U.S. public impeachment hearings
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Just the Constitution:
Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5 provides the power of the House with the sole power of impeachment.
Article 1, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provides the power of the Senate with the sold power to try impeachment and sets that judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office and disqualification to hold future office and provides for the Chief Justice to oversee procedures in the event of a Presidential impeachment.
This Reuters article gives a good, general overview: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...eachment-of-a-us-president-work-idUSKBN1XV2FP
As for the power of the Chief Justice during the proceedings, that is largely a matter of protocol. As Chief Justice Rehnquist said of the Clinton impeachment: "I did nothing in particular, and I did it very well."
Finally, here are the standing Senate rules for impeachment trials. But note these can be changed at any time by a simple majority vote. These rules are not enshrined in the Constitution or anywhere else: https://www.law.cornell.edu/background/impeach/senaterules.pdf
I always feel it's chicken-or-the-egg, Putin's tactics are obvious and ham-fisted enough that just about every Trump not-liker I know brings them up *constantly*. It's just that...y'know...we keep playing ourselves in falling for them.
Given all the corroborating testimony, what is an alternative explanation for all the presumptions you believe the witnesses were making?
a presumption is just an educated guess. Not proof.
for example: Joe Biden has been leading the RCP polls ever since he announced his candidacy. Are we then to presume that he will be the nominee? We can, but we might be wrong.
No, it means we might presume a number of things about the RCP polls which may or may not be accurate. That the RCP polls determine a nominee is not one of them.
ETA: And, of course, Sage is correct; you haven't answered MaeZe's question.
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And that's an exceedingly vague statement. Do better or don't bother.
While you're working on the specifics, you might want to take a gander at what presumption as a noun actually means.
Hint: There are some specific legal meanings to presumption used as a noun.
Simple. The alternative answer is that the assumptions are incorrect.
People in general tend to believe what they want to believe. If they don't like Trump and/or disagree with his policy or tactics they will tend to believe anything negative about him. Their own bias will lead them to an incorrect assumption.
People in general tend to believe what they want to believe. If they don't like Trump and/or disagree with his policy or tactics they will tend to believe anything negative about him. Their own bias will lead them to an incorrect assumption.
That's specious reasoning. The testimony of each of those persons—who, btw, are not "people in general"—covered their specific knowledge of the activities in question gained through conversations with other involved parties, overheard conversations, and directives.
Here's what some are saying: part of the article is included below. Of course the anti-Trumpers will not agree. My presumption is that the entire impeachment effort will backfire on the Democrats.
https://aclj.org/public-policy/radio-recap-an-impeachment-built-on-hearsay-presumptions-and-policy-disputes
There were no facts presented during these hearings. We heard a lot of “I presumed,” “I assumed,” and “I heard.”
ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett made the following point:
https://aclj.org/public-policy/radio-recap-an-impeachment-built-on-hearsay-presumptions-and-policy-disputes
There were no facts presented during these hearings. We heard a lot of “I presumed,” “I assumed,” and “I heard.”
ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett made the following point:
It might be too kind to call this based on hearsay. I would call it hearsay that conflicts with other hearsay that came forward. If you were putting this case on, would you call more witnesses to testify to hearsay that conflicted with the original hearsay? I wouldn’t do that.
ACLJ Senior Counsel and Director of Policy Harry Hutchison furthered Thann’s point:
I think if you look at the testimony so far we have presumptions plus presumptions which equal zero facts.
Not quite sure I'm following you. What are we presuming? Trump has abused his power in a serious way?
I have drawn that conclusion.
Presuming the corrupt Republicans will or will not vote to impeach him? I'm leaning toward, will not. But I'm not convinced there aren't 20 Republican Senators with integrity who recognize the significance of allowing the office of POTUS to become an office of unbridled corruption.
Think about this.
Trump's campaign team were caught, charged and mostly pled guilty to conspiracy to cheat on the election with Russian help. The Mueller report, despite the fact Barr quashed it, made a clear case Trump was obstructing justice. And if you doubt that (because you didn't read the Mueller report) Trump corroborated the obstruction himself in person in a TV news interview where he admitted firing Comey because he wanted to stop "that Rusher thing". He couldn't help himself because he didn't believe at the time he would be caught.
And now we have Trump incriminating himself with that "perfect" phone call 'memorandum'. How soon after Trump got away with obstructing justice in the Russia investigation did Trump move to coerce Zelensky to announce an investigation into the corrupt Biden and the debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election not Russia?
And given the testimony today, it's Russia that is pushing that debunked conspiracy. So add manipulated by Russian intelligence to the GOP-half of the Congress.
Do you really want Trump to get away with the second blatantly corrupt act in his Presidency?
What do you think the third act will be?
And we haven't even gotten into his siphoning cash from donors and taxpayers. There's a whole chapter on those crimes.
I'm glad you post here Gregg. I think you are brave knowing you are one of the few GOP supporters. I really am interested in your POV. I don't mean that sarcastically. I want to know how you're processing all this. I want to know how people view what they are seeing about Trump that differs so much from what I see.
