The Trump Impeachment Thread

Quote: TominNV

That is absolutely not the only evidence. In addition to denying the most basic defenses that would have prevented the violence, another big piece of evidence is that the terrorists who attacked the Capitol said themselves they were doing this on orders from Trump. The falsely yelling fire in a crowded theatre analogy is overused, but in this case it is like Trump yelled "friar", and is trying to use that as his defense, even when everyone else heard "fire". Trump knew what those people were hearing, even if he did say "peacefully" one time in his hour long speech. If he didn't know that, then it was his words combined with his ignorance that allowed the violence to happen.

In addition, Trump's lies led those terrorists to believe the 2020 election was fraudulent and full of illegal voting. That was the primary motivation behind the attack. None of the politicians who will be voting to acquit Trump are willing to agree with the idea that the result of American elections of based on fraudulent votes. As an aside, if anyone believes those lies, shouldn't that be a clear indication that Trump failed in his promise to Make America Great Again. Of course no person who has ever supported Trump has ever done so because they have any sense of logic.



Anytime someone has to bring up "What-about-ism" as a reason there should not be responsibility or accountability, the entire premise of the argument falls apart.

Do you really think that many of those that are publicly claiming "Trump made me do it' haven't had a call from the authorities along these lines. If you blame Trump that could make a difference on how we view your possible charges.

Quote: kenarman

Do you really think that many of those that are publicly claiming "Trump made me do it' haven't had a call from the authorities along these lines. If you blame Trump that could make a difference on how we view your possible charges.

They were yelling about being there on orders from Trump during the attack. What authorities could have given them a call?

Quote: rxwine

After enough Republicans fail to convict him, Donald will appear and not take even 1% of responsibility, leaving all the little guys holding the bag. Same as it ever was, little guys go to prison, big guy walks away. Lucky if Trump doesn’t get a paper cut signing autographs afterwards.

Sad. Sad. Sad.

Perhaps Donny's supporters should have considered being less stupid, "Little guys." Nothing sad about it.

Quote: Tripdufan

Is it a waste of time because the Republican Party that you said was in trouble refuses to break their contract with the devil?

You're not sitting at home and wondering why they are in trouble...are you? I hope not.

What contract? The only practical consideration to any of this is that a conviction (and additional separate vote) could mean that he be prevented from ever running for office again. You can't remove someone who isn't in office anymore, so there's really no other practical outcome that a conviction would yield.

Anyway, you convict if you think he's guilty of the thing in question and acquit if you think he's not. I'm no Trump fan, but I don't think he's guilty of incitement of insurrection.

Quote: SOOPOO

You are obviously correct. Trump has cut the Republican Party in half. They are in obvious trouble. Here is my take on his 2nd impeachment.

I believe it is 100% constitutional. There is NO WAY the framers wanted a President to get a free pass in the waning moments of their Presidency.

I agree that the process is 100% Constitutional. Not only for the reason that you said, but there also doesn't appear to be much in the Constitution that should be construed as preventing an impeachment from happening.

Also, not only the, "Free Pass," in the waning moments, but it's also at least hypothetically possible that a POTUS could be discovered to have committed potentially impeachable offenses, but not until such time as he has already left office. It could be a year into his term, or what have you.

Let's not forget that some of these are the same people who thought that missing Lewinsky's face and hitting her dress was impeachable, so no question that an incitement of insurrection case should at least Constitutionally be heard.

Quote:

If the only evidence is using Trump’s quotes like ‘fight like hell’. ‘Don’t let them steal the election’. And the like.... those are ‘trumped’ by him clearly and unambiguously stating to do it ‘peacefully’. All the anti-Trumpers will repeatedly say they follow his orders.... except when they didn’t! I do not think the fact that his supporters are the criminals that stormed the Capitol is enough evidence to convict HIM. I mean, there were dozens of examples of political leaders egging on BLM ‘peaceful protests’ that anyone could foresee a violent end game. No one has charged any of those political
leaders with anything. To my knowledge, none have been removed from office. Just like with Trump, they can be removed by being voted out. If I need to remind you, Trump has been voted out.

