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Of Impeachment and Accountability
Never Trump Republicans and their Democratic co-conspirators have another trick up their sleeves. Knowing that they probably do not have the votes to convict and remove the President in the Senate, they are desperately searching for a way to pull it off and they think they’ve found it: A secret vote and/or a generous reading of the two-thirds rule.
Pushed by people like lobbyist Juleanna Glover (formerly of the Bush 43 Administration and Bill Kristol acolyte), Laurence Tribe and former Sen. Jeff Flake, the operating theory is that if Senators were freed from accountability to their voters there would be 30 to 35 Republicans in the Senate ready to vote “yes” on conviction.
The other pipe dream is that the Constitution only demands a two-thirds majority of the Senators present. For every Senator that refuses to attend it brings that two-thirds number lower. But staying away is the same as a yes vote.
Jim Geraghty points out at National Review, “If Trump really is an unconstitutional menace who is abusing the power of the presidency for his personal interests, stopping him ought to be worth losing a Senate seat. And if this action isn’t worth losing a Senate seat over, then it’s hard to see how it is worth removing a president.”
A secret ballot after secret proceedings in the House sounds like a recipe for disaster. How do you think the public would react?
Published in Politics
There is historical precedence for powerful people in Congress pulling the strings to get their own way. That is how the whole boondoggle of the Federal Reserve Act was passed in Dec 1913. A handful of people were present in Chambers to offer their “Aye” while the rest of Congress was on Christmas holiday.
However Trump has the best attorneys in the nation. Plus his son is super bright as well. I hope that everyone close to the President is watching out for the type of slimy end games that the Dems are certainly willing and capable of pulling off.
I suspect it is doable. The one thing the Trump administration has proven is that rules, laws, traditions, really don’t matter much.
I don’t even think “Dog Carrier” Mitty would go for this.
Hmmmm. . . Seems to be the same crowd that was trying to convince convention delegates to vote contrary to the wishes of the voters who sent them there. As I remember it was the only way to beat Hillary and save the party. We know how that turned out.
“I don’t even think “Dog Carrier” Mitty would go for this.”
I wish you were right. Mittens is a man of very low character- an outsourcer of thousands of jobs to China, and still beholden to China through his large Bain Capital investments.
A secret ballot- really?
IF it is secret how are we to know what the vote really was? Who is going to oversee that vote, John Roberts? The same John Roberts who if he had any integrity at all would recuse himself for his lack of oversight of the FISA warrant process that is big issue in this Impeachment.
If Cocaine Mitch and his RINO buddies allow a secret ballot there will be a blood bath in November.
If removed from office under such a travesty, Trump should run again in November and ram the incredible lack of integrity by the RINO wing up their butt.
Enough damage has been done in secret in the last two to three years. Civil disobedience is a hobby when pursued by small groups, if it is practiced by 60 million voters it will be breathtaking.
And why would not some Senators leak information about who voted for impeachment, or their constituents not demand to know? Would they all have to swear an oath? I think this is, as you say, E.J., a pipe dream, and one that could only be dreamed up by people who are so full of their own righteousness and so sick with TDS—or sick of Trump’s successes, as he predicted—that they cannot think straight.
The words Constitutional Crisis get thrown around sometimes.
this would actually be one.
I don’t think that a secret ballot would work, but there is a different alternative.
The Senate is convened for a jury trial. A new oath is administered. The usual rules of the Senate do not apply. There is no Majority Leader; Mitch is just one of 100 jurors.
The House Managers are free to call witnesses in person, or to compel their depositions. Trump refused to allow witnesses to testify or cooperate. The Republicans in the House allowed him to get away with that.
But if the House Managers request a subpoena for fact witnesses like Mick Mulvaney or John Bolton, I would guess that Chief Justice Roberts would order the subpoena. McConnell can object. But it would take 51 votes to overrule Chief Justice Roberts, and there are only 53 Republicans in the Senate. I would hope that there will be at least a half dozen Constitutionally orientated Republican Senators who would side with Democrats to support the subpoenas.
No one is above the law.
A small correction. The first sentence should begin: “‘Country First’ Republicans and their Democrat…”
Except Schiff, Nadler and Pelosi and 12 million or so illegal aliens.
NO! NO! NO!
I’m not sure what to call a government in which a ruling class takes secret votes because they are not willing to be accountable to the citizens – an oligarchy? an aristocracy? a multi-headed dictatorship? – but whatever it is, a representative republic it is no longer. That would be at a minimum a genuine Constitutional crisis, as noted above by @miffedwhitemale . It is contrary to every aspect of the United States Constitution.
No. I got it right. They are not “country first” as they, like you, seek to empower the leftist authoritarians. You assume your new overlords will appreciate all you’ve done but hanging you last is about all the consideration you’ll get. Pleasing your enemies do not make them your friends. But you’ll have to learn that the hard way.
Not true. James Comey is above the law, for example. Hillary Clinton is above the law.
Voters didn’t revolt when the Obamacare monstrosity was passed without having even been read in full by a single legislator. The manner of impeachment doesn’t matter.
If the President is removed from office, there will be consequences. What those consequences are or whether any good will come of them, I don’t know. But American politics would never be the same.
