Why did the House Judiciary not take the subpoena issue to court?

[KCfromNC]

You mean conducting an thorough investigation BEFORE voting on articles of impeachment?

Can you quote me on that, or are you just making stuff up?

But in any case it was thorough enough to establish what Donald did. And convincing enough that the best defense seems to making up stuff about how the investigation wasn't thorough enough.

I mean, if the House really did such a bad job, it would be easy enough to clear things up by having Donald or a few of his employees testify as to what really happened. For some reason, the GOP is taking the exact opposite approach. I wonder why.

 

[KCfromNC]

And the strange thing they're now claiming it wasn't thorough

It might be more related to additional evidence coming out, despite the GOP's best efforts to suppress it. You know, things like

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...326098-3ed3-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html

President Trump is allegedly heard on a recording demanding the firing of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during a private dinner with top donors in April 2018, according to an audio file obtained by ABC News.

“Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it,” Trump is heard saying, according to ABC News, which said it reviewed the tape.
​

You'd think that if Donald and his crew were sure they didn't do anything wrong they would welcome a chance to clear this up in sworn testimony in front of a friendly GOP Senate. Yet for some reason, the reaction is to try to cover it up. Very curious.

 

[KCfromNC]

If the likes of Pompeo and Mulvaney broke under oath, the pressure on the senators would be too much.

The same Mulvaney who already said the administration does it "all the time, get over it"?

 

[iluvatar5150]

I think it was a stupid call by Pelosi. Impeachment had to happen prior to the election to send the message for future administrations that this behaviour by a president is absolutely unacceptable, but it didn’t have to happen quite this early.

Letting things run into the election wouldn’t have been acceptable, but there’s no guarantee it would have gone that long. People having to defend themselves in court often buckle under that pressure, and if they subpoena’d everyone (none of this ‘we’ll just do one blanket test case’ nonsense) it’s quite possible that you’d start to see people caving in long before the extended appeals process.

Instead it felt like they did a few half hearted court moves and then basically just gave in and went for impeachment knowing full well it will fail. Typical weakness by the Democratic leadership, although we should be more than used to that by now.

My understanding is that purple-district Dems were worried about the perception of their being focused solely on a partisan impeachment process to the exclusion of other work that their constituents expect from them. That’s a big part of why the passage of the USMCA counted as a win for them, even if it meant grossly overusing the phrase “walk and chew gum”.

I would have liked it to have been dragged out longer, too, but I can understand the concern.

 

[Kentonio]

The same Mulvaney who already said the administration does it "all the time, get over it"?

They just said he mis-spoke blah blah. They can’t do that if the guy is on the stand, under oath getting grilled by house managers. Mis-spoke = perjury there, and he knows that.

 

[Kentonio]

My understanding is that purple-district Dems were worried about the perception of their being focused solely on a partisan impeachment process to the exclusion of other work that their constituents expect from them. That’s a big part of why the passage of the USMCA counted as a win for them, even if it meant grossly overusing the phrase “walk and chew gum”.

I would have liked it to have been dragged out longer, too, but I can understand the concern.

Yeah I do understand the concerns, and there was no easy win either way for Democrats, but I do think she made the wrong call. To be honest I’m kind of amazed they went for impeachment at all given their penchant for prevarication, but to do it and do it this way just feels dumb. Acquittal is basically certain, but they could have played every card, maybe pulled out a win and if not at least made Republicans pay the full price of their sycophancy.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Can you quote me on that, or are you just making stuff up?

All this nonsense about blaming the House for not living up to whatever standard the GOP is making up today is just that.

All your words.....

But in any case it was thorough enough to establish what Donald did. And convincing enough that the best defense seems to making up stuff about how the investigation wasn't thorough enough.

Which it wasn't which is why the dems now want the Senate to call more witnesses/documents that THEY should have gotten before pushing the AoI. Tough luck kiddos, ain't gonna happen now.

I mean, if the House really did such a bad job, it would be easy enough to clear things up by having Donald or a few of his employees testify as to what really happened.

Not the Senates job; that is to be blames on the poorly conducted investigation by the house. They want someone to blame.....send'em a mirror.

 

[Kentonio]

All your words.....

Which it wasn't which is why the dems now want the Senate to call more witnesses/documents that THEY should have gotten before pushing the AoI. Tough luck kiddos, ain't gonna happen now.

Not the Senates job; that is to be blames on the poorly conducted investigation by the house. They want someone to blame.....send'em a mirror.

The childishness of this talking point by Republican senators is breathtaking. We’re talking about a trial to determine whether the President of the United States abused his office and corruptly tried to benefit from US power, and the best the Republicans have is this idiotic blame game.

 

[NotreDame]

In principle I couldn’t agree more, but holding impeachment hearings during an election would have a large number of negative effects.

