Quick Poll: Should Trump be Impeached?

[glenn1]

So it has to be a failed candidate? I guess we need to go all the way back to John Edwards then. What purpose did it serve to expend the resources to prosecute non-president John Edwards? And guess what? The government wasn't interested in a financial settlement with Edwards. Writing checks to the FEC wouldn't save him anyway. Duncan Hunter is under indictment by federal law enforcement.

So basically all the 'what if's' you're saying are wrong.

Regardless, this is all irrelevant anyway. If Trump were not the president and law enforcement was made aware of these activities he would be under indictment. We don't need an alternate history for this, we know the president is implicated in several felonies that he would have to answer for criminally otherwise. That's a good reason to impeach him.

You are smarter than being this obtuse. Without Trump being President we would not have gotten a Special Counsel and thus your premise of "if law enforcement was made aware" would not have happened. And John Edwards is an interesting example for you to raise since his prosecution failed miserably.

https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/how-the-edwards-prosecution-stumbled-076942

 

[Amused]

If he were not the President there would be no Special Counsel Mueller and thus no reason why he'd be under indictment. Unless in counterfactual land you think President Clinton would have spent significant resources and political capital having the executive branch investigate campaign finance violations for the amounts we're talking about which I think is crazy to believe she would do.

So far 30+ indictments, 1 conviction and 6 guilty pleas of those involved in his campaign. None of them are presidents. The only reason he's NOT under indictment is because he's president.

Maybe running for president put the spotlight on him and his crew, but they committed the crimes. You're literally lamenting the fact that he/they was caught here. Not that he/they committed these crimes.

 

[Amused]

You are smarter than being this obtuse.

Now this is a little peice of irony right here.

Coming from the guy who laments (how/why) they were caught, not that they committed the crimes.

 

[fskimospy]

You are smarter than being this obtuse. Without Trump being President we would not have gotten a Special Counsel and thus your premise of "if law enforcement was made aware" would not have happened.

Sorry guy but you're the one being obtuse and your argument is illogical. I said that if someone else had these same facts against them they would be under indictment, so therefore we should impeach Trump. This is undeniably true, as the John Edwards case shows. You then tried to argue that if he wasn't the president then these facts wouldn't have come out. Even if that were true it doesn't matter because if he weren't the president we wouldn't have to impeach him.

And John Edwards is an interesting example for you to raise since his prosecution failed miserably.

https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/how-the-edwards-prosecution-stumbled-076942

It is an interesting example because it shows that federal law enforcement was willing to prosecute exactly the type of person you said they would not prosecute. It completely refutes your argument. Can you admit as much that your statement that federal law enforcement would not pursue failed candidates is directly refuted by the facts?

 

[fskimospy]

Now this is a little peice of irony right here.

Coming from the guy who laments (how/why) they were caught, not that they committed the crimes.

His argument is basically 'we shouldn't impeach Trump for these crimes because if he wasn't in a position to be impeached we wouldn't know about them.' He seemingly does not realize that if he weren't in a position to be impeached we wouldn't be talking about impeaching him either.

I feel like I need three or four hands for the facepalms necessary for that.

 

[NAC4EV]

Yes,,, He has committed crimes against the American people...

 

[glenn1]

Sorry guy but you're the one being obtuse and your argument is illogical. I said that if someone else had these same facts against them they would be under indictment, so therefore we should impeach Trump. This is undeniably true, as the John Edwards case shows. You then tried to argue that if he wasn't the president then these facts wouldn't have come out. Even if that were true it doesn't matter because if he weren't the president we wouldn't have to impeach him.



It is an interesting example because it shows that federal law enforcement was willing to prosecute exactly the type of person you said they would not prosecute. It completely refutes your argument. Can you admit as much that your statement that federal law enforcement would not pursue failed candidates is directly refuted by the facts?

You're the one who came up with the hypothetical construction "had law enforcement known and Trump wasn't President" and yet refusing to admit the first condition is basically preconditioned on the second absent some kind of magic thinking. If what you're trying to say is "I think the President should be subject to indictment without first needing to impeach" that's fine. Otherwise your hypothetical seems to be implying that in bizarro world where Hillary won that he'd be indicted now, which seems like wishful thinking in the extreme.

 

[SMOGZINN]

The fundamental reason is if he were in jail he couldn't fulfill the duties of the presidency so it would be unconstitutional. It's never been tested though.

