They know the Trump ship is overloaded with lies and deceit and has taken a direct broadside bombshell from the truth. Fox does not want to be sucked under when the ship collapses.
“The evidence of his impeachable behavior at this point, in my view, is overwhelming,” he said in an interview on the libertarian Reason TV. Napolitano also noted that Trump “hasn’t presented a defense, and I don’t know if he plans to.”
Top of Napolitano’s list of articles of impeachment that he expects the Democrats to bring is bribery, referring to Trump’s withholding of nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid as he pressed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call to launch an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son.
The Democrats will “argue that the president’s failure to disburse funds that the Congress ordered be disbursed until the recipient of the funds agreed to investigate a potential political opponent is an act of bribery,” Napolitano explained. “That is enough ... to make it over the threshold of impeachable offenses. I don’t think it’s enough to convict of bribery, but it’s enough to allege it.”
The second charge will likely be “high crimes and misdemeanors — election law violation,” Napolitano noted. The third crime will be “obstruction of justice,” while the fourth could be “interference with a witness,” he said.
A fifth may be “lying under oath,” noted Napolitano. That would stem from Trump’s alleged lie under oath to special counsel Robert Mueller when he said he didn’t recall discussing WikiLeaks and hacked Democratic Party emails with Roger Stone. That contradicts testimony at Stone’s trial, in which Trump’s longtime friend and informer adviser was convicted of all seven charges levied against him, including lying to Congress and witness intimidation.
It's interesting analysis. It also happened on Reason TV.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
A confidential White House review of President Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal, according to three people familiar with the records.
The research by the White House Counsel’s Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance, according to the three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
One person briefed on the records examination said White House lawyers are expressing concern that the review has turned up some unflattering exchanges and facts that could at a minimum embarrass the president. It’s unclear if the Mulvaney discussions or other records pose any legal problems for Trump in the impeachment inquiry, but some fear they could pose political problems if revealed publicly.
Just saw this thread of several things we've learned since the Ukraine story broke that Democrats are seemingly ignoring in their impeachment inquiry that, quite obviously, should not be ignored:
Judge Jackson wrote:The arguments that DOJ advances to support its claim of absolute testimonial immunity for senior-level presidential aides transgress core constitutional truths (notwithstanding OLC’s persistent heralding of these and similar propositions). By contrast, textbook constitutional law readily reveals that, precisely because the Constitution bestows upon the Judiciary the power to demarcate the boundaries of lawful conduct by government officials, the federal courts have subject-matter jurisdiction to entertain subpoena enforcement disputes concerning legislative subpoenas that have been issued to Executive branch officials.
I think "transgressing core constitutional truths" is jurist-speak for RTFM: Read the Fr@cking Manual.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization." - Will Durant "We've kept more promises than we've even made" - Donald Trump "Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist." - Edwin Land
First off, I believe the chances that Senate Republicans vote to convict Trump is less than 10%, but anything is possible with this insane president. So I made this list of the 20 most likely GOP Senators to toss Trump out of office. Feel free to remove and add senators from my list.
Retiring Senators and Old Timers
Chuck Grassley (This guy is really old and has nothing to lose) Richard Shelby (Same as Grassley) Pat Roberts (Retiring in 2020 and is probably really sick of Trump) Lamar Alexander (Same as Roberts) Johnny Isakson (Retiring because of bad health and might want to do the right thing)
Young Guns Worried About Politics in the Coming Decades
Josh Hawley (Only 39 and not running for reelection until 2024) Todd Young (In a fairly vulnerable state and reelection is in 2022) Marco Rubio (Obvious bad blood and in a swing state) Ted Cruz (Even more bad blood) Ben Sasse (Fairly independent)
Swing States Senators Running in 2020
Cory Gardner (Big target for Democrats) Joni Ernst (Scurred) Susan Collins (Super Scurred) Martha McSally
Wildcards and Snakes
Rob Portman (Fairly moderate and in a swing state) Lindsey Graham (We know his true feelings) Rand Paul (Weirdo and not to be trusted) Lisa Murkowski (Voted against Kavanaugh) Mitt Romney (Obviously) Mitch McConnell (Probably the most concerned about the future of the Republican Party)
According to Newsweek, there are 48 democrats and twelve republican senators that will most likely vote to impeach President Trump. To impeach the president, it requires a a 2/3 vote, which means only six more republicans are needed to impeach Trump.
At some point in 2019 (if not sooner) a Republican Senator may walk into the Oval Office and say to President Trump: “Mr. President, we don’t have the votes,” at which point the Trump presidency will end in a resignation or a conviction in the Senate.
This scenario actually occurred forty-three years ago this summer when Republican Senator Barry Goldwater walked into the Oval Office and told Republican President Richard Nixon that they didn’t have the votes in the Senate to save his presidency.
Following impeachment in the House, a trial takes place in the Senate. Conviction requires two-thirds of the Senate and by my count there are already twelve senators who have shown a willingness to take on the president when they believe he is in the wrong.If you add that to the forty-eight Democrats in the Senate (who have shown no inclination to work with this President), Donald Trump could be six votes away from conviction in the Senate.
If you add that to the forty-eight Democrats in the Senate (who have shown no inclination to work with this President), Donald Trump could be six votes away from conviction in the Senate.
Of course this assumes that the forces now in motion continue on their same trajectory and result in an impeachment vote. They are: the investigations into the Trump campaign; evidence of weakness in the Republican base ; historical trends indicating a possible Democratic takeover in the House; and, last but not least, defiance in the Senate.
This last trend should be particularly worrisome for the president. Article I of the Constitution gives them the last word on the presidency. And yet instead of making friends in the Senate, Trump has done exactly the opposite.
Of course, the Newsweek article linked above was published before the 2018 election, so it is a bit dated, but it was right about the speculation that the Democrats could take over the majority of the House. Besides that, I am confident that Trump is not through with shooting himself in the foot yet, and will likely still eventually make a faux pas too outrageous for even as much as 2/3 of the Senate to ignore.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
As the President is fond of saying: We’ll see what happens. I’m not convinced that the outcome of the Senate trial is set in stone. I say put on the best case you can, and make the senators vote. Make ‘em say yea or nay on the record. It’s one thing to run your mouth for the cameras and another to cast the vote.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
I can't help wondering how Mike Pence feels about this by now. Is he salivating and rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of becoming the next president, if Trump is convicted, or is he worried because he knows that he was complicit or an enabler in much of what Trump is most likely to be impeached for. Though I can't imagine any possibility that Pence himself would also be impeached, placing Nancy Pelosi in the oval office (which the Republicans absolutely would not stand for, no matter what), he could be vulnerable to possible criminal charges after leaving office, for some of the same reasons that Trump would be.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
What I wonder is, why is Napolitano still employed by FOX news?
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
What I wonder is, why is Napolitano still employed by FOX news?
He has insurance??
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
