President Donald Trump - Formal Impeachment Inquiry Announced

Overheal

notobtuse wrote: »

Kudos to Brit Hume…

'Current media terminology: Looking into Trump = investigating. Looking into Biden = dirt digging.'

Because it was Giuliani and a few Fox News contributors working for Trump under cloak and dagger. As private citizens, for a President. To attack his rival. Shady.

Congress is investigating the office of the President under Article I.

Current MAGA terminology: Article I impeachment inquiry = witch hunt, covert dirt collection against political rival = heroism

notobtuse

If the democrats in the House make a mockery of the seriousness of impeachment and do in fact impeach Trump, the Senate shouldn’t dignify the witch-hunt (that has been going on against Trump since before he was sworn into office) with a trial. The Senate possesses the sole power to try all impeachments, but is under no constitutional obligation to do so. The Senate could entertain a motion to dismiss the charges at the outset of a trial on the grounds that the allegations did not meet the constitutional standard of impeachable offenses. McConnell has enough constitutional flexibility to reject impeachment charges that the majority of the senators find baseless.

Overheal

notobtuse wrote: »

If the democrats in the House make a mockery of the seriousness of impeachment and do in fact impeach Trump, the Senate shouldn’t dignify the witch-hunt (that has been going on against Trump since before he was sworn into office) with a trial. The Senate possesses the sole power to try all impeachments, but is under no constitutional obligation to do so. The Senate could entertain a motion to dismiss the charges at the outset of a trial on the grounds that the allegations did not meet the constitutional standard of impeachable offenses. McConnell has enough constitutional flexibility to reject impeachment charges that the majority of the senators find baseless.

Except the majority of senators don’t find it baseless, given that 30-35 of them voted to impeach the President behind closed doors. As for suggesting impeachment is a “mockery of the seriousness of impeachment,” I’ll let that stupid remark sit on its own, actually. Lol

I’m sure Mitch has thought about just not adhering to his article I duties but that’s going to lose them the country. And then we really would be in a civil war.

mcmoustache

Wasn't it Mitch who told Don to release the transcript? I wonder what he was playing at if so?

It was an interesting decision whoever was behind it. In what was basically a self-inflicted wound, Trump has managed to finally move a majority of the public to support impeachment. Unless he's still playing that 12d chess or whatever, I don't see how this is a good thing for him.

It had him tweeting like a lunatic last night about spies and traitors. I know that his audience for that were the people who prefer sloganeering over thinking but all he's managed to do is threaten witnesses and annoy senators - they don't like having to defend him because it makes them look like tits on TV.

The weird thing is, if he was a smart man with some self discipline, he could easily have avoided all this. Pelosi didn't want impeachment and frustrated her colleagues because of it but he left her no choice here.

EDIT:
Mitch has just said just that if the house impeaches, the senate would have no choice but to take it up. He said the same back in March but has now just said it again to the world and to Trump who watches a lot of TV. Whatever one thinks about Mitch, he's a very shrewd politician and very effective. Again, what might he be playing at here?

notobtuse

mcmoustache wrote: »

Wasn't it Mitch who told Don to release the transcript? I wonder what he was playing at if so?

It was an interesting decision whoever was behind it. In what was basically a self-inflicted wound, Trump has managed to finally move a majority of the public to support impeachment. Unless he's still playing that 12d chess or whatever, I don't see how this is a good thing for him.

It had him tweeting like a lunatic last night about spies and traitors. I know that his audience for that were the people who prefer sloganeering over thinking but all he's managed to do is threaten witnesses and annoy senators - they don't like having to defend him because it makes them look like tits on TV.

The weird thing is, if he was a smart man with some self discipline, he could easily have avoided all this. Pelosi didn't want impeachment and frustrated her colleagues because of it but he left her no choice here.

EDIT:
Mitch has just said just that if the house impeaches, the senate would have no choice but to take it up. He said the same back in March but has now just said it again to the world and to Trump who watches a lot of TV. Whatever one thinks about Mitch, he's a very shrewd politician and very effective. Again, what might he be playing at here?

Do we now start impeachment hearings for any president, going forward, on every leaker’s (who has no first hand/direct knowledge) fabrications?

