Impeachment hearings

[_Dr Exiled]

Her actions seem to be done so she can make a lack of fairness claim against the Republicans who have already shown that they will acquit once they have the case. Knowing that the Republicans will quickly end this, Pelosi is milking the procedural fairness issue for as long as she can, trying to gain political points. The Republicans made a little hay on the fairness issue and its smart to do the same thing when faced with a quick defeat.

[_DarkHelmet]

I think she should hold them indefinitely. That way Trump is impeached and never acquitted, and he can't repeat that the senate let him off the hook ad nauseam, like you know he'll do in that situation.

She could hold them until after the 2020 elections saying it should be up to the next Senate to decide what to do with the impeachment.

[_Some Schmo]

I think she should hold them indefinitely. That way Trump is impeached and never acquitted, and he can't repeat that the senate let him off the hook ad nauseam, like you know he'll do in that situation.

She could hold them until after the 2020 elections saying it should be up to the next Senate to decide what to do with the impeachment.

Brilliant!

+1000

[_Icarus]

The better question is whether you believe that Biden should be investigated by anyone at anytime over the matter...or does being on the campaign trail grant him immunity?

Returning to this point since you seem completely incapable of answering the question as to why you think committing a specific crime is required for impeachment when it clearly isn't.

And even "better question" is why you believe Biden should be investigated, simply because some an Alex Jones level conspiracy originating from Russia, popped up on the internet and was embraced by Trump, Giuliani, and all the mouth-breathers who grasped onto it for dear life.

Anyone trying to track the Ukrainian conspiracy stories that were eventually embraced by President Trump is likely to get mired in the same echo chamber of right-wing news purveyors that misinformed voters in 2016. A pivotal source of the allegations against the Bidens, for instance, is the Government Accountability Institute, a Florida-based opposition-research operation that was founded by the former Trump political adviser Stephen Bannon—the same conservative nonprofit that ginned up questionable stories about the Clintons during the last Presidential campaign. In both instances, much of the coverage of the scandal was kicked off by Peter Schweizer, a longtime conservative political writer who is an editor-at-large at Breitbart News and the president of the Government Accountability Institute. Since its founding, in 2012, the group has largely been funded with millions of dollars in tax-exempt donations from the family foundation of the New York hedge-fund magnate Robert Mercer, who was a major donor to Trump’s 2016 campaign. In the organization’s most recently available I.R.S. tax filings, for 2017, Mercer’s daughter Rebekah is listed as the board chairman...

Thus, during the last Presidential campaign, under the auspices of the Government Accountability Institute, Schweizer published the best-selling book “Clinton Cash.” In a novel arrangement, he doled out negative scoops about the Clintons from it in advance to a variety of mainstream news outlets, including the Times. The paper disclosed its arrangement with the book’s author to its readers, and maintained that it independently verified and expanded on the information. But when it ran a front-page story derived from the book on April 24, 2015, the Times stirred controversy and criticism, including from its own public editor.

The story insinuated that, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had risked national security by facilitating the sale of American uranium mines to Russia in exchange for more than two million dollars in contributions to the Clinton Foundation from the businessmen behind the deal, who worked for a company called Uranium One. The story enabled Clinton’s opponents to frame her as greedy and corrupt. Even a year after she had lost the race, the Fox News host Sean Hannity was still invoking it on air, calling it “the biggest scandal ever involving Russia.”

Yet later reporting poked holes in the story’s insinuation of corruption, and argued that the amount of uranium involved was insignificant. (Schweizer didn’t respond to phone calls from The New Yorker.) On Thursday, the Daily Beast identified what it said were over a dozen passages in his book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” that were lifted from other sources, such as Wikipedia—a charge that his publisher, HarperCollins, denied amounted to a violation of fair use.

For those who recall the “Clinton Cash” controversy, the baseless tales claiming that Biden corruptly intervened on behalf of his son’s Ukrainian business interests feel a lot like the movie “Groundhog Day.” In March of 2018, Schweizer and the Government Accountability Institute once again produced a book that was perfectly timed for the Presidential campaign. “Secret Empires” devoted a chapter to the subject of “Bidens in Ukraine,” which laid out the conflicts of interest posed by the wheeling and dealing of Biden’s son Hunter. (An additional chapter laid out Hunter Biden’s business deals in China.) As the book recounted, in 2014, Hunter Biden, a Washington lobbyist, took a profitable post on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company run by a shady oligarch, while his father, who was then the Vice-President, handled a drive to rid Ukraine of corruption. Other news organizations, including the Times and the Wall Street Journal, had already run stories on the same unethical-seeming morass. (In July, The New Yorker published a piece about the relationship between Joe and Hunter Biden that dismissed allegations of any illegality in the Ukraine matter but included some concerns from Obama Administration officials that Hunter could potentially undermine his father’s work.)

But Schweizer went a step further. His chapter implied not just that Burisma was a crooked company but that the end of a Ukrainian criminal investigation into it on January 12, 2017, was in some unstated way connected to Joe Biden’s visit to the country four days later. In this way, Schweizer floated the possibility that, as Vice-President, Biden had abused his power to protect the company or his son from prosecution. Yet Schweizer provided no proof of causation nor evidence of illegality.