This suggests there is no evidence to base our beliefs on. There is a lot of evidence.
This comes back to what I posted above. Some Republicans are cherry-picking a few words here and there. Look at that squirrel over there! The totality of the evidence is being ignored based on some slick squirrel sidetracks.
The claim of hearsay is being used to describe a lot of things that aren't hearsay. The GOP has made an attempt to say no one actually heard Trump direct the events. But Trump incriminated himself on the phone call.
Given all the corroborating evidence you can't make that 'perfect' phone call say something else.
I disagree here. There is zero chance 20 republicans break rank and vote to impeach. Right now, I doubt there is even one that will.
If Representative Will Hurd - perhaps the most moderate Republican in either the House or the Senate - cannot be convinced, I doubt you will find any in the Senate that can be.
Let's take one of the paragraphs from your link, Gregg.
Some of the witnesses took contemporary notes some didn't. So what?
In 2015 the reason there was a different handling of support for Ukraine from both Fiona Hill and Obama was that there was a completely different government in Ukraine then, rife with corruption. Zelensky is new, elected on a platform of getting rid of the corruption which remains to be seen. But it is clear that had nothing todo with Trump's withholding military aid and a visit.
This is not an impeachment hearing based on policy differences, it's an impeachment hearing based on Trump abusing his office to get yet another country to interfere in the 2020 election.
I watched almost all of the hearings. They were full of facts presented by incredibly competent non-partisan witnesses.
Here's a side story from your link:
If you watched the hearings you would know why Zelensky offered Lt. Col. Vindman a position.
Bloomberg: What Those Ribbons Mean on Chest of Impeachment Witness Vindman
The author doesn't cite any of the presumptions plus presumptions. He just says it equals zero facts.
Some of the witnesses took contemporary notes some didn't. So what?
In 2015 the reason there was a different handling of support for Ukraine from both Fiona Hill and Obama was that there was a completely different government in Ukraine then, rife with corruption. Zelensky is new, elected on a platform of getting rid of the corruption which remains to be seen. But it is clear that had nothing todo with Trump's withholding military aid and a visit.
This is not an impeachment hearing based on policy differences, it's an impeachment hearing based on Trump abusing his office to get yet another country to interfere in the 2020 election.
I watched almost all of the hearings. They were full of facts presented by incredibly competent non-partisan witnesses.
Here's a side story from your link:
The author calls it a "Stunning revelation".
If you watched the hearings you would know why Zelensky offered Lt. Col. Vindman a position.
Lt. Col. Vindman had an incredible history, including a purple heart from combat he volunteered for. Yet this author calls him "so low ranking".
Bloomberg: What Those Ribbons Mean on Chest of Impeachment Witness Vindman
Yet this is one of the many distinguished witnesses in the hearing that were insulted and disrespected to discredit their testimony.
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I think you're right about this. They have made it pretty clear that party loyalty is far more important than any Constitutional principle. The only exception might be if there are any who don't plan on running for re-election next time they come up, but that won't amount to 20 of them.
The House doesn't need any Republican votes to impeach, but the Senate needs a 2/3 majority to convict after an impeachment. I really don't see that happening.
The question is whether or not there will be any negative consequences at the ballot box for the GOP in 2020. It's hard to say. It's very possible turnout among liberal voters will go up overall compared to 2016, which could be good in swing states, but the Trump-loving GOP base may rally in support of their poor
persecuted darling too. It could come down to how Independents feel about all this, and they're tough to figure out.
Alas, Heather Cox Richardson now agrees with my interpretation of yesterday’s hearings and how this will play out in the Senate.
I’ve been pushing back in my social media on progressive narratives about how well yesterday’s hearings went for Democrats, because “Republicans ran out of questions.” About how it’s all been so damningly effective and leads to inescapable conclusions for all who see it. No. Republicans and Democrats are playing two entirely different sports here, for two entirely different audiences.
Democrats are playing the official sport, with well-crafted, lawyerly questions of witnesses to build an impeccable timeline of events from well-corroborated, multi-sourced statements. It’s cool and mostly intellectual. They’re presenting this to an audience they believe needs to see this kind of evidentiary trail, and is following along with them to its logical conclusions.
Republicans are shouting for spectacle. They’re playing an emotional game, whose spectators want to see blood, or failing that, cutting your opponents to the quick. They’re repeating false narratives that their audience knows and loves and firmly believes.
This is very much a repeat of the way the two 2016 election campaigns were run, and I see no reason to believe it won’t play out in much the same way for the respective targets of those campaigns. This won’t budge Tmurp’s poll numbers much, if at all, and the Senate will not convict based on the evidence presented, or any evidence that could be presented.
It remains to be seen whether Tmurp will win his re-election campaign next year, but I’m not sanguine that he won’t.
How depressing.
Heather Cox Richardson said:
I’ve been pushing back in my social media on progressive narratives about how well yesterday’s hearings went for Democrats, because “Republicans ran out of questions.” About how it’s all been so damningly effective and leads to inescapable conclusions for all who see it. No. Republicans and Democrats are playing two entirely different sports here, for two entirely different audiences.
