Impeachment Megathread Part 3

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://twitter.com/julianzelizer/status/1212890870690799616?s=21

As if the marginal extra damaging information is going to make any difference at all to anybody.

55% of America wants Trump impeached.  45% have spent the last 4 years defending literally thousands of deplorable actions and aren't ever going to admit, to themselves or their peers, that they were wrong the whole time.  It's too much of their identity.  We just have to get rid of Trump and start fresh.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ABC/status/1214630003817750528

The cover up begins

McConnell has the Votes to Start Impeachment Proceedings on his Terms meaning we'll likely get Opening Statements and deal with witnesses later.
Mitt Romney backed his Proposal as did Senators Collins and Murkowski.

Let history remember that Romney, Collins and Murkowski decided, the day after a star witness offered to testify for the first time, that a trial for the most powerful man in the world should not have any witnesses.

For Susan Collins, let voters in 2020 also remember.

If someone hurt you or your family, Collins would say "yes, let's have a show trial, witnesses are unnecessary."  Party of law and order, folks.

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ABC/status/1214630003817750528

The cover up begins

McConnell has the Votes to Start Impeachment Proceedings on his Terms meaning we'll likely get Opening Statements and deal with witnesses later.
Mitt Romney backed his Proposal as did Senators Collins and Murkowski.

Let history remember that Romney, Collins and Murkowski decided, the day after a star witness offered to testify for the first time, that a trial for the most powerful man in the world should not have any witnesses.

For Susan Collins, let voters in 2020 also remember.

If someone hurt you or your family, Collins would say "yes, let's have a show trial, witnesses are unnecessary."  Party of law and order, folks.

What do you want? The President removed from Office. That is just not going happen and you know it. There ain't 67 Votes to remove Trump. Pelosi knows it as well.
The longer she holds onto these Articles the more likely it is Impeachment will turn against the DEMS.

I want an actual trial, with actual witnesses, and some semblance of an actual legal proceeding.

It's like To Kill A Mockingbird.  Everyone knew that Tom was going to be found guilty by a racist white jury.  But Atticus Finch still does his damndest to present the case, lay out the facts, and defend Tom.  Not only because that's how progress happens, by good men striving their hardest against injustice, but also because this is America, and in America we follow the laws of justice.

We don't just lay down our principles and accede to an insulting, degrading show trial simply because the jury has already been rigged and the outcome is already known.  That's what happens in oppressive, backwards countries.  Here in America, the laws of justice are the foundation of our society, and we must follow them, regardless of the outcome.

The Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, want to have a quick show trial where they completely ignore the charges of impeachment, spend a few days giving speeches on the Senate floor about how awful Joe Biden is and how lawless the Democrats are, maybe bring in a hand-picked "legal expert" to say Trump is 100% innocent and the Democrats are the real criminals, and then vote to acquit and move on.  A complete mockery of justice, a stain on our nation's legacy and an insult to the American people.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Also, for the record, if Obama or Clinton or Biden were impeached, I would want the same thing, an actual trial with standard legal proceedings.

Of course, such a trial would still be a national disgrace because the Republicans, who have no shame, would abuse every inch given to them to disrupt the trial with absurd conspiracy theories and political maneuvering.  But this is the age we live in now.  We can't throw out our institutions and scrap the rule of law simply because one party has abandoned any principles outside of craven pursuit of power.

[GeneralMacArthur]

You are the biggest hypocrite here on Atlas. McConnell is doing the excat same thing then Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle did in 1998. The Rules for the Impeachment Trail were approved 100-0. The witnesses were called in later.

The rules were non-controversial because nobody doubted that the trial would be held fairly and witnesses would be allowed to testify.

McConnell, unlike Daschle, has openly stated he is coordinating with the White House and acting as Trump's arm in the Senate.  Trump doesn't want any witnesses to testify.  Therefore McConnell doesn't want any witnesses to testify, and his claims of "we don't have to specify it ahead of time; trust me, I'll let them testify" are absurdly hollow.

Essentially, requiring an up-front guarantee of witnesses wasn't necessary in 1999, because Daschle wasn't acting in obviously bad faith and both parties trusted him to run a fair trial.  That's not the case for McConnell.  His word is worth less than dog sh*t which is why rules are required.

Given how House Democrats operated here everything smells fishy. The Clinton Impeachment had YEARS OF INVESTIGATIONS, the Nixon Impeachment 14 Months. The Trump Impeachment 12 weeks. Absolutely INSANE by the House Democratic Leadership.

Trump's impeachable offense is extremely obvious and easy to uncover.  The witnesses have been straightforward and presented overwhelming evidence without any digging or investigation required.  The president and his staff have openly confessed on live TV that they committed the impeachable offenses and said "yeah, so what?  who cares?"

This is an absurdly bad-faith argument you're making.  The only thing these two trials have in common is that they involved a president being impeached.  It's like saying because the OJ Simpson murder trial took 18 months, we have to spend 18 months having a trial for Jeffrey Dahmer.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just want to say I appreciate Wulfric's updates.  Too often I can't watch congressional stuff from work, and the news only gives me either summaries or 538-style granular minute-by-minute updates with unwelcome commentary and snark.

Just a simple "here's what you missed in the last hour" is all I want

[GeneralMacArthur]

Am I the only one who finds the Pam Bondi story a bit insulting?  A few years ago Pam Bondi was the Florida AG and let Trump off the hook on dozens of charges related to Trump University, and also let Trump off the hook for tax fraud after he gave her PAC a $25,000 donation.  And the Trump people said she was totally not corrupt and definitely being objective and it was proof that Trump was innocent because totally objective AG Pam Bondi said he was in the clear.  And now she's openly become a Trump sidekick.  Am I the only one who remembers this?

[GeneralMacArthur]

If it is decided to call witnesses, the GOP will take heavy advantage of the situation. For every John Bolton demanded by the Democrats there will be a Hunter Biden, Whistleblower, (possibly Joe himself) to testify.