I thought the argument basically boiled down to 'because he is the top cop.' The thought process being that lower cops/prosecutors can't arrest/indict those above them with out someone even higher up approving it, since the President is the top of the chain there is no authority above him to give lower cops/prosecutors authority to arrest/indict him'.

 

[fskimospy]

You're the one who came up with the hypothetical construction "had law enforcement known and Trump wasn't President" and yet refusing to admit the first condition is basically preconditioned on the second absent some kind of magic thinking. If what you're trying to say is "I think the President should be subject to indictment without first needing to impeach" that's fine. Otherwise your hypothetical seems to be implying that in bizarro world where Hillary won that he'd be indicted now, which seems like wishful thinking in the extreme.

I have no idea where you got any of this. My point is that a standard of evidence has been met that if the subject were not the president they would be under indictment. It has zero to do with how that evidence was uncovered, any 'bizarro world', or any other such nonsense. It is only about the facts as we know them right now. It is irrelevant if they wouldn't have been uncovered if he weren't the president, they HAVE been uncovered.

The question now is simply that we now know the president has been implicated in activities that the federal government has otherwise attempted to send US citizens to prison for. Does that merit impeachment? Yes.

 

[fskimospy]

I thought the argument basically boiled down to 'because he is the top cop.' The thought process being that lower cops/prosecutors can't arrest/indict those above them with out someone even higher up approving it, since the President is the top of the chain there is no authority above him to give lower cops/prosecutors authority to arrest/indict him'.

It's also the case that the president could fire any federal official who attempted to indict him but that's a separate argument. The argument here is that he is categorically immune due to the fact that it's unconstitutional for any other branch to prevent the president from executing his office.

By the way I think that's terribly wrong and the idea that we would have the most powerful official in the world immune from the law is bananas, but the argument is rational.

 

[UNCjigga]

Cohen's statements are not hearsay. Hearsay is testimony to facts that a witness was not present to see. Cohen is testifying to events he has personal knowledge of and was an eyewitness to.

So why isn't eyewitness testimony direct evidence?

This evidence has not been presented, under oath, in a court of law yet (or at least not publicly). Right now it's just Lanny Davis running his mouth like every other talking head on cable news.

I think impeachment needs to occur in lock-step with indictments after removal from office, and I would like an iron-clad case such that even thinking of a pardon would be political suicide. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but if he's impeached and not charged than IMHO the whole episode becomes a political stunt rather than justice being served.

 

[fskimospy]

This evidence has not been presented, under oath, in a court of law yet (or at least not publicly). Right now it's just Lanny Davis running his mouth like every other talking head on cable news.

I think impeachment needs to occur in lock-step with indictments after removal from office, and I would like an iron-clad case such that even thinking of a pardon would be political suicide. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but if he's impeached and not charged than IMHO the whole episode becomes a political stunt rather than justice being served.

That's not correct, that evidence has been presented as part of a sworn statement to the court in Cohen's plea agreement. It's the same as being under oath.

 

[glenn1]

I have no idea where you got any of this. My point is that a standard of evidence has been met that if the subject were not the president they would be under indictment. It has zero to do with how that evidence was uncovered, any 'bizarro world', or any other such nonsense. It is only about the facts as we know them right now. It is irrelevant if they wouldn't have been uncovered if he weren't the president, they HAVE been uncovered.

The question now is simply that we now know the president has been implicated in activities that the federal government has otherwise attempted to send US citizens to prison for. Does that merit impeachment? Yes.

Indicted under the same charges that John Edwards was just acquitted of recently despite the Edwards case involving larger amounts? That seems to be a foolish thing to do since the Edwards trial went so badly. Or would you follow the model of similar campaign finance violations that happened during the Clinton administration and a Special Counsel wasn't even appointed much less a suggestion that Clinton be indicted? I daresay your opinion might just be tainted by your political views of the current POTUS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy

 

[zinfamous]

I agree...Trump is not Nixon. He will never actually resign. That would require admitting he did something wrong, something he will not do no matter the stakes. Yes, even including Don Jr. going to the slammer. Trump truly doesn't think he's done anything wrong. Con jobs and crooked deals are just a part of doing business for him. Always has been. We are not living in Nixon's time. Nixon did not have a 24/7 very popular propaganda machine behind him in 1974. It will take a hell of a lot more than anything we know about to significantly erode his base, and until that happens, there is NO WAY the senate convicts.

