Info PSA- Public impeachments start today- UPDATE 2/5/2020- Trump wins.

[[DHT]Osiris]

I love the executive privilege argument where EVERYTHING can be a claimed as executive privilege which essentially allows for no oversight.

The lesson here is; all communication between the president and their advisors are privileged and therefore no documents or testimony is allowed because it would violate that privilege. Let’s ignore the fact that EP has always been used for specific instances.

And every circumstance needs to go through years of litigation to determine if the Legislative has any oversight in that case.

 

[UNCjigga]

Lawrence O’Donnell made a good point last night—McConnell is never one to show his cards early. His purposeful “leak” of “not having the votes” was intended to inform the WH and Trump surrogates (including Fox News) to go on the offensive and beat any wavering GOP Senators back into submission.

Update: Gardner and Toomey have changed their minds. Sounds like pressure from the WH and/or RNC got to them. McConnell knows what he’s doing...

 

[hal2kilo]

Update: Gardner and Toomey have changed their minds. Sounds like pressure from the WH and/or RNC got to them. McConnell knows what he’s doing...

Wonder what wonderful bounty will be showered on their states. Or just flat out, name your price.

Oh lookie here

Trump’s legal team gave thousands in contributions to Republican senators ahead of impeachment trial

Trump's lawyers also gave thousands to Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz before the trial began.

www.salon.com

 

[ivwshane]

Oops!! Looks like Lindsay and Cruze’s attempt to use schiffs analogy against him backfired.

 

[trenchfoot]

What a stream of lies! So the defense is just going to lie about known events?

Can't cover up president's lies, deception and outright criminal behavior with factual evidence so their only recourse is to cover up Trump's lies with more lies. That Trump's lawyers have resorted to this line of defense is an admission of guilt in all of its stupendously naked glory.

 

[ewdotson]

Guys, we can’t have an impeachment because the senate can’t do their normal jobs.

Lol

Guys our democracy is at stake but we shouldn’t worry about that until we handle all of our normal business first. /eyeroll

And by "normal jobs", they of course mean "confirm judges". It's not as if the GOP Senators would be doing anything wild and crazy like working on actual legislation if they weren't in the trial.

 

[BUTCH1]

Just a friendly reminder. Also website to look up Senators from your state.

U.S. Senate: Contacting U.S. Senators

www.senate.gov

Thanks for that!.

 

[interchange]

They've been conflating US policy with Trump's personal motives since this started, even when they were stating it never even happened.

Guiliani has been quite specific that he was representing Trump personally and not the US government. It is quite clear that personal motives for Trump are the genesis of the whole deal, and his methods were at the expense of the usual diplomatic apparatus. So any possible alignment with actual foreign policy is no real defense for Trump. Of course, given that the allegations are Russian propaganda that Trump et al were repeatedly warned against taking seriously, there isn't any legit foreign policy stance either. That's easy to demonstrate as the only foreign policy Trump has shown any interest in whatsoever with regard to corporate in Ukraine is investigating Biden and alleged 2016 election interference (also disproven and originating from Russian propaganda). Those 2 things, if believed, would represent only a small subset of corruption in Ukraine, so someone actually motivated to address Ukrainian corruption would show evidence of involvement in a whole lot of other activities. And any rational person whose motivation is pure is going to keep themselves furthest away from obvious conflicting interests, not jumping headlong into them exclusively.

Anyway, the bigger issue is that Trump's defense highlights supposed legit foreign policy interests when it benefits them and alternatively Rudy's role as not being part of the government when it benefits them. Those 2 things are incompatible with each other.

 

[BUTCH1]

The very notion that Ken Starr is making the argument invalidates it entirely. 'Age of Impeachment' indeed.

Yea, it was A-OK to go after Clinton over a real estate deal and when it yields no problems wing up impeaching him for lying over sex. Him and Douche-A-wich came off a laughable, sad parodies of themselves.

