Speaker Pelosi is the only political force on Earth that knows how to beat Trump at his own game.
Hey, you vulgar, criminal, fraud : impeachment is too good for you. No, I want you behind bars.
Please share widely!
Reality-based commentary on politics.
I actually don’t like the sound of “Lock her up” or “Lock him up”.
I’m a bit uncomfortable with this direction. The role of Congress is to impeach. Incarceration is, to me, out of scope for Congress. Once Mr. Trump is again a private citizen, I’m happy to applaud any state or federal law enforcement agency that successfully prosecutes, convicts, and imprisons him. Perhaps that’s all Ms. Pelosi is trying to say. If so, I hope she clarifies that.
I want we Democrats to be the party of reason. In my view, the next step is an impeachment investigation. If that investigation demonstrates compelling evidence of serious wrong-doing, then I want Congress to impeach Mr. Trump. I then hope that the Senate will remove him from office.
I do not want to see us join the GOP in a collapse into mob rule.
It’s not about mob rule. This is a subtle false equivalency. When someone has actually been shown to have engaged in criminal acts after a reputable criminal investigation, her comments are entirely appropriate. Does this comoarebin any substantive way to chants of locking Hillary up? Absolutely NOT.
Not to mention the fact that her comments were made in a private meeting. Again, utterly false equivalency.
It is the perception of being driven by emotion or political expedience rather than fact that concerns me.
The more Ms. Pelosi says — in public or in private — the more I become persuaded that she pursuing political expedience rather than doing her constitutional duty. The two are, in this case, different.
The most effective way to obtain evidence of criminal conduct is to begin an impeachment investigation. In my view, that is what most needs to be done.
Yesterday.
No more talk, no more leaks of “private” meetings.
Action. Now.
Why do we keep bringing pillows to gun fights?
@ pillows to gun fights:
An impeachment investigation has more teeth than everything being done now. In the context of an impeachment investigation, Congress already has the ability to both levy large fines and incarcerate those found in contempt of Congress.
Once removed from office, any official so removed is again a private citizen with full exposure to consequences of illegal acts, including those committed while in office.
This one is a head-scratcher. Not only are impeachment and imprisonment not mutually exclusive, but the former almost necessarily must precede the latter.
Wrong. They are mutually exclusive, Trump can be impeached (but not convicted – let’s not conflate the two), but then not indicted and imprisoned after he leaves office (he’s managed to evade justice for decades, after all).
More likely is the scenario whereby he is not impeached (f*cking spineless Dems!) but he is indicted and possibly imprisoned after he leaves office.
I think that what Christopher means is that impeachment (whether or not it is followed by conviction in the Senate) does not preclude indictment. Impeachment and conviction — of a President or any other federal official — is only punishable by removal from office, so it is not possible to include imprisonment as a punishment for impeachment and conviction.
The Constitution explicitly states that indictment, prosecution, and imprisonment (or other punishment) is possible after a President or other federal official is impeached and convicted.
One reason this matters is that the founders chose the wording of the impeachment clause specifically intending it to apply to misdeeds that are not necessarily criminal. This is one of the fatal flaws in narrative about the Mueller report — the absence of a request for an indictment in no way precludes impeachment. The founders knew that an executive could behave in ways that were detrimental to America and still not criminal — the phrase “other high crimes and misdemeanors” was a compromise after the original term “maladministration” was thought to be to easily abused by a hostile Congress.
Impeachment and conviction is different from indictment and prosecution.
Thank you. I’ve also long held that though the Constitution does not expressly say that a President can’t be indicted, the Framers I think assumed that if the President committed indictable offenses he would certainly be impeached first and Congress would not be more loyal to party than to country.
Indeed, the Constitution makes no explicit statement.
Since the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, it is very hard to see how the Framers could expect it to investigate, indict, and prosecute the executive that controls it.
Hence the implicit arguments that I cited in my responses to bob-gardner below.
“Constitutional duty”?
Yes, if we are to remain a nation of law.
The Constitution (and its subsequent interpretation by the Supreme Court) provides impeachment as the mechanism for Congress to handle unacceptable behavior on the part of the President (and other officials). This is rather strongly implied by Section 3, number 6.
Impeachment is the mechanism provided to Congress by the Constitution to handle the situation where a President’s behavior makes him or her unsuitable to remain in office.
The Constitution explicitly provides that a President is subject to indictment after removal from office by impeachment (section 3, number 7).
I don’t dispute that Congress has the power to impeach. But where in the Constitution is there a “Constitutionall duty” to impeach?
In my view, it is implied by the inability to bring a rogue President to justice in any other way. This was the point of the link I offered above — including this (emphasis mine):
The founders did not intend that the President be above the rule of law. They therefore provided the impeachment mechanism. When a President flaunts the rule of law, demonstrates literal contempt of Congress, and intentionally acts in ways that are harmful to American interests (such as dismantling vital agreements and destroying relationships with close allies), the only actor enabled to bring that President under control is Congress.
That is what I mean by “Constitutional Duty”.
There are good arguments for and against impeachment. Claiming a “constitutional duty” to impeach seems to be a way short circuit the debate.
Politics and what is actually good for the country are the legitimate factors for Congress to consider.
Also, it’s “flouts”.
I appreciate the correction (“flouts” vs “flaunts”).
I view “what is actually good for the country” as a different way of saying “preserving the rule of law”.
In my view, Congress has a constitutional duty to initiate a formal impeachment investigation. I appreciate that you feel differently.