Yes, Mitch could take it up, but as I noted before the Senate could entertain a motion to dismiss the charges at the outset of a trial on the grounds that the allegations did not meet the constitutional standard of impeachable offenses.

PMBC

JohnMc1 wrote: »

With all these investigations they might something on every candidate at this rate.

Trump will crucify Warren. He'll hammer her on her pretending to be Native American to get a cushy tenured teaching job at Harvard.

Whether or not the Democrat's candidate wins the next election is not the point of all this. Its not the point of whether previous Presidents, Republicans or Democrats were or were not impeached. Its 'did President Trump commit crimes and misdemeanours?'
What was given over n relation to the call is not a transcript of the call. Its a memo of peoples recall of what was said. WE, the public, dont know who the informer is. We do know, from what was braodcast on BBC World News that Maguire backed the whistleblowers credibility. It doesnt mean the Whistleblower i

Overheal

notobtuse wrote: »

Do we now start impeachment hearings for any president, going forward, on every leaker’s (who has no first hand/direct knowledge) fabrications?

That talking point again: the whistleblower is a professional, a CIA operative. Operatives literal job is to collect information from multiple source (like people they talk to directly) to analyze and formulate responses.

What can’t be discredited: the accuracy of the whistleblower complaint.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/27/trump-says-whistleblower-complaint-isnt-accurate-white-house-keeps-showing-how-it-is/

The answer is simple. Although much of what the complaint includes is indeed secondhand or based on news reporting, those are hardly disqualifying. The news reports are mostly citations of Trump’s mentions of the situation with Ukraine or references to Trump-friendly articles at the Hill. And those secondhand assertions in the complaint (read them here) that can currently be verified have been verified — by White House comments or in the rough transcript (read it here) of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Here is what the whistleblower complaint says about that call, compared with what the transcript itself says. Again: You can verify this yourself at the above links.

COMPLAINT: "Multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that, after an initial exchange of pleasantries, the President used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests.”

TRANSCRIPT: Trump speaks in nine discrete segments.

He congratulates Zelensky on winning the presidency.
He says Ukraine is happy Zelensky won.
He mentions how much aid the United States provides to Ukraine.
He asks a favor: Investigate (baseless) rumors about Ukrainian involvement in an assessment of Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
He encourages working with his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and pushes for an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden and his son.
He says he’ll have Giuliani and Attorney General William P. Barr call about the investigation.
He invites Zelensky to the White House.
He says he’ll see Zelensky at the White House or at an event in Poland (that he ended up not attending).
He again offers his congratulations.
Except for the invitation to the White House — though even that is questionable — the whistleblower’s allegation is accurate.

COMPLAINT: “According to the White House officials who had direct knowledge of the call, the President pressured Mr. Zelenskyy to … initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. …" (A different transliteration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s surname is used throughout the document.)

TRANSCRIPT: Trump says, "[T]here’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

COMPLAINT: “ … assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike, which initially reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC’s networks in 2016 …"

TRANSCRIPT: Trump says, “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people … The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.” (Ellipses in the original.)

COMPLAINT: “ … and meet or speak with two people the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem.”

TRANSCRIPT: Trump praises Giuliani at one point, saying that “[h]e was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening, and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.”

At another point he says he “will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to [have] Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it.” At another point he says he “will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call.”

COMPLAINT: “The President also praised Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko, and suggested that Mr. Zelenskyy might want to keep him in his position.”

TRANSCRIPT: Trump talks about a prosecutor, but it’s not clear whether he’s referring to Viktor Shokin — whom Biden fought to get fired — or Shokin’s replacement, Lutsenko. Lutsenko, it’s worth noting, had helped propagate anti-Biden stories through the Hill.

“I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good,” Trump told Zelensky, “and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved.”

“I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly,” he said at another point, “and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything.”

By the time of this call, Giuliani and Lutsenko had met personally on multiple occasions, according to the whistleblower.

COMPLAINT: “Aside from the above-mentioned ‘cases’ purportedly dealing with the Biden family and the 2016 U.S. election, I was told by White House officials that no other ‘cases’ were discussed.”

TRANSCRIPT: The only other issue raised in the call was the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, whom Trump removed. That subject was raised by Zelensky.

Those are all of the mentions of the call itself in the whistleblower complaint — all clearly and directly verified by the transcript that Trump’s White House itself released.