Would those negative effects be political?

 

[Kentonio]

Would those negative effects be political?

To a point, but I think once you get into impeachment potentially interfering with the democratic process you’re on pretty dangerous ground. Does it then set a precedent that would allow a future party to open impeachment inquiries during campaign season deliberately to effect the vote? If someone loses the election does impeachment continue despite them being a lame duck president? What if someone loses but is then acquired? What happens if it hasn’t concluded by the time the incumbent leaves office? Overall I think it’s probably much healthier to avoid those issues if at all possible.

 

[Hank77]

However they could decide to hear all the complaints at once if requested to do so. And even if he failed to comply on one they could then have the evidence of obstruction even after it was handled by the courts.

What could be better evidence of obstruction than the President publically stating that he would not turn over documents or allow the administration members to testify?

He's now bragging that he has all the evidence that the House managers don't have.

The guy is shameless.

 

[A_Thinker]

You mean conducting an thorough investigation BEFORE voting on articles of impeachment? Then I guess the GOP has set a pretty high standard....about as high as any civil/criminal trial would have.

It was the House's job to JUSTIFY a trial. They did that. They didn't have to find/obtain ALL of the evidence.

It's the Senate's job to hold a fair trial, including getting as much of the evidence as they can ....

 

[civilwarbuff]

The childishness of this talking point by Republican senators is breathtaking. We’re talking about a trial to determine whether the President of the United States abused his office and corruptly tried to benefit from US power, and the best the Republicans have is this idiotic blame game.

Hey, the democratic house members started this game and have more or less defined the rules....until the articles are in the senates court and now the dem house plays by theirs....that's politics.

 

[civilwarbuff]

To a point, but I think once you get into impeachment potentially interfering with the democratic process you’re on pretty dangerous ground. Does it then set a precedent that would allow a future party to open impeachment inquiries during campaign season deliberately to effect the vote? If someone loses the election does impeachment continue despite them being a lame duck president? What if someone loses but is then acquired? What happens if it hasn’t concluded by the time the incumbent leaves office? Overall I think it’s probably much healthier to avoid those issues if at all possible.

All good questions which point to impeachment as always a last, not first, choice.

Back to Videos
Schiff: Trump's Misconduct Cannot Be Decided At The Ballot Box, For We Cannot Be Assured He Can Fairly Win
Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date January 22, 2020

In his opening remarks at the Senate impeachment trial today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) argued President Trump believes "he's above the law" and a vote cannot be decided at the 2020 ballot box because we can't be sure that vote will be fairly won.

"The president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won," he said.
Schiff: Trump's Misconduct Cannot Be Decided At The Ballot Box, For We Cannot Be Assured He Can Fairly Win

Guess that means Schiff wants congress to decide who gets to be president instead of the electorate. Maybe that is an indication of which road Schiff wants democracy to go down.....

 

[civilwarbuff]

He's now bragging that he has all the evidence that the House managers don't have.

Really?.....where does he say that?

 

[civilwarbuff]

It was the House's job to JUSTIFY a trial. They did that. They didn't have to find/obtain ALL of the evidence.

It's the Senate's job to hold a fair trial, including getting as much of the evidence as they can ....

You have a strange interpretation of impeachment.....sorta like a prosecutor who says they have enough evidence to 'justify' a trial but not enough to win it. Sheesh....

 

[civilwarbuff]

It's the Senate's job to hold a fair trial, including getting as much of the evidence as they can ....

A trial is a presentation of evidence to a jury not an investigation to justify the trial.

 

[Kentonio]

All good questions which point to impeachment as always a last, not first, choice.

Back to Videos
Schiff: Trump's Misconduct Cannot Be Decided At The Ballot Box, For We Cannot Be Assured He Can Fairly Win
Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date January 22, 2020

In his opening remarks at the Senate impeachment trial today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) argued President Trump believes "he's above the law" and a vote cannot be decided at the 2020 ballot box because we can't be sure that vote will be fairly won.

"The president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won," he said.
Schiff: Trump's Misconduct Cannot Be Decided At The Ballot Box, For We Cannot Be Assured He Can Fairly Win

Guess that means Schiff wants congress to decide who gets to be president instead of the electorate. Maybe that is an indication of which road Schiff wants democracy to go down.....

Trump is accused of abusing his power to illegally influence the next election. So no, it would be pretty stupid just giving him the freedom to do whatever he wants in the run-up to the next election.

 

[Kentonio]

A trial is a presentation of evidence to a jury not an investigation to justify the trial.

They don’t need an investigation, they know who they want to testify and which documents they want to see. Trump for some reasons doesn’t want this supposedly perfect evidence to come out though. Gosh I wonder why that might be..

 

[A_Thinker]

A trial is a presentation of evidence to a jury not an investigation to justify the trial.

The House justified the trial ...