Democrats are playing the official sport, with well-crafted, lawyerly questions of witnesses to build an impeccable timeline of events from well-corroborated, multi-sourced statements. It’s cool and mostly intellectual. They’re presenting this to an audience they believe needs to see this kind of evidentiary trail, and is following along with them to its logical conclusions.
Republicans are shouting for spectacle. They’re playing an emotional game, whose spectators want to see blood, or failing that, cutting your opponents to the quick. They’re repeating false narratives that their audience knows and loves and firmly believes.
This is very much a repeat of the way the two 2016 election campaigns were run, and I see no reason to believe it won’t play out in much the same way for the respective targets of those campaigns. This won’t budge Tmurp’s poll numbers much, if at all, and the Senate will not convict based on the evidence presented, or any evidence that could be presented.
It remains to be seen whether Tmurp will win his re-election campaign next year, but I’m not sanguine that he won’t.
How depressing.
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I'm having a really hard time with all this. Because I'm recognizing that the GOP and their supporters don't care if their guy is guilty or not. Against the backdrop of religious fundamentalism, patriarchy, and enriching the already rich, things like soliciting foreign interference into an election mean nothing to them.
And the pain of people like me, and people with less privilege than me - that's not collateral damage. That's a bonus. They are happy I'm upset. To them it's payback for the egregious insult of - I'm not sure what. Not adhering to their religious vision, maybe. Electing a black man, maybe. Being someone who questions the status quo, maybe. I don't know. But the glee in the face of families being broken up, codifying discrimination, stripping civil rights from whole swaths of the population - that's unmistakeable. And it's very hard to get past.
I think sometimes the biggest mistake the Founding Fathers made when conceiving of this government was the "white male landowner" stuff. I get that at the time the restriction seemed obvious and unquestionable, but it's resulted in a government that's set up to favor rich people, and all the constitutional amendments in the world won't change that fundamental framing.
It's also pretty telling that the whole country was established on land that had belonged to other people, that we just...took. Imperialism is institutionalized smugness backed up by violence. That's a human trait that seems to generalize over all of our history, no matter where on the planet you look.
In the midst of all this, I've got a 15-year-old kid I'm trying to raise not to be a cynic, to feel like she can stand up for what's right and it'll matter. It's pretty damn hard to do when I don't believe it anymore.
Lindsey Graham has opened an investigation into Joe Biden. Do I care about Joe Biden? Nope. But this is bullshit, and you know Graham knows that, and it does not matter one little bit. Someone somewhere is writing him a check, and f*ck the rest of us.
I am tired.
Public support for impeachment declines in latest poll. Granted it's only one poll but still potentially troublesome for Democrats.
http://emersonpolling.com/2019/11/2...es-biden-and-sanders-lead-democratic-primary/
http://emersonpolling.com/2019/11/2...es-biden-and-sanders-lead-democratic-primary/
Honestly, the treason of the entire Republican party and their boot-licking, brainwashed sycophants is even more potentially troublesome for democracy and civilization.
That's the thing: I see many progressives expecting that an impeachment trial in the Senate will fail to muster the votes, but at least it will continue to litigate Tmurp's crimes.
Well, not really. What it will continue to do is muddy the waters for people who just don't pay that much attention to this stuff beyond sound-bites in their preferred media bubbles. What it will do is give the GOP another podium for advancing crackpot theories about Joe Biden, who is still the Democratic front-runner in most polls. It gives the GOP ample opportunity to stick the knife into Biden's chances in 2020.
And this is not to say that I believe the House Democrats shouldnt've moved to impeach. They had no choice, if we claim to believe in the rule of law.
And you know, on the one hand I personally don't mind if Biden falls; I prefer other Democratic candidates over Joe. But on the other hand I do absolutely want to vote for someone, anyone, any Democrat, who will win in 2020. And if Biden is the one who can win, then despite all his many and obvious flaws and gaffes and idiotic statements that make him sound like a doddering fool and etc, then I want a chance to vote for him.
Because goddamn, people, we're fighting for the life of American democracy here. There are too many parallels between what we're seeing now and 1930s Germany for me to sleep well any more.
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This.
But I also wonder about the framing of the question. There were times I was pretty unhappy with Obama, and no politician has ever enraged me like Bill Clinton did. But it wasn't because I was believing, listening to, or joining the conservatives.
It's clear the fix is in in the Senate. Why bother? It's clear everybody knows the man's a traitor, but the people with the power to make decisions Do. Not. Care. about the law or their country. They want us to be a white patriarchal Christian state, not a representative democracy, and they're not bothering to keep it secret anymore. The ends justify the means every time.
I'm probably not the only one running out of energy to rage into the storm.
Conservatives, you've done this. You've destroyed this 243-year-old democracy. You've killed people and fatally damaged others. That'll teach us to laugh at you. Congratulations, I guess.
I wish I was religious just so I could believe in hell.