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Next Chess Move on Impeachment

December 28, 2019 By terrymcginty

A fascinating approach to the current impeachment impasse that is an alternative to the Pelosi hold-back of the Articles of Impeachment- that Nancy Pelosi is undoubtedly currently quietly considering, by John Flannery
(She’d better be.):

“We have to make it clear we are going into the valley of corrupt purposes to illustrate the corruption, and would be glad if the Republican Senators honor their oath but believe they are so corrupt they won’t.”
-John Flannery

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Comments

  1. Christopher says

    December 28, 2019 at 2:30 pm

    I think the best witness arrangement is to do like normal trials. Managers and WH can each call their witnesses, who would be subject to both direct and cross examinations. Biden IMO should comply with a subpoena though he would certainly be a hostile witness.

    • fredrichlariccia says

      December 28, 2019 at 3:20 pm

      To trial, or not to trial, that is the question.

      We are in unchartered constitutional and legal waters.

      Let’s not pretend this decision isn’t filled with risk, high anxiety, uncertainty and profound ramifications for all of us regardless of what happens.

      I don’t have all the answers but I do believe Trump was fairly impeached by the House yet don’t believe the Senate — as presently constituted — will ever do ‘impartial justice.’

      One of the options should be for the House to sit on the current impeachment articles — and the possibility of more to come — until after the new Congress is constituted in November when 1/3 of the Senate will be on the ballot. Trump wants a speedy trial acquittal so he campaign on a faux exoneration. We must not allow him that advantage.

      We should make the HOLD one of the the central issues of the 2020 campaign, IMHO.

      • SomervilleTom says

        December 28, 2019 at 6:56 pm

        I’m pretty sure that the new Congress (and Senate) will not be constituted until January of 2021.

  2. SomervilleTom says

    December 28, 2019 at 7:07 pm

    As long ago as May of this year, I wrote that one scenario is to impeach Mr. Trump in 2020 and schedule the Senate trial after the 2020 elections.

    I remember thinking when I wrote that comment that it was the scenario I like the best. I haven’t yet found where I shared that thinking with BMG (though I’m pretty sure I did).

    I think this is the best strategy available to Ms. Pelosi.

    I have heard rumors that Mr. McConnell is privately charting a path where a handful of GOP Senators support rules for the trial that, among other things, allow a secret vote.

    One key reason I like this approach is that this schedule, combined with the skillful trolling of Ms. Pelosie — who is playing Mr. Trump like a fiddle — may well result in Mr. Trump behaving in ways that even his Senate defenders won’t allow to continue. If America and the world survives his meltdown, Mr. Trump might will demonstrate to even his most ardent supporters that he is a danger to America and the world.

    Nancy Pelosi predicted in 2017 that Mr. Trump would impeach himself. I think this strategy may well provoke him to remove himself.

    • Christopher says

      December 28, 2019 at 7:38 pm

      After the 2020 elections will be too late for the ongoing damage to that election. Also if he happens to win 2020 that will get constitutionally interesting.

      • SomervilleTom says

        December 28, 2019 at 9:26 pm

        Indeed, one of the trade-offs we’ll have to make is the damage being done to the 2020 election by the GOP versus the impact of an acquittal in the Senate.

        If Mr. Trump wins the election and the Democrats take the Senate — especially if we can achieve a super-majority — then it gets quite dull constitutionally and quite interesting politically.

        • fredrichlariccia says

          December 30, 2019 at 2:24 pm

          Pukes fear the drip, drip, drip of new revelations that appeared today in the NYT exposing the chronology of Trump’s Corrupt Ukraine bargain.

          • fredrichlariccia says

            December 31, 2019 at 4:26 am

            Tick, tick, tick!

            What’s Bolton’s excuse not to testify now that a judge has dismissed his aide Kupperman’s lawsuit?

            Pelosi’s Kenny Rogers’ ‘ know when to ‘HOLD’ ’em’ strategy is driving Dump and Moscow Mitch’s KGOP nuts.

            • Christopher says

              December 31, 2019 at 8:51 am

              It was dismissed basically on the grounds of being moot so I’m not sure it changes much.

              • fredrichlariccia says

                December 31, 2019 at 10:00 am

                Heads we win, tails they lose.

                Either Dems get a fair Senate trial or Dump will never be exonerated.

      • TheBestDefense says

        December 31, 2019 at 6:59 pm

        It won’t be constitutionally interesting, The House resolution expires with the end of this Congress..

        • SomervilleTom says

          December 31, 2019 at 7:27 pm

          I have seen no evidence that such an expiration date is applicable.