To be fair, Nixon never admitted wrong-doing, either. He only resigned because he lost all support from the GOP, and this was his reasoning, I believe. He argued some nonsense about being powerless as a leader from that point on, because of the investigation(s), controversy, and public opinion--but he never acknowledged the substance or the subject of the investigation, or his crimes. If Donny Don TwoScoops' approval also drops to 20% or under in the Trump base, then Mitch and Paul will likely show up and give him the boot. That isn't happening, though. The cult is a bare minimum 30-32% strong.

 

[fskimospy]

Indicted under the same charges that John Edwards was just acquitted of recently despite the Edwards case involving larger amounts? That seems to be a foolish thing to do since the Edwards trial went so badly.

1) Edwards was not acquitted, it was a hung jury. You said this would not happen. Can you admit you were wrong here? Second request.
2) It would only be foolish to indict Trump on that if the set of facts were identical in both cases and they are not. The facts are much stronger for convicting Trump than Edwards. Think how silly that idea is, because one person wasn't convicted never indict someone for a crime again?

Or would you follow the model of similar campaign finance violations that happened during the Clinton administration and a Special Counsel wasn't even appointed much less a suggestion that Clinton be indicted? I daresay your opinion might just be tainted by your political views of the current POTUS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy

I think your opinion is now being tainted by the fact that you can't accept that you're wrong. Whether or not a special counsel would be appointed or whether or not Clinton would be indicted has literally zero to do with whether or not Trump would be indicted if he were not the president. You're flailing.

 

[zinfamous]

If he were not the President there would be no Special Counsel Mueller and thus no reason why he'd be under indictment. Unless in counterfactual land you think President Clinton would have spent significant resources and political capital having the executive branch investigate campaign finance violations for the amounts we're talking about which I think is crazy to believe she would do.

the crimes are the crimes and the facts are the facts, as they are. The specific crimes that occurred, occurred regardless of his becoming POTUS. Nothing would have changed those crimes actually happening had November 6th turned out differently. The point is, he always did these crimes, the only difference is that being POTUS, now, he is not currently sitting in court/prison. He would be, though.

....since you are playing with weird speculation, time-traveling-grandpa paradoxes, why do you assume that there would be no investigations into the Trump campaign if he had lost? LoL--the state was already all over the Trump foundation's ass. Chief Imbecile is surrounded by a confederacy of Dunces. There is no way, with all of the public exposure he placed on his crime family and the fact that the FBI and CIA were already well-deep into tracking the various Russian crime lords that lived in and operated out of Trump tower, that this should would not have been found out. I'm sure it would have taken longer, however.

 

[Jaskalas]

This evidence has not been presented, under oath, in a court of law yet (or at least not publicly). Right now it's just Lanny Davis running his mouth like every other talking head on cable news.

I think impeachment needs to occur in lock-step with indictments after removal from office, and I would like an iron-clad case such that even thinking of a pardon would be political suicide. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but if he's impeached and not charged than IMHO the whole episode becomes a political stunt rather than justice being served.

That's not correct, that evidence has been presented as part of a sworn statement to the court in Cohen's plea agreement. It's the same as being under oath.

@fskimospy, he's talking about actual crimes. Remember the point of the investigation? Russia.
Lanny Davis is claiming that Cohen can deliver on that.

 

[glenn1]

1) Edwards was not acquitted, it was a hung jury. You said this would not happen. Can you admit you were wrong here? Second request.
2) It would only be foolish to indict Trump on that if the set of facts were identical in both cases and they are not. The facts are much stronger for convicting Trump than Edwards. Think how silly that idea is, because one person wasn't convicted never indict someone for a crime again?

I think your opinion is now being tainted by the fact that you can't accept that you're wrong. Whether or not a special counsel would be appointed or whether or not Clinton would be indicted has literally zero to do with whether or not Trump would be indicted if he were not the president. You're flailing.

Okay, I'm flailing. Gotcha. So even though Edwards was acquitted of one charge and the News reports that the jurors had a supermajority to acquit on the rest (but not unanimity) you think Trump is s slam-dunk case on the same type of charges. Your personal political distaste for Trump is making you say things unsupported in reality because you wish they would be true. You'd be much better off saving your mental energy to actually vote against Trump in 2020 instead of not bothering to vote like you've said here repeatedly that you can't bother yourself to do.

"NBC reported Friday morning that jurors split 8-4 for Edwards on the unresolved campaign-finance charges and that only one juror favored convicting Edwards on a charge that he caused the filing of false reports with the Federal Election Commission."

