Maybe I’m wrong here but, if President Trump is impeached by the House Democrats along what are essentially straight party lines on the basis of a failure of decorum, isn’t their best strategy to have their own conduct comport with the rules of decorum meticulously?
I think what we’re seeing is the President trying to push for an immediate vote, knowing the R.s are solid.
Pelosi’s smart, she’s stalling for time believing public support for Trump will erode. She may be right, but trump’s been good at this.
Biden’s cry on Sat. “You will not destroy me, you will not destroy my family” sounds to me like he considers that a real possibility.
Soliciting foreign governments for help with your election is a failure of decorum?
Steve
Soliciting foreign governments to invest in your child’s hedge fund while acting in official capacity deserves an investigation. Can’t be done without contacting those governments.
It’s bad behavior and it isn’t done. In my assessment it isn’t in the national interest but, then, I’m not the president. I have been unable to find any law banning it and, at least so far, I have seen no one citing any. I’m skeptical that the Congress could pass one binding the president that would pass constitutional muster. I’m also skeptical that any president would sign such a bill into law which would mean that passing it would require overriding the president’s veto.
If you find one, please tell me. I’d appreciate it.
With an explicit quid pro quo it could be abuse of power. You would also need to prove corrupt intent.
Otherwise breach of decorum it is. IMO it was pretty clearly that.
https://www.businessinsider.com/laws-trump-could-have-broken-ukraine-whistleblower-case-2019-9
Heh. The Biden stuff is chickenshit. The phone call is chickenshit. Go big game hunting and look at events in between.
The only actual statute cited in your article is the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. I think that impeaching Trump based on that is a stretch and, more importantly, I think a lot of other people would see it that way, too.
For the other things mentioned you need to prove intent.
Please note that I’m not defending Trump. I’m just pointing out what should be obvious. At this point the press releases are a lot bigger than the case Democrats are likely to be able to build.
And it’s something that we should be far more aware of. The real scandal is what’s legal.
Guarneri:
I think you’re overestimating the likelihood that Barr is actually going to go after some big game.
“For the other things mentioned you need to prove intent.”
I thought the question was what law was broken, not what law was broken that would not also involve proving intent?
“overestimating the likelihood that Barr is actually going to go after some big game.”
Come on, we know what Republicans do. Truly endless investigations. If they cant find something new to investigate they investigate the same thing again. Endless claims of conspiracies. And they never find anything.
Steve
That of course is a possibility, Dave. But he’s talking to the right people now, and the new Ukrainian President is willing to cooperate; that’s why Nancy Pelosi suddenly got impeachment fever. Not silly notions that AOC and the other Fab 4 are calling the shots, or the totally ginned up whistleblower.
BTW – my use of “big game†meant the larger story, not specific names. But a full fleshing out of that story will have some very high profile names.
On the merits:
$7B of Ukrainian aide simply disappeared. The offer of aid and “advisory help,†was made by Obama, with JB as the country supervisor. (That’s the JB issue, not Hunter’s sweet deal)
Quarterbacked by Ms Chalupa, the DNC, with help from Nellie Ohr, Fusion GPS, the CIA and Tony Podestas firm was using Ukraine (through a Manafort investigation) to dig for dirt on Trump in 2016. A byproduct of the money lavished on Ukraine. Talk about a quid pro quo.
And further, I doubt Barr (not to speak of Durham) is just going to sit on his hands while they impeach Trump. I just can’t see that. And lastly, I don’t think most people fully understand how much of this is pretty much factually fleshed out with documents in hand, taped conversations and sworn testimony.
As I noted in comments last week, John Solomon has suddenly gone from respected and award winning investigative journalist to conspiracy theorist in the space of about 10 days. Sounds like someone needs to dirty him up good, and real fast. Almost makes you think he’s on to something………….
Under our system unless you can prove it, no crime has been committed.
“Under our system unless you can prove it, no crime has been committed.”
Sure, so there are at least 4 areas of the law that might apply. I think it is pretty clear that he offered a quid pro quo in his transcript. Trump defenders dont, so we will have other evidence to support that. There is preliminary evidence to support a breach of law in those other areas so we will see what the inquiry finds. The texts among our diplomats is pretty condemning. (Kudos to the guy who realized that they were memorializing illegal acts with their texts and told them to take it to phone calls. Good loyal Trump employee protecting the boss.)
Steve
It’s not just “Trump defenders” who don’t. Do you not understand that?
Conspiracy, one of the laws that the article claimed may have been broken, is contingent upon there being an underlying crime. No underlying crime—no conspiracy.
What requirement is there that impeachment is only for illegal acts, especially federal crimes?