As he rolled out his new book, Schweizer promoted it in all the usual conservative news outlets, including “Hannity” and “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” on Fox News. But the turning point in the Biden coverage, it appears, was in late 2018, when Trump’s private lawyer and political advocate, the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, got involved. That winter, Giuliani began speaking to current and former Ukrainian officials about the Biden conspiracy theory, and meeting with them repeatedly in New York and Europe. Among those officials was Viktor Shokin, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who was sacked in March, 2016, after European and U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, complained that he was lax in curbing corruption. Shokin claimed that he had lost his powerful post not because of his poor performance but rather because Biden wanted to stop his investigation of Burisma, in order to protect his son. The facts didn’t back this up. The Burisma investigation had been dormant under Shokin. But in March, according to NBC News, Giuliani gave the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, a packet of Trump Hotel folders containing the purported evidence against Biden, including Giuliani’s interview with Shokin and his strategy to spread the Biden story, “including segments being placed on Fox News.” Before long, this explosive, politically useful legend took on a life of its own in America’s conservative media.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-des ... nd-ukraine

We talked with two dozen leaders and investigators in Ukraine. They all agree the claims against Joe and Hunter Biden are baseless. Yet they persist.

[_subgenius]

The articles of impeachment say Trump committed no crimes? That's false.

Most people who aren't just educated by FOX News hacks, understand that there is no Constitutional requirement for and Impeachment to involve specific crimes. But you knew that right?

As far as why "election tampering, emoluments, tax fraud, bribery" were left out, it is because they wanted to simplify it with the two most obvious and supportable impeachable acts. Insisting they're not crimes, therefore they're not impeachable, is about the dumbest argument I've seen from the Right Wing propaganda mill.

But yes, Trump did in fact commit felonies as even FOX News' legal expert Judge Napolitano has noted many times throughout Trump's tenure.

So, now that I've put up, you should do everyone a favor and shut up.

Please, list the crimes noted in the articles of impeachment....there are only 2 articles so it should not take you that long...unless you still move your lips while reading.
I will wait here.

[_subgenius]

OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS

Democrats have also charged Trump with obstruction of Congress based on his stonewalling of the House’s impeachment inquiry. The White House has refused to provide documents to congressional investigators and has instructed top advisers and government officials to defy subpoenas and refuse to testify.

A similar charge, contempt of Congress, was one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon, who had defied subpoenas for incriminating tape recordings. Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor crime under U.S. law, which defines the offense as willfully failing to provide testimony or documents to Congress. A different crime, obstruction of justice, more broadly prohibits “interference with the orderly administration of law and justice.”

The White House has argued that the Constitution does not require senior presidential advisers to appear for compelled testimony before Congress. A judge rejected that argument on Nov. 25 in a dispute over a subpoena issued to former White House counsel Don McGahn.


Federal Criminal Offenses and the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

Obstruction of Congress is not a crime....notice how it is not spelled the same as "contempt"...that is why they did not type "contempt"...again - obstruction of congress is not a crime. You can't take the words from 2 different crimes and magically combine them to make a brand new crime.
Try again.

[_subgenius]

The better question is whether you believe that Biden should be investigated by anyone at anytime over the matter...or does being on the campaign trail grant him immunity?

That isn't the "better question." It is just a derailment that you need to avoid answering Doc's question.
...

I answered Doc's question the first time he asked...then again the 2nd time...you coming in like super dolt without keeping up with thread content is as laughable as your support for Pelosi. Ya stooge.

[_Chap]

you <subgenius>seem completely incapable of answering the question as to why you think committing a specific crime is required for impeachment when it clearly isn't.

Yup. But give him a break: that's about all he's got. And we want to keep him on the board.

[_subgenius]

...
She could hold them until after the 2020 elections saying it should be up to the next Senate to decide what to do with the impeachment.

Nope, she does not have the authority to veto or obstruct a duly passed acts of the House. Not to mention it would kill the Democrats chances in #2020...including hers. But hey political extortion will reap what political extortion sows.
But hey, it only took 7 impeachment attempts...you guys are #winning, ain't ya?

[_subgenius]

you <subgenius>seem completely incapable of answering the question as to why you think committing a specific crime is required for impeachment when it clearly isn't.

Yup. But give him a break: that's about all he's got. And we want to keep him on the board.

Article 2 section 4 makes it clear that a crime has to be committed. Because you are slow, I will link/post it here for you to read (with your lips moving and all):
"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Treason is a crime per article 3 section 3 of the US Constitution
Bribery is a crime as defined by criminal law (see here)
high Crimes are crimes (literally in the name...good lawd don't tell me you need guidance on this one)
Misdemeanors are crimes, because according to criminal law they are criminal offenses..ergo a crime (see here)

Granted yesterday's events have somehow made you believe that a President can be impeached without committing a crime, but the sensible minds of the upper house will do their Constitutional duty and review the articles and the process and dutifully dismiss them as being inadequate when tested against the law and common sense of the American people....which is probably the biggest reason that Pelosi is holding on to them (a.k.a. embarassed).

But, I digress...you had claimed that a crime was committed, refused to support your claim, and now wish to lob a new claim for how a crime does not have to be committed anyway...that simply "not liking" a President is enough for impeachment....and, Supreme Court be damned a President not doing what Pelosi wants is also enough.
You go girl!