What has garnered more attention over the past 24 hours is another assertion made in the complaint.

“White House officials told me that they were ‘directed’ by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials,” the whistleblower writes. “Instead, the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”

On Friday morning, the White House provided a statement to CNN: That move did happen, at the request of National Security Council lawyers.

It’s sounding more and more as if the whistleblower is just as credible as the intelligence community’s inspector general, and a subsequent review by the Office of Legal Counsel determined him or her to be.

mcmoustache

notobtuse wrote: »

Do we now start impeachment hearings for any president, going forward, on every leaker’s (who has no first hand/direct knowledge) fabrications?

In a two party system, each party wants to remove the other. It's very adversarial and dirty but it's always been that way. The republicans would love to have impeached Obama but he was either squeaky clean or good at covering up his crimes. They impeached Clinton for lying about blowjob based on a whistle-blower with no first-hand knowledge of said blowjob. It's just politics. Like I said, it's adversarial in nature and it's just something that Presidents need to consider before they do something silly. Checks and balances and all that.


Regarding the whistle-blower complaint being second-hand info, I don't see the big deal there, particularly when Trump has already admitted to the allegations and continues to do so.

Overheal

Secondhand doesn’t really matter. They had all the right intel. ICIG and OLC also independently vetted the complaint and complainant

Overheal

Regarding the Senate, Mitch reiterating for about the third time this year that the Senate would “have no choice” but to put Trump on trial if the House impeaches. This boils down to Senate rules, which require a 2/3rds vote by the chamber to amend.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/mitch-mcconnell-confirms-senate-will-put-trump-on-trial-if-house-impeaches-him-i-would-have-no-choice/

https://www.law.cornell.edu/background/impeach/senaterules.pdf

Overheal

Decent teardown of trump talking points. Even the talking points against Biden don’t hold up to light scrutiny. Rough

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/30/guide-gops-increasingly-pathetic-defenses-trump/

Eric Cartman

Overheal wrote: »

Decent teardown of trump talking points. Even the talking points against Biden don’t hold up to light scrutiny. Rough

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/30/guide-gops-increasingly-pathetic-defenses-trump/

1) an opinion piece with an inflammatory headline, hardly factual
2) have you clicked on the author to see what else he's written, been righting 3-5 anti trump stories a week, every week for the last 2 years. The guy has a hardon for giving out about trump, sad and scary.

Overheal

Eric Cartman wrote: »

1) an opinion piece with an inflammatory headline, hardly factual
2) have you clicked on the author to see what else he's written, been righting 3-5 anti trump stories a week, every week for the last 2 years. The guy has a hardon for giving out about trump, sad and scary.

1) argumentum ad hominem
2) argumentum ad hominem

Sorry I focused on the factual statements presented in the article.

Outlaw Pete

Overheal wrote: »

What can’t be discredited: the accuracy of the whistleblower complaint.

You're confusing two things about the complaint:

1) The accuracy of events
2) The accuracy of what is alleged

It would appear that with regards to Point 1, the complaint was quite accurate but with regards to Point 2, it was not.

As for the wapo article you linked to, it in fact discredits the very premise that it sets out to debunk, when it says:

"...much of what the complaint includes is indeed secondhand or based on news reporting..."

There are of course many 'Howevers' (which I'll get to) but they admit themselves that much of the whistleblowers complaint is heresay and backed up largely by news articles and so that alone makes a joke of their contention that The White House's claims are inaccurate, they are not.

Now, let's cut to the chase, the whisteblower claims that his sources informed him that Trump had "pressured" Zelensky to investigate what Biden had been bragging about publicly .... and the Washington Post's evidence that was the following:

So, essentially, the Washington Post are saying the line "so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great" amounts to Donald Trump "pressuring" Zelensky. Utter tripe. He did nothing of the sort.

In the opening of the whisteblower's complaint they state:

"In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.."

This is also inaccurate as nothing Trump said or did during that call could reasonably be inferred that he was soliciting interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election ... again, utter rubbish. Biden bragged publically about blackmailing the Ukraine and Trump requested Zelensky's cooperation with the US Attorney general into the issue.