Such a standard would mean that a President could never be impeached for abusing the inherent authority of the Executive or for Constitutional and separation of powers issues that are not crimes.
Two of the articles of impeachment against Johnson were, essentially, insulting Congress and disgracing the office of the Presidency. One article against Nixon was for “abuse of power.” So there is precedent here.
President Trump’s actions aren’t about mere decorum – he’s used the power of his office and the US government single out the Bidens for his own personal political benefit. Whatever the reality of any illegal corruption by the Biden’s (and so far there’s no evidence of any) the mere fact that he is singling them out means he’s not faithfully executing the laws of the United States.
The President has basically admitted to this fact. He gave himself no plausible deniably by cloaking his actions in a wider battle on corruption generally. If using the power of the office to get foreign governments to specifically go after a single US citizen or a family isn’t abuse of power, then what is? Suppose Trump determines that any one of us is a political enemy and uses his office and his personal lawyer to try to dig up dirt on the Schulers, for example? Opposing that isn’t mere decorum.
Not quite. To prove abuse of power it either needs to be something that’s against the law or you’ve got to be able to prove corrupt intent. That’s in the statute.
That Trump is only going after Joe Biden does not of itself prove corrupt intent. It has already been established in the courts that failure to go after EVERY individual for something or other is no barrier to going after ANYBODY for it. The president has leeway. The Obama Administration won some lawsuits about just that subject (regarding immigration IIRC). They prioritized people guilty of crimes OTHER than illegal immigration and that was sustained.
Yes, the Obama administration set priorities and categorized actions for immigration enforcement which the relevant agencies carried out. In the same way, Trump did the same thing with immigration and changed the priorities – all of which is necessary and normal executive-level governing.
That is, however, not what Trump is doing With Biden. Trump has not issued a policy that certain types of corruption cases will have priority for investigation and prosecution and then letting the relevant agencies implement that policy – he’s hasn’t issued a general directive that foreign allies must cooperate with investigations of corruption to get US aid.
Instead he’s running an “investigation†out of the WH utilizing his personal attorney and the AG which is specifically targeted at a single political opponent.
This is not the kind of “leeway†exercised by any other administration that I’m aware of.
The problem with providing leeway is that it comes back to bite you in ways that were never intended.
The overarching reasons given by Trump was to address corruption in Ukraine. The fact is Biden and his son were involved in questionably linked financial and politically tainted transactions in Ukraine. Such appearances of corruption does sync in with the appropriateness of a DOJ investigation. It is also appropriate that a president uses his executive powers to request a counterpart’s assistance to factually sort out the legal and business aspects surrounding the Biden/Burisma business dealings, especially from a leader who himself vowed to weed out corruption in his own country.
Furthermore, Biden’s current presidential run against Trump does not give prior untoward actions immunity from more scrutiny. There are definitely news agencies (not allied with Trump) – Politico, NYTs – who have run investigative pieces indicating slimy practices were involved in the Biden/Burisma/Ukraine affair. Furthermore, a whole slew of professional, legal opinions have come forward, totally obliterating any reasonableness behind the quid pro quo allegations leveled by an anonymous source. In fact, a former AG, straight-faced, described Trump’s “crime†as being more in the league of “linguistic promiscuity,†and nothing more. I agree.
The overarching reasons given by Trump was to address corruption in Ukraine. The fact is Biden and his son were involved in questionably linked financial and politically tainted transactions in Ukraine. Such appearances of corruption does sync in with the appropriateness of a DOJ investigation. It is also appropriate that a president uses his executive powers to request a counterpart’s assistance to factually sort out the legal and business aspects surrounding the Biden/Burisma business dealings, especially from a leader who himself vowed to weed out corruption in his own country.
Furthermore, Biden’s current presidential run against Trump does not give prior untoward actions immunity from more scrutiny. There are definitely news agencies (not allied with Trump) – Politico, NYTs – who have run investigative pieces indicating slimy practices were involved in the Biden/Burisma/Ukraine affair. Furthermore, a whole slew of professional, legal opinions have come forward, totally obliterating any reasonableness behind the quid pro quo allegations leveled by an anonymous source. In fact, a former AG, straight-faced, described Trump’s “crime†as being more in the league of “linguistic promiscuity,†and nothing more. I agree.
Andy, if one is citing leeway not seen in other administrations, then one must also question the deviations being committed by the House in conducting impeachment hearings without a vote from the people’s House first. One must also question why subpoenas are being given out during a recess, where there can be no minority party participation. In fact, the way these hearings have been orchestrated, it is solely a partisan endeavor, sidelining the ability to have a bipartisan hearing. You should take a look at Andrew McCarthy’s latest piece looking into the very abnormal way these proceedings are being run.