open m.o. for the last two decades.  Whatever might be said about Trump, a President Hillary would have hired Sotheby’s to auction off American foreign policy to the highest bidder. 

    • #26
  27. DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Cato Rand (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

     

    The Bidens and Clintons do not have any special aristocratic grant of privilege. If their obscene abuses of power and crude kleptocracy cannot be corrected by criminal investigation because some family member is always either a current or potential candidate (else the graft seriously slows), then we are truly a nation of different laws for different classes.

    I’m less sure about the Bidens but the Clinton family fortune testifies to this being their out in the open m.o. for the last two decades. Whatever might be said about Trump, a President Hillary would have hired Sotheby’s to auction off American foreign policy to the highest bidder.

    She pretty much did that as Secretary of State.

    • #27
  28. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    DrewInWisconsin, Type Monkey (View Comment):

    Cato Rand (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

     

    The Bidens and Clintons do not have any special aristocratic grant of privilege. If their obscene abuses of power and crude kleptocracy cannot be corrected by criminal investigation because some family member is always either a current or potential candidate (else the graft seriously slows), then we are truly a nation of different laws for different classes.

    I’m less sure about the Bidens but the Clinton family fortune testifies to this being their out in the open m.o. for the last two decades. Whatever might be said about Trump, a President Hillary would have hired Sotheby’s to auction off American foreign policy to the highest bidder.

    She pretty much did that as Secretary of State.

    And with the fraudulent Clinton Foundation.

    • #28
  29. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    PHenry (View Comment):

    At a time when a person who is born a man becomes a woman the moment he ‘feels’ like he is a woman, and a baby isn’t a human until the mother ‘feels’ like it is a human, and speech is violence if anyone ‘feels’ threatened by its ideas, does it really seem surprising that a president can be impeached because someone ‘feels’ like he rates impeachment?

    The left knows they have no evidence. They just don’t ‘feel’ like they should have to have evidence, because their ‘feelings’ already have proven what they want to be true is true.

    And don’t you dare question those feelings. That would be violence.

    Simply stated, eloquent and concise all at once.

    Thank you.

    • #29
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