If in 2010 Dick Cheney had said publically that he used a $1lbn US approved loan as leverage to get a prosecutor fired, would Obama be facing impeachment had he subsequently asked the Ukraine to cooperate with an investigation into the matter? Of course not. The media would be saying he was a hero trying to stamp out long standing corruption in Washington.

It stinks to high heavens that the impeachment process is being used as a political tool like this.

The Durham-Horowitz reports can't drop fast enough and see these sanctimonious snakes exposed for just what they are.

Overheal

Trump announces that White House is hunting down the whistleblower - this comes after labeling them a spy and heavily implying they should be put to death

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-says-white-house-is-trying-to-hunt-down-the-whistleblower/

Retaliation is a violation of federal law

Timberrrrrrrr

Eric Cartman wrote: »

1) an opinion piece with an inflammatory headline, hardly factual
2) have you clicked on the author to see what else he's written, been righting 3-5 anti trump stories a week, every week for the last 2 years. The guy has a hardon for giving out about trump, sad and scary.

Ah so other people can't post opinion pieces but it's fine when you do it?

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

If by brillant you meant ridiculous, then yes, it was absolutely 'brilliant'.

Overheal

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

You're confusing two things about the complaint:

1) The accuracy of events
2) The accuracy of what is alleged

It would appear that with regards to Point 1, the complaint was quite accurate but with regards to Point 2, it was not.

As for the wapo article you linked to, it in fact discredits the very premise that it sets out to debunk, when it says:



There are of course many 'Howevers' (which I'll get to) but they admit themselves that much of the whistleblowers complaint is heresay and backed up largely by news articles and so that alone makes a joke of their contention that The White House's claims are inaccurate, they are not.

Now, let's cut to the chase, the whisteblower claims that his sources informed him that Trump had "pressured" Zelensky to investigate what Biden had been bragging about publicly .... and the Washington Post's evidence that was the following:



So, essentially, the Washington Post are saying the line "so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great" amounts to Donald Trump "pressuring" Zelensky. Utter tripe. He did nothing of the sort.

In the opening of the whisteblower's complaint they state:



This is also inaccurate as nothing Trump said or did during that call could reasonably be inferred that he was soliciting interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election ... again, utter rubbish. Biden bragged publically about blackmailing the Ukraine and Trump requested Zelensky's cooperation with the US Attorney general into the issue.

If in 2010 Dick Cheney had said publically that he used a $1lbn US approved loan as leverage to get a prosecutor fired, would Obama be facing impeachment had he subsequently asked the Ukraine to cooperate with an investigation into the matter? Of course not. The media would be saying he was a hero trying to stamp out long standing corruption in Washington.

It stinks to high heavens that the impeachment process is being used as a political tool like this.

The Durham-Horowitz reports can't drop fast enough and see these sanctimonious snakes exposed for just what they are.

Everything Biden did was above the table, it was no secret, US officials, EU officials and the IMF backed him up on it at the time. Stop with that nonsense.

As for the pressure the writer in the WaPo article may have his own favorite part of the call; for me, it was when Trump said

“Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.”

Which when you’re listening to the POTUS say this, commands weight. Especially surrounding the withhold of aid, especially with Trump opening the call about how much the US does for Ukraine and how little the EU does, cornering Zelensky into acknowledging if he didn’t get the $400Bn I aid that it wasn’t going to come from elsewhere. These details were known by the leaders in front of the call.

Outlaw Pete

Overheal wrote: »

Trump announces that White House is hunting down the whistleblower - this comes after labeling them a spy and heavily implying they should be put to death

"Hunting down"? He said: "We’re trying to find out about a whistleblower"

Clickbait nonsense

Outlaw Pete

Overheal wrote: »

Everything Biden did was above the table, it was no secret, US officials, EU officials and the IMF backed him up on it at the time. Stop with that nonsense.

It's not nonsense. It was reported at the time as suspicious but was never investigated sufficiently:

https://twitter.com/michaelbeatty3/status/1178175441489629186

As for the pressure the writer in the WaPo article may have his own favorite part of the call; for me, it was when Trump said

“Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.”

Which when you’re listening to the POTUS say this, commands weight. Especially surrounding the withhold of aid, especially with Trump opening the call about how much the US does for Ukraine and how little the EU does, cornering Zelensky into acknowledging if he didn’t get the $400Bn I aid that it wasn’t going to come from elsewhere. These details were known by the leaders in front of the call.