No one? What about Comey? Brennan? Clapper? Obama? Hillary???
There really is a disconnect there, isn’t there? When it was revealed that Qatar gave the Clinton “Foundation” millions while Hillary was at State and the foundation “inadvertently” forgot to report it everyone in the media yawned. No questions of quid pro quo, no screaming about emoluments, no worries about lining of pockets. Just crickets. And if you mention it now it’s just “whataboutism.”
There is a two-tiered system of justice and I’m sick of the excuses. And so are a lot of other people.
I anticipate that once Trump leaves office be that by conviction by the Senate or defeat at the polls, he is going to face prosecution by the State of New York and maybe the federal government for tax fraud, and that other fraudulent schemes such as Trump University will come to light.
Sooner or later Trump’s taxes will be revealed. I think that they will show that he defrauded the government, and that he is not worth anything near what he claimed.
Trump has famously sued hundreds if not thousands of people, and hundreds if not thousands or people have sued him. Before going into politics, he out waited people in law suits. During his Presidency, he can’t be sued. But as soon as he leaves office, watch out.
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s there was a brilliant, but unethical and unhinged family law attorney in Phoenix. He was unreasonable, and lawyers hated having cases with him. The was a bully. Here is how he was taken down. There wasn’t any sort of conspiracy. But in my couple of cases with him, I simply refused to settle with him. I took all of his cases to trial. Most cases settle. Few clients have the money for full-scale trials. If a case goes to a full case trial, there is a very good chance that one or both of the lawyers is taking a financial loss. Despite suffering financial losses, I took all of my cases against him to trial. I would be damned before I would let that [CoC][CoC] force a settlement from me. I did not go to law school to take a knee to that bully. What I noticed was that almost every other lawyer stiffened and refused to negotiate with him. He was losing money due to everyone taking him to trial. He started to emotionally unravel. After one trial, he was so angry, he tracked down the other party in the Courthouse, put his hands on her and threatened her. He was prosecuted for assault in the Courthouse. A bar complaint followed. Unlike most other bar complaints hearings that have no one watch them, a bunch of family law attorneys attended, and all sat on the side of the room with the Bar Counsel. He was put on probation, but thereafter blew his probation, and was disbarred.
I predict that when Trump leaves office, he will face a full court press in most of his lawsuits. After Nixon resigned, people felt sorry for him. Hell, even I forgave Nixon and wrote him a letter forgiving him; he had suffered enough. As Clinton finished up his term, I was okay that he had to pay Paula Jones a bunch of money, and had to resign his law license, but otherwise was able to get on with his life.
But I doubt that I will be so forgiving of Trump. Nixon apologized. Clinton apologized. Trump will likely never apologize. And for that I think he will be hounded in Court for the rest of his life. I predict that people will freely contribute money to fund lawyers who are suing Trump. While Trump will be contributed money for his lawyers, he will be stuck in courtrooms and depositions for the rest of his life. He will die a broken man.
He’ll just have to stay in office until he dies then.
I think that that is his goal. Once he is out of office, his life will be in and out of courtrooms and depositions.
Twenty years from now, the three greatest stains on the reputation of Republicans for the last 100 years will be (a) Joe McCarthy, (b) Richard Nixon and (c) Donald Trump. Republicans in the late 1950’s were ashamed for not standing up to McCarthy. In the 1970’s Republicans were saved by turning against Nixon. Republicans in Congress in the years to come will be ashamed for not standing up to Trump.
Don’t worry. It won’t be more than four or five terms.
For better or worse, the 22nd Amendment applies to even Trump.
He will die a broken man.
It’s rather difficult for me to take much of anything you say seriously when you’ve bobbed, ducked, weaved, and avoided questions about falsehoods you’ve spread here as to facts involving the circumstances surrounding the impeachment proceedings–the alleged quid pro quo being the most laughable . I’m simply amazed that anyone who has been proven wrong on so many occasions is now pontificating on history.
Except McCarthy was right. And proven so after Venova was declassified. But you keep repeating everything the left has taught you say. Hell, even Nicholas von Hoffman, an Alinsky acolyte, admitted it in his Washington Post column! We wouldn’t want the truth to go any farther.
My goodness.
I am not aware that I have ever knowingly spread any falsehoods about Impeachment, let alone Trump. Sometimes I have discovered that I was mistaken about an issue, but I have been forthright about that.
I hope that you and yours have a lovely and Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the “knowingly” dodge. It’s a Christmas gift.
Counsel, you don’t make mistakes of fact from time to time? There is a massive difference between “lying” and “making a mistake.” The first is morally culpable, the second is not.
Yep. In one of her books Ann Coulter gives a very different account of the whole McCarthy affair than I had ever heard before. Then I read Blacklisted by History, by M. Stanton Evans. Very convincing. He goes back to all original sources, all contemporanious accounts. A very different picture emerges of this man than the one most of us have been fed by his enemies after he died.
I’ll give you McCarthy, but not McCarthyism.
Will you grant me that while not everything said by McCarthy was a lie, he was sloppy, eager to get headlines, and careless which lead to the destruction of some innocent lives?