          My understanding from both media sources and the House Rules that govern impeachment is that no such expiration date exists (emphasis mine):

          Sec. 5 . Effect of Adjournment

          An impeachment may proceed only when Congress is in session. However, an impeachment proceeding does not expire with adjournment. An impeachment proceeding begun in the House in one Congress may be resumed in the next Congress. An official impeached by the House in one Congress may be tried by the Senate in the next Congress.

          Although impeachment proceedings may continue from one Congress to the next, the authority of the managers appointed by the House expires at the end of a Congress; and managers must be reappointed when a new Congress convenes. Manual. Managers on the part of the House are reappointed by resolution. Thus, the articles of impeachment against Judge Alcee Hastings were presented in the Senate during the second session of the 100th Congress (100-2, Aug. 3, 1988, p 20223) but were still pending trial by the Senate in the 101st Congress, when the House reappointed managers (101-1, Jan. 3, 1989, p 84). The articles of impeachment against President Clinton were presented to the Senate after the Senate had adjourned sine die for the 105th Congress, and the Senate conducted the trial in the 106th Congress.

          If such an expiration date were present, it would severely limit Ms. Pelosi’s negotiating leverage. I doubt very much if she would proceed on this high-profile path if such a constraint was in place. The obvious GOP response would be to simply ignore the whole thing and run out the clock.

          The intensity of the GOP attacks on Ms. Pelosi and the Democratic leadership suggests to me that they agree that the date to transfer the impeachment to the Senate is totally arbitrary.

          • TheBestDefense says

            December 31, 2019 at 7:39 pm

            I stand corrected..

            • SomervilleTom says

              January 1, 2020 at 11:13 am

              I just hope this gambit works. It really does require threading the needle.

              I think it is nearly certain to provoke an increasingly bizarre melt-down. The burning question (literally!) is whether or not Mr. Trump’s GOP defenders will remove him before he destroys all of us in some sort of suicidal “last stand”.

          • Christopher says

            December 31, 2019 at 8:10 pm

            It also didn’t with Clinton. A lame duck House impeached him and the new Senate tried him. Chuck Schumer participated in both phases since he had been a Rep who was just elected to the Senate.

  3. couves says

    January 2, 2020 at 11:46 am

    Democratic leadership pursued impeachment over the wrong issues. Trump has engaged in far more corrupt activity with the Saudi’s, threatening American security by deepening our involvement in extremely bloody sectarian Sunni-Shia wars. Voters lost their appetite for this stuff a looong time ago, But current Democratic leadership is more interested in carrying water for the National Security State than in actually appealing to voters or removing Trump.

    • SomervilleTom says

      January 2, 2020 at 12:31 pm

      I’m not sure I agree with your final sentence, but I do share your opinion that the current impeachment resolution colossally misses the point. I fear that is because too many of our Democrats are unwilling to admit to themselves or their constituents how deeply the betrayal of America goes in today’s GOP.

      Historians — if society survives long enough to have them — will describe the refusal of this Congress to even talk about the obvious Russian takeover of party apparatus as one of the clear signs that the American republic was dead. The will dryly observe that our constitutional processes were not adequate to resist the hostile takeover planned and executed by Vladimir Putin.

      There remains some possibility that additional “bombshells” will emerge that will amend the current resolution to include additional articles. I am under the impression that the current wording and process has been rather carefully constructed to allow that.

      Regarding your last sentence, I think that the “National Security State” is, in fact, one of the key drivers of the efforts to remove this administration. Mr. Trump has been publicly attacking and shaming them for as long as he’s been in the public eye. I see no other governmental institutions besides that “National Security State” that still have enough power to do anything effective.

      The Trumpists (and therefore Mr. Putin) own the information source relied on by the crucial half of Americans needed to remove any Republican from power. They have been systematically blowing up the foundations of pretty much every government agency one by one since Mr. Trump was inaugurated.

      So far as I can tell, the intelligence community is the only governmental institution whose defenses have held off the Russian onslaught.

      • couves says

        January 2, 2020 at 5:36 pm

        I disagree with your characterization of Russian influence. The US government and US oligarchs exercise far more influence than do their Russian counterparts.

        The Intelligence community is the vanguard for reckless American intervention and strategic drift abroad. How else can we explain the initiation of TWO proxy wars against Iran, while at the same time we were trying to pursue detente with Obama’s Iran nuclear deal?

        The CIA’s Syrian gun-running operation was the largest since our support for the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. As of 2017, US officials were bragging about the 100,000 casualties inflicted by CIA militants. Had Russia not stopped them, they would have brutalized the Christian, Alawite and other minorities in levantine Syria.

        God forbid, but if we ever experience another 9/11, is there any doubt that it would in some way be linked to our escalation in Syria, Libya or Yemen? And now the Trump administration is toying with direct confrontation with Iran, threatening the possibility of conflict escalating out of control… a FAR greater security threat than Russian influence over the Ukraine.

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