Rather than bloviating about the impeachment inquiry and attending matters, I’ll just make some predictions:
- The House will vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry.
- The House will vote to impeach President Donald Trump. All they need is a simple majority and the House leadership would not have allowed their inquiry to go on as long as it has if they didn’t have the votes. They really don’t have any choice if they want to hold onto their jobs and hold their fractious caucus together.
- The House vote will be entirely or nearly entirely along party lines.
- The impeachment vote will take place before Thanksgiving.
- A bipartisan majority of the Senate will vote to convict.
- But it won’t be enough senators to convict because not enough Republicans will join the majority.
I don’t have any insight into how long the Senate trial will take. I know what I’d do if I were Mitch McConnell but I’m not.
Maybe they will impeach by thanksgiving.
I still think the budget will need to be resolved first — and yesterday the leaders of the house and senate floated a CR until the end of the year. A year long CR is also unlikely since it means Democrats adopting the budget of the prior Republican House.
For the Senate, a trial takes precedence over other matters like legislation while it is live.
So my positioning is shifting back to the new year.
The House and Senate are going to give us an actual shooting civil war. It will be a guerrilla war, but lots of people will die.
If you are living in a city, get out now.
It will be interesting to see how the spinning goes (and the lack of reporting) now that the identity of the so called whistleblower, openly known for weeks, is breaking open.
Its mildly interesting that he worked for Brennan, and Rice, and Biden, and his anti-Trump policy views. His partisan bona fides were to be expected. More interesting is his collaboration with DNC employee Chalupa. And worse, that he was the guy who organized the meeting in which the Ukranian prosecutors were summoned to the Obama/Biden White House and instructed to dig for dirt on a surging-in-the-polls Donald Trump. This guy couldn’t have worse cred as a whistleblower.
Looks like the whistleblower needs to have the whistle blown.
I generally agree but given that public hearings won’t start until mid-November since Congress is out of town next week I suspect that the actual impeachment won’t occur until somewhere before Christmas, with the Senate trial likely in January.
Guarini,
The identity of the whistleblower is irrelevant because everything in his complaint has been corroborated by subsequent testimony and documents, including documents released by the White House.
Additionally, whoever exposed the whisteblower’s identity violated the law and should be prosecuted.
What you posted, Drew, would certainly question the fanatical impeachment sentiment consuming the House Democrats today, if aired by an unbiased press. However, news is now fabricated and delivered to the public primarily supporting the house majority’s narrative. Consequently, omission of important details questioning the veracity of the mostly secret testimony, due process, fairness, bipartisan transparency is how the MSM conducts itself. So, withholding a full array of facts, or connection of relevant dots, is the current acceptable norm of the left, not only in their attempts of getting rid of a political thorn (Trump) but also in most ongoing discussions regarding the planet’s climate.
Doug, the supposed “whistleblower†is being portrayed as more of a partisan stooge, rather than a citizen doing some kind of high-minded civic duty. Furthermore, I remember when the Obama Administration prosecuted something like 8 whistleblowers (the most in any administration), and nary a ripple on the waters of the media appeared.
A whistleblower cant accomplish anything on their own. It has to be certified by the IG, a Trump appointee. Everything the whistleblower claimed has been borne out. We have other Trump appointees testifying and confirming the claims. Try again.
I think the House plays this out a bit with public hearings so we can hear Taylor and Vindman and others. Expect Drew et al to tell us next week that all of those Trump appointees were secret Dem plants because they dated a girl who voted for Hillary, or something.
Leaking the name of the whistleblower is definitely against the law. I predict that the Trump DOJ will not investigate in any meaningful way.
Steve
It is interesting to game out how the Senate shakes out.
Assuming the info publicly available is roughly the info we will ever have (whistleblower identity and more Giuliani bombshells are the greatest surprises left).
Then I think there are 4 possible Republican votes to convict. Romney, Sasse, Murkowski, Collins. 1 possible Democrat vote to not convict, Manchin.
Of the 4 Republicans; Romney, Murkowski have independent support base from Republicans, and are not up for reelection for 2020. Collins has bipartisan appeal but is a 2020 top target so needs all the Republican voter support she can get. Sasse is up in 2020 and a vote to convict would hurt him badly in the primaries.
Manchin would vote to convict if there is a majority, otherwise he would vote against.
My guess is there are 46 votes to convict. 2 50%+ chance (Romney, Murkowski), 1 50-50 vote (Manchin), 1 25 to 50% chance (Collins), 1 5-25% (Sasse). 49 votes to acquit.
My most likely outcome then is 48-52, 49-51 for conviction. And something like 5-25% chance there is a majority (Sasse chooses to convict).
CuriousOnlooker:
In addition to the four you mention there are also four possibles:
Ernst
McSally
Gardner
Alexander
Of those I would anticipate at least one voting to convict. Consequently, I suspect at least 5 votes to convict. That’s enough to say that the vote to convict is bipartisan but not enough to convict. Ernst, McSally, and Gardner are all facing re-election in tough contests; Alexander is retiring.
By the way, the House impeachment inquiry vote tells you how things are going to go.
It was a party line vote — except 2 Democrats voted with the Republicans.
My first prediction has come true. I should have predicted that the inquiry vote would be, essentially, along party lines which would have given me two 😉 . I’ll need to check the two Democratic defectors. I suspect they’re facing tough re-election campaigns in red states or districts that went for Trump.
Ernst, McSally, Gardner are all up in 2020. McSally, Gardner are top target as well — if they vote to convict they should stop running for reelection since healthy Republican turnout is a necessity if they want to win — with the proviso R turnout is a necessity but not sufficient.
Alexander is a wildcard since he is retiring — but he hasn’t crossed Trump before so I don’t see it.
The fact 50 Senate Republicans already signed a petition that slammed how House Democrats are conducting impeachment is a pretty good tell. Guess who didn’t sign the petition — Romney, Murkowski, Collins.
If the votes in both the House and the Senate are basically along party lines, it fulfills steve’s theory of contemporary American politics—everything is purely tribal. If they do not, it contradicts it. It will be a good test.
It is more — if impeachment is conducted in a partisan manner (and for partisan reasons), then expect a partisan result.
Its too bad no one can ever test the counterfactual; if Democrats had worked with Republicans to check Trump on day 1 (and sacrificing Democratic priorities in return), instead of trying to tie Republicans TO Trump to win everything, would this impeachment look very different?
In other news, the withdrawal of Syria isn’t looking like a withdrawal.
https://taskandpurpose.com/bradleys-arrive-syria
Jan basically beat me to it.
None of the commentary or “witnesses” about the call matters. We have the transcript. The import of the whistleblower and others is that they are laying their opinions onto the transcript, opinions that are suspect at best.
Prosecution for exposure of the snitch is a red herring, and laughable given the leaks of the past three years.
“If the votes in both the House and the Senate are basically along party lines, it fulfills steve’s theory of contemporary American politics”
Along party lines but Senators and Congress people in tight districts will be given permission to vote against party. In Congress the Republicans are now nearly all from solid red districts so they have to mostly worry about primaries so you wouldn’t expect much voting against party.
“None of the commentary or “witnesses†about the call matters. We have the transcript.”
Yes, we have POTUS asking for a personal favor for arms.
“The import of the whistleblower and others is that they are laying their opinions onto the transcript”
They confirm that the effort to make the trade had been ongoing for weeks, confirming that Trump asking for a favor was not a misstatement. So the Trump IG, the Trump ambassador and the Trump NSC have all confirmed everything.
Steve