I agree with this. They also seem to want to point out that all of the prelude to claiming the election was fraudulent (by preemptively claiming that the only way he could lose is if there was fraud) was also a setup to the event categorized as, "Incitement of insurrection." In my opinion, it's relatively unrelated. There's just too much of a leap to be made between claiming the results of the election were a result of fraud and wanting to read into certain statements that he was encouraging people to storm the Capitol.

Quote:

The reason I might vote to convict is this. Once the insurrection started if it can be shown that he intentionally withheld aid in trying to end the insurrection, then to me THAT is defoliation of duty that would rise to the level of conviction. I am not sure the House Impeachment Managers proved that. To be fair, I did not watch the entire presentation, as it seemed like each manager just said the same thing the previous manager said, presenting no new evidence. The repetitive showing the insurrection was unnecessary in proving their case. It was done repeatedly for show, and that was quite obvious. I think there are people who could TESTIFY that he was aware and SPECIFICALLY withheld assistance for

My wife made a great point.... if and when he is charged with any criminal complaint, Trump will likely be acquitted there too. Jury selection will likely include some ‘Trumpers’, even if mostly ‘Trump haters’. To convict, has to be unanimous.

Faced with actually being in that position, (i.e. a Senator) I would not vote to convict. I would LIKE to vote to convict and/or to say that I would simply because I don't mind the thought of Trump being prohibited from ever running for federal office again. However, that would be a results-oriented decision, when in reality, I don't think Incitement to insurrection happened.

I could get on board with your dereliction* of duty claim, but that's not what the House charged him with. I guess they could perhaps charge him with that at a later time, but the current Impeachment question is for incitement of insurrection, so I couldn't use my vote to answer a question that I am not being asked.

I watched some amount of their stupid @$$ presentations. It was about 97% whiny emotional appeal and 3% substance. A sideshow meant to get faces on the news. What else is new?

Quote: TominNV

That is absolutely not the only evidence. In addition to denying the most basic defenses that would have prevented the violence, another big piece of evidence is that the terrorists who attacked the Capitol said themselves they were doing this on orders from Trump. The falsely yelling fire in a crowded theatre analogy is overused, but in this case it is like Trump yelled "friar", and is trying to use that as his defense, even when everyone else heard "fire". Trump knew what those people were hearing, even if he did say "peacefully" one time in his hour long speech. If he didn't know that, then it was his words combined with his ignorance that allowed the violence to happen.

So what? I can do anything that I am capable of doing and say that I'm doing it for any reason that I want to say. Without reading too much into it, the only thing that it proves is that several of the people who stormed the Capitol are idiots...but we already knew that.

Personally, if you're going to have Freedom of Speech as something that is to be held high and Constitutionally protected, then the only potential crimes (and even though there is no jail/prison time involved, this IS technically a trial) that should come as a result of political speech (or, really, any speech) should have to construe the words in the speech as literally as possible.

You concede it yourself in the last sentence of the above quote...because mere ignorance cannot be a crime. In order for incitement to have happened, there must be an intent to incite. Ignorance is not intent.

Quote:

In addition, Trump's lies led those terrorists to believe the 2020 election was fraudulent and full of illegal voting. That was the primary motivation behind the attack. None of the politicians who will be voting to acquit Trump are willing to agree with the idea that the result of American elections of based on fraudulent votes. As an aside, if anyone believes those lies, shouldn't that be a clear indication that Trump failed in his promise to Make America Great Again. Of course no person who has ever supported Trump has ever done so because they have any sense of logic.

Anytime someone has to bring up "What-about-ism" as a reason there should not be responsibility or accountability, the entire premise of the argument falls apart.

So what? Anything that Trump said that did not directly pertain to the act of the Capitol being stormed (i.e. that day) is completely irrelevant to the question. The only possible way to demonstrate otherwise is to be able to prove that ALL such speech from the times you reference was conducted with the goal of eventually inciting people to storm the Capitol. It doesn't matter what motivated the attack in the minds of the attackers, but what Trump's intent was. It's not really his fault that some of his supporters are idiots.