[Incorrect buzzer]

Nope, the "If that's possible" portion of the call was not about Biden, it was about election interference by certain people in the Ukraine in 2016 ...

...and so you can't use that as proof Trump "pressured" Zelensky into investigating Biden during that call.

Anything else?

Overheal

It was “never investigated” so Trump sent his personal lawyers off the books rather than have his state department, the DOJ, or Congress investigate? Why didn’t the Congress investigate during the Benghazi years?

Trump was fishing for an October surprise.

Outlaw Pete

Stop swerving the issue.

You said that the accuracy of the whistleblower complaint can't be discredited, but clearly it can, as the central allegation (that he "pressured" the Ukaraine to investigate Biden) is false and you have just shown right now (by quoting a part of the call that was not even about Biden) that there is no grounds for making that claim.

A claim, might I add, that is at the very heart of why a formal impeachment inquiry is underway.

Come on, Overheal, I know you hate Trump - but admit it, he didn't pressure Zelensky, there was no suggestion of a quid pro quo and the impeachment process is being misused.

Overheal

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

"Hunting down"? He said: "We’re trying to find out about a whistleblower"

Clickbait nonsense

In Context:

"I want to know who's the person, who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy," Trump said, according to The Los Angeles Times. "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now."

I’m guessing the WH is utter chaos right now, fingers blasting everywhere.

Outlaw Pete

Overheal wrote: »

I’m guessing the WH is utter chaos right now, fingers blasting everywhere.

That was four days ago and is just a bit of hyperbole:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/09/trump-whistleblower-spies-treason

Overheal

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Stop swerving the issue.

You said that the accuracy of the whistleblower complaint can't be discredited, but clearly it can, as the central allegation (that he "pressured" Biden) is false and you have just shown right now (by quoting a part of the call that was not even about Biden) that there is no grounds for making that claim.

A claim, might I add, that is at the very heart of why a formal impeachment inquiry is underway.

The pressure I feel is pretty damn plain given the context of $400 Bn withheld, and Trumps lengthy remarks about what the US for Ukraine and his own swerve to pressuring them about the Bidens when Zelensky brings up Javelin missiles.

Overheal

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

That was four days ago and is just a bit of hyperbole:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/09/trump-whistleblower-spies-treason

“Oh sure just a bit of hyperbole”

Totally fine for a president accused of high crimes and misdemeanors to call for the execution of his accusers as long as its hyperbolic!

mcmoustache

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

"Hunting down"? He said: "We’re trying to find out about a whistleblower"

I'll take your concern about hyperbole under advisement.


And regarding the Russia Today links that you found in your totally normal twitter feed, I don't see anything there regarding Joe Biden.

Outlaw Pete

Overheal wrote: »

The pressure I feel is pretty damn plain given the context of $400 Bn withheld, and Trumps lengthy remarks about what the US for Ukraine and his own swerve to pressuring them about the Bidens when Zelensky brings up Javelin missiles.

Wrong again ..

https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1176882766597767168

You're doing a good job here tonight of making a case for why Pelosi should not have launched a formal impeachment inquiry.

The Phantom Jipper

Dipped in to have a read and it's nice to see some familiar names who couldn't cut it on the politics forum attempting to flog their wares here instead.

Trump has been caught dead to rights and is deservedly being impeached. Any reasonable person reading the transcript can see with their own eyes, instead of needing whatever nonsense is being regurgitated from the usual conspiracy theory sites.

Overheal

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Wrong again ..

https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1176882766597767168

You're doing a good job here tonight of making a case for why Pelosi should not have launched a formal impeachment inquiry.

Again, trump pressured them to investigate in response to wanting to buy javelins.

Guliani was subpoenaed by the 3 house impeachment investigation panels; he has until Oct 15 to turn over all documents pertaining to Ukraine.

. In a statement released Monday, the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees said Giuliani “admitted on national television that, while serving as the President’s personal attorney, he asked the government of Ukraine to target former Vice President Joe Biden.”

mcmoustache

So why hold the money? And why look for a server that only exists in the minds of those who swallow Russian propaganda and conspiracy theorists?