 

[ElFenix]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1222302296987578372

seems like you'd need to win election before worrying about re-election, mcsally

 

[UNCjigga]

Apparently some Senators are very concerned about outing the whistleblower and potential colleagues...

Edit: Also, 2 questions almost back-to-back asking to clarify that Trump agreed to send Javelins when Obama only sent MREs and blankets.

 

[ivwshane]

Apparently it's really important to let people know that trump was the one to provide legal aid to Ukraine.

I'm not sure why they think that matters.

Gaetz misleads about Obama's record on Ukraine military aid

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has become one of President Donald Trump’s key attack dogs as he pushes back against the D

www.politifact.com

 

[ElMonoDelMar]

I know the GOP knows this, but it needs to be stated again and again.

The Orange Shit Gibbon is being impeached for asking for foreign assistance in a US election. It's completely irrelevant whether he helped Ukraine more or less than the previous admin.

 

[HomerJS]

Holy shit! Dershorwitz just argued that because politicians believe their re-election is in the public interest they can do no wrong when they use the power of their office to ensure their re-election.

So holding up aid that congress authorized and was determined to be an illegal hold is A-ok because trump believed his re-election is in the public’s interest.

WILL THE INSANITY NEVER END?

This country is fucked


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jackstar7]

Holy shit! Dershorwitz just argued that because politicians believe their re-election is in the public interest they can do no wrong when they use the power of their office to ensure their re-election.

So holding up aid that congress authorized and was determined to be an illegal hold is A-ok because trump believed his re-election is in the public’s interest.

Trump can suspend elections. Because it's in the national interest! Just look at the stock market!

American riots would be a thing to see.

 

[Bitek]

Yeah.

Remember that Ben Franklin determined that impeachment should exist for a President who 'rendered himself obnoxious'. That's a pretty low bar.

Ah fk, we met that on inauguration day!

 

[hal2kilo]

They got Dersh back up there explaining why he completely changed his view that it did not have to be a crime. Double back flip, with a half twist.

 

[UNCjigga]

Pam Bondi is like a walking dumb blonde stereotype. She struggled through her response to a softball question from Sen. Kennedy asking “what did Hunter Biden do while serving on the board of Burisma?”

 

[BUTCH1]

I tuned in for a couple of minutes. Republican asks leading question of Dershowitz, "aren't quid pro quos part of foreign policy"

They are equating foreign policy with personal favors. Of course Trump supporters will claim they are the same thing.

Fucking liars, all of those Republicans.

It's not unusual for aid to be denied until a condition is met but the H U G E difference of course is it's done with consultation with both congress + senate as part of an overall policy. No "Rudy" involved.

 

[interchange]

I love how they argue at the same time that we must use the highest standard of evidence possible for removing a President and that we should not try to obtain all available evidence...

 

[ivwshane]

First of all maladministration is completely different than abuse of power so I’m still not following Dershowitz’s argument here. Maladministration would be for an executive that has taken incorrect action or no action at all and it would be a horrible policy to have as it boils down to a difference of policy opinion. High crimes on the other hand is someone that uses their position of power to advantage themselves of something no normal person would have the option to do.

 

[hal2kilo]

Consul is claiming things now that can only be proved with, you guessed it, witnesses and documents. Like Mulvaney never discussed withholding aid with Bolton (which could conceivably be true) but we have no way to know this.

 

[hal2kilo]

Dersh is upset, claims it's bias that have changed the scholars minds about it having to be a crime.

Pot meet kettle. It's like a parity.

 

[ivwshane]

So apparently everyone else is wrong about the constitution except Dershowitz.
I especially liked how he called other scholars biased because they changed their reasons for impeachment, completely ignoring the irony of his own predicament.

 

[fskimospy]

I think my favorite Dersh argument was that because Trump thinks him getting re-elected is in the public interest extorting foreign powers to help his re-election isn’t corrupt.