If anyone believes what Trump is saying about that, then I would simply argue that they don't understand the foundation of Trump's claims, legally speaking, which they almost certainly don't. At the end of the day, Trump is simply making a legal claim that, while inaccurate (and might not have changed the results anyway) he is fully within his rights to make.

If you were to ask any number of these people this question, "WHY does Trump believe the election was stolen," from what I can tell, many of their responses would be complete nonsense that doesn't really have much pertinence to what Trump is actually saying. That clearly demonstrates that these morons are quite capable of misunderstanding some of the things he says.

I don't mind, "What-about-ism," because-if for no other reason-it clearly sets a standard for behavior and consequences that should, in theory, at least be applied consistently.

Quote: Mission146

Perhaps Donny's supporters should have considered being less stupid, "Little guys." Nothing sad about it.

I'm reminded of the situation where someone suggests, are you going to let that person get away with that? Yup, I believe Trump was that guy that made that suggestion to idiots for months in so many ways.

So Trump walks, and the idiots go to jail. Rinse and repeat.

Quote: TominNV

That is absolutely not the only evidence. In addition to denying the most basic defenses that would have prevented the violence, another big piece of evidence is that the terrorists who attacked the Capitol said themselves they were doing this on orders from Trump. The falsely yelling fire in a crowded theatre analogy is overused, but in this case it is like Trump yelled "friar", and is trying to use that as his defense, even when everyone else heard "fire". Trump knew what those people were hearing, even if he did say "peacefully" one time in his hour long speech. If he didn't know that, then it was his words combined with his ignorance that allowed the violence to happen.

In addition, Trump's lies led those terrorists to believe the 2020 election was fraudulent and full of illegal voting. That was the primary motivation behind the attack. None of the politicians who will be voting to acquit Trump are willing to agree with the idea that the result of American elections of based on fraudulent votes. As an aside, if anyone believes those lies, shouldn't that be a clear indication that Trump failed in his promise to Make America Great Again. Of course no person who has ever supported Trump has ever done so because they have any sense of logic.



Anytime someone has to bring up "What-about-ism" as a reason there should not be responsibility or accountability, the entire premise of the argument falls apart.

I’m reading your post as the Trump defense is on. I’ll address two of your points. ‘Said themselves they were doing this on orders from Trump’. OF COURSE that is what they are saying! It will be used in their own trials as a defense tactic. I hope they fail. If someone says ‘go protest peacefully and you take that to mean use violence, you really want to blame the speaker? Really??? ‘He should have known by saying that that they would use violence! He needed to say it how many times to make you happy???

The lawyers for Trump just posted a montage of countless Democrat leaders questioning the results of multiple elections. Clinton, Abrams, etc... The point they make is questioning the result of an election is not a punishable offense. That it was feee speech.... just like when the countless Democrats did so.

As I said before, Senator SOOPOO is leaning to convict, but based on his failure to use the resources he had available immediately to protect the Capitol. To me, THAT is a reason to impeach and convict.

Quote: SOOPOO

I’m reading your post as the Trump defense is on. I’ll address two of your points. ‘Said themselves they were doing this on orders from Trump’. OF COURSE that is what they are saying! It will be used in their own trials as a defense tactic. I hope they fail. If someone says ‘go protest peacefully and you take that to mean use violence, you really want to blame the speaker? Really??? ‘He should have known by saying that that they would use violence! He needed to say it how many times to make you happy???

The lawyers for Trump just posted a montage of countless Democrat leaders questioning the results of multiple elections. Clinton, Abrams, etc... The point they make is questioning the result of an election is not a punishable offense. That it was feee speech.... just like when the countless Democrats did so.

As I said before, Senator SOOPOO is leaning to convict, but based on his failure to use the resources he had available immediately to protect the Capitol. To me, THAT is a reason to impeach and convict.

I saw the montage. Damaging as it was, did any one of those Democrats contend that court rulings against them were invalid like Trump did?

Trump discredited the election, the courts, even the Supreme Court, his own AG, and even Republican run districts.

GOD made me do it.

Let's prosecute GOD.