The Trump Impeachment Thread

Quote: Mission146

That's ballgame, folks. 57-43 in favor of Guilty, insufficient.

Yep. Time to move on and and pass that stimulus via reconciliation.

McConnell is skewering Trump in a speech. Guess he wants it on the record that Trump is a major Asshat.

I thought i just heard McConnel say "President Shrimp" Or maybe it was Trimp.

Quote: Mission146

That's ballgame, folks. 57-43 in favor of Guilty, insufficient.

No biggie
Andrew Johnson wasn't convicted but thats meaningless as he's still viewed as one of the worst Presidents ever
I have no doubt Trump will treated much worse then Johnson by historians

Quote: SOOPOO

What a sad state of affairs. The TOTALLY incompetent Democrat Senate leadership (essentially Schumer) forces a vote on allowing witnesses to be called. And as soon as the vote is taken, they changed their minds and decided not to call witnesses! You can’t make this up!
These are the people we have entrusted to lead us. God help us. Or if you are an atheist, we need lots of positive variance!

I think it's fairly obvious that Joe Biden does not want the trial dragging out, especially if we already know the outcome. He's avoided commenting on it and it's clear that he wants to get on with the business of governing our broken country. Yeah, it's a weird move. Witnesses would've dragged it out and it's highly doubtful it would've changed the outcome. Let's move on.

Quote: Tripdufan

I think it's fairly obvious that Joe Biden does not want the trial dragging out, especially if we already know the outcome. He's avoided commenting on it and it's clear that he wants to get on with the business of governing our broken country. Yeah, it's a weird move. Witnesses would've dragged it out and it's highly doubtful it would've changed the outcome. Let's move on.

Of course..... so why did they waste the time to draw up the resolution? Then vote on it? Then decide seconds later not to use it? Incompetence. I think you, as a liberal, should be overjoyed with this result. There are now 7 Republican Senators, and 8 if you count McConnell, that the looney far right will come after. Totally fractured Republican Party.

Quote: SOOPOO

Of course..... so why did they waste the time to draw up the resolution? Then vote on it? Then decide seconds later not to use it? Incompetence. I think you, as a liberal, should be overjoyed with this result. There are now 7 Republican Senators, and 8 if you count McConnell, that the looney far right will come after. Totally fractured Republican Party.

They only wasted a couple hours. That's like a nanosecond in Congress.

Quote: SOOPOO

There are now 7 Republican Senators, and 8 if you count McConnell, that the looney far right will come after. Totally fractured Republican Party.

Reprisals against those 7 Republican Senators will be relatively minor. Lisa Murkowski's re-election campaign in 2022 is anyone's guess as both Libertarian and Independent Candidate beat the Democratic Candidate in 2016.

Susan Collins will not run until 2026 and by then this will seem ancient history (unless Trump wins in 2024).


Do not intend to run in 2022
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Ben Sasse of Nebraska won his 2nd term in 2020 with 62.7% of vote
Bill Cassidy of Louisiana won his 2nd term in 2020 with 59.3% of vote
Susan Collins of Maine won her 5th term in 2020 with 50.98% of vote
Mitt Romney of Utah won his 1st term in 2018 with 62.6% of vote
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska won her 3rd term in 2016 with 44.36% of vote

Quote: terapined

No biggie
Andrew Johnson wasn't convicted but thats meaningless as he's still viewed as one of the worst Presidents ever
I have no doubt Trump will treated much worse then Johnson by historians

That could well be true.

What's curious to me is how often this second Impeachment (attempt) is getting referred to as, "Historical." What a penchant for drama we have these days! It'll be, at most, a footnote in High School Civics and History books.

The reality of it is that no President has ever been convicted by the Senate, though Nixon almost certainly would have been, had he not resigned. THAT would have been historical. As it stands now, the House of Representatives could have theoretically introduced Articles of Impeachment to the Senate on seventeen separate occasions, had they wanted to, and I still think that the grounds for the first Impeachment effort were pretty spurious.

An interesting thing about Nixon is that it could perhaps be viewed as creating a precedent for not impeaching someone who is no longer in office, (given that Nixon resigned) but I would disagree with that position. For one thing, there was discussion about reintroducing the Impeachment effort (after he had been out of office) even though the shelved the first attempt. Secondly, there was no reasonable possibility that Nixon would have won again, even if he had chosen to run. I'm not even sure he could run again...that would have to be Constitutionally interpreted.

The reason I say wouldn't have won is because a pretty safe majority of Americans disagreed even with Ford's pretty broad pardoning of Nixon. The language didn't just encompass Watergate, but rather any crimes that Nixon may or may not have committed during the time that he was POTUS.

Anyway, I maintain the whole notion of an inability to Impeach Trump because he's out of office and therefore it is Unconstitutional as nonsense. First of all, that would obviously give tremendous leeway for a POTUS to do whatever the hell he wants to (short of actual criminal acts) in his last few days of office. Secondly, the Constitution specifies that a separate vote can be taken to prevent the impeached (if convicted) from ever holding Federal office again.....so it becomes immediately clear that the writers intended for there to be potential consequences that would happen after the removal from office.

Standard of Proof

As far as the other side is concerned, some on the left have made the argument that Impeachment wouldn't fall under the criminal standard of law, but rather the civil one.

I disagree with that, especially in this instance, for two reasons:

1.) Incitement of Insurrection is ONLY a criminal offense. There is no civil standard or definition for Incitement of Insurrection because it's not a tort that can even be committed in a civil fashion. It's literally a crime against the Government.

2.) The terminologies used throughout Impeachment proceedings are criminal terminologies. Specifically, the Senators vote the accused either, "Guilty," or, "Not Guilty."

That's not something that happens in Civil cases. In Civil cases, a jury either finds in favor of the Plaintiff or finds in favor of the Defendant. They do not pronounce a Defendant guilty and a finding against a Defendant is not a, "Conviction," which is also what a finding against the accused is called during an Impeachment.

Therefore, despite the fact that no criminal law actually need be breached for an Impeachment to occur, the standard of the language used would point to it being most similar to a criminal proceeding.

One Unfair Thing

One thing that I felt was unfair (to Trump, believe it or not) was that in the closing arguments the Representative made mention of the fact that Trump could have appeared to testify, or offered evidence, and chose not to. The reason that is unfair is because an argument like that would have resulted in a case probably being thrown out, or at a minimum, an objection by the defense and the jury being instructed to disregard it. Even then, the objection could be preserved for appeal to have the case reversed and remanded (mistrial) and the whole thing would have to start over again.

The reason why is because of the Fifth Amendment. As everyone almost certainly knows, the Fifth Amendment exists, in part, so no Defendant ever has to act as a witness against himself. Practically speaking, this results in a few things:

1.) The prosecution can never call a defendant to testify. The only exception to this is if a Defendant has already testified in his own defense (criminal law attorneys generally do not recommend doing this) and then the prosecution is given the opportunity to cross-examine. Another exception would be if the Defendant simply acquiesces to be questioned, though he doesn't plan to be directly examined by his own defense attorney...which I'd be very surprised if that has ever happened.

2.) The prosecution could NEVER imply, in a criminal proceeding, that a Defendant should have testified and the fact that he/she did not should be construed as essentially evidence that points towards guilt. Like, that's a seriously bad thing to do and some judges would immediately throw the case out at that point.

But then, as we've discussed, this isn't exactly a real trial. Still seems like a pretty big faux pas, though.

Not wanting to quote Mission’s post.... but I hadn’t thought of the precedent that Nixon was NOT impeached after he resigned! Why is that? Is it because the Democrats of the time realized he was already no longer President? Don’t you think?