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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
Here is a column from The Bulwark which discuss that the House could impeach Trump, but decline to immediately transmit its impeachment to the Senate. https://thebulwark.com/impeach-and-withhold/
Hasting’s impeachment was overturned by a district court, with the ruling stayed until a similar case, which was appealed to the SCOTUS, was decided. In that case, Nixon v United States, the majority opinion stated that the courts may not review the impeachment and trial of a federal officer because the Constitution reserves that function to a coordinate political branch.
In 1972 we had over 1,900 domestic bombings in the U.S. So I think @williamdean is correct about the amplification of disagreements.
So the argument of the dems is that it’s important to impeach him, but not important enough to send it to the Senate?
That’ll work.
The Democrat/Never Axis of Evil is looking for a way to keep their base activated while avoiding the disaster that impeachment will visit upon them.
There was a point where they could have backed out of it, but not anymore. There is no exit strategy from this fiasco that will save their sorry reputations.
I will quote from the column itself:
“The key here is that there is no requirement that the House immediately send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. This is Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s final card to play.
“So here is a modest proposal: the House should (1) vote to impeach on Wednesday, and (2) withhold sending any articles which pass to the Senate unless and until a majority of senators commit to holding an open and fair trial in accordance with the Constitution.
“Speaker Pelosi could highlight Trump’s continued cover up and obstruction, while also noting that his abuse of power is a crime in progress.
“She could also explicitly link the referral to Chuck Schumer’s demands for key documents and the testimony of senior White House officials, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; Mulvaney’s senior adviser Robert Blair; and former national security adviser John Bolton.
“Here is what Pelosi could say:
I am confused.
Am I Human Scum per Trump?
Or am I demonic per Franklin Graham?
Or am I part of the Axis of Evil per Drew?
Or maybe two out of three, or all three? Please clarify.
After eight (8)Gary Robbins comments on the first page, Gary claims the above at the top of the second page. Promoting His own post. It sure doesn’t look like he’d rather talk about it, does it?
It looks like the guy loves attention even more than he hates Trump and can’t allow anyone on Ricochet to say anything about Trump that doesn’t include his pedestrian diatribes. ad nauseum. But here he is scrawling his graffiti all over this one.
Gotcha. So basically, Kavanaugh all over again. Drag the process out as long as possible so that the Democrats have a ready-made pre-tainted 2020 election.
That is one result. Another result would be an agreement by a majority of Senators to act in good faith and to have an actual trial instead of two weeks of final argument.
And Nancy Pelosi is praying every day for Trump. You too, right, Gary?
And your point is?
Do I need a point when it comes to replying to you? I didn’t know…
(Check my edit above)
Yes. I pray for all of our leaders.
Thank you for your gracious comments.
. . .
Thank you for your sarcasm. I love it!
Apparently God hasn’t been listening to you.
There’s another element to this, pointed out by Scott Adams recently.
That the “news” stopped reporting the news the moment they could start measuring clicks. So it’s not just a feedback loop (though it is certainly that as well) it’s a desperate grasp for eyeballs. The more outrageous the headline, the more clicks.
Which certainly hasn’t inspired any serious journalism. I can only assume that the media doesn’t have the resources for any serious investigations, ensuring that those creating content are relying on sources, who can spin and leak to their hearts’ desire to future their own agenda.
In a sane world, media people who carried the Russia Hoax torch for the Ds for years would be furious with the people who fed them misinformation.
I don’t think we live in a sane world.
So you are in favor of one of the socialist Democrats winning the presidency? At this point who do you favor, ? Warren, Bernie, Mayor Pete? How do you square that with being a “real” Republican (or Conservative)?
Perhaps but Carter has been less than charitable to the Presidents that followed him.
I despise Trump but appreciate what his administration has done to turn the Federal Judiciary toward respect for the Constitution as well as the first pareing of the Federal Register since Eisenhower. Very little else is of lasting consequence, certainly not his tweets or quid pro quo’s during phone calls with foreign leaders. I’ll take substance over form every time. That doesn’t make Trump palatable personally it just means I must look beyond the surface to judge the job being done.
No Republican is above the reach of the law, Democrats are special.
As of today, I won’t vote for Trump, but I also won’t vote for Sanders or Warren. I would vote third party and withhold my vote if Sanders or Warren were the nominees.
As of today, if Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg or Klobuchar are nominated, I would vote for them. This would be my first vote for a Democrat for President in 48 years. This would be a vote out of sadness, not glee.
This would be tactical voting. By withholding my vote for Trump, I would hope that the Republican Party return to being the Party of Reagan. By withholding my vote for Sanders or Warren, I would hope that the Democratic Party would learn a lesson and not nominate socialists in the future.
Thanks for asking.
Surely the Senate would not stoop to having as ‘fair’ a proceeding as did the House.
Someone trotted this proposal out about two months ago, when the current impeachment kerfuffle started, and it was shot down pretty quickly, based on the idea that if you had a secret ballot, and the public wasn’t allowed to know who on the GOP side voted to impeach Trump, primary voters in future Senate races would assume that all GOP Senators voted for impeachment, any protests they might make to the contrary, and anyone who voted to have the secret ballot would be in even worse political shape with primary voters, in terms of what the public believed they did when voting behind closed doors.
Basically it would provide no escape from culpability for any Senate Republicans who did vote to impeach, and would tar those who didn’t with the shadow of doubt among voters, especially if they’ve said anything critical of Trump in the past. So while Democrats and the staff at The Bulwark might think the plan’s the bees knees, it’s already pretty much DOA in the Senate GOP caucus.
Clearly not. The Whistleblower story is a perfect example. It has lots of juicy details, and it would get them lots of clicks/viewers. The blackout on this is astonishing, particularly given the media’s past willingness to print stories directly harmful to national interests and information that could only have been illegally obtained.
Not actually true.
Directly from the Washington Post.
“Senate GOP defends Trump, despite oath to be impartial impeachment jurors”
“Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg or Klobuchar”???
You can’t even say that three times fast.