 

[zinfamous]

Duncan Hunter is a sitting member of Congress, in your world Trump would be a former failed candidate and private citizen. What purpose would it have served in alternative history world to expend the resources to prosecute non-President Trump? To achieve a settlement fining him some token amount of money he wouldn't care about anyway? If he was willing to stroke a check for $150k to Stormy Daniels to make her go away do you think he'd hesitate to stroke another $150k check the Federal Election Commission to make any charges of campaign finance violations go away with a "no admission of guilt" press release?

"Trump Inc" is a primary money-laundering enterprise for Russian oligarchs and crime lords. That has been it's ostensible business for the better part of two decades now. Are you so naive as to think that there would be no reason to dig deeper into this closely-guarded, non-public business? Trump has been on the radar of investigators and international intelligence groups for a long, long time already.

Putin's machinations into these people were already documented prior to the election. That "illegal" FBI group that you hate so much, that was focused on the Trump business during the campaign...do you think they would have just stopped investigating the piles and piles of mounting evidence of serious fraud that they were perpetrating? Why would the FBI do that?

 

[glenn1]

"Trump Inc" is a primary money-laundering enterprise for Russian oligarchs and crime lords. That has been it's ostensible business for the better part of two decades now. Are you so naive as to think that there would be no reason to dig deeper into this closely-guarded, non-public business? Trump has been on the radar of investigators and international intelligence groups for a long, long time already.

Putin's machinations into these people were already documented prior to the election. That "illegal" FBI group that you hate so much, that was focused on the Trump business during the campaign...do you think they would have just stopped investigating the piles and piles of mounting evidence of serious fraud that they were perpetrating? Why would the FBI do that?

Behold the left-wing version of "pizza parlor operating an illegal child sex trafficking ring."

 

[zinfamous]

You are smarter than being this obtuse. Without Trump being President we would not have gotten a Special Counsel and thus your premise of "if law enforcement was made aware" would not have happened. And John Edwards is an interesting example for you to raise since his prosecution failed miserably.

https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/how-the-edwards-prosecution-stumbled-076942

You've ignored that the facts and the crimes in either situation are the same, but injected a hypothetical non-existent timeline to discount the relevance of the same facts. You ignored the premise of the question, created your own, and dishonestly dismissed it.

I still find it rather embarrassing that you aren't recognizing the fact that Trump had been under investigation anyway, and that somehow, the FBI would just "stop looking into foreign bank fraud and information exchange between foreign enemies" because, stuff. What a deplorable view you hold regarding our intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

 

[zinfamous]

Behold the left-wing version of "pizza parlor operating an illegal child sex trafficking ring."

Are you honestly this obtuse?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Pence? What in the world could you charge Vice-President Pence with ? Being too big a Christian? Being too nice?

What has Pence done in relationship to aiding criminal activities or acting counter to US interests with say Russia? Did Pence have an illicit relationship via Manafort, who selected or Flynn who was up to his neck in it? The answer is that he's surrounded by dirt and he would have to be the most ignorant and inane VP in memory. I'm betting he's more like Spiro Agnew if rocks are turned over but we'll find out. Investigations are ongoing and as he was obviously part of the campaign he's someone going to be scrutinized. Neither being a Christian or supposedly too nice will be grounds for his removal. Despite the fact that Trump is completely baffled by the Constitution regarding impeachment, Pence should at least understand as well as anyone here.

 

[zinfamous]

This evidence has not been presented, under oath, in a court of law yet (or at least not publicly). Right now it's just Lanny Davis running his mouth like every other talking head on cable news.

I think impeachment needs to occur in lock-step with indictments after removal from office, and I would like an iron-clad case such that even thinking of a pardon would be political suicide. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but if he's impeached and not charged than IMHO the whole episode becomes a political stunt rather than justice being served.

He plead guilty before a federal judge, in court. There won't be a public trial. His statements made during his guilty plea are the same as any statements made during a public trial before a jury.

 

[Younigue]

It is absolutely hilarious how right-wing cult media sheep are being brainwashed with doublethink.

It is fully opposite from reality.

People who protest fascism are fascist
People who protest racism are racist.
Political parties who have passed the harshest resolutions against Russia are Russian agents while parties that have colluded with Russia are not.
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
Science is a belief system.
Intellectualism is stupid.

They really have you in opposite land, don't they?

Break out. The right-wing media is not conservative. It is not about individual freedom. It is not capitalist.

It is a training party for autocracy.

And you're a useful idiot because of your biases and fears.

Surely "alternative facts" and "truth isn't truth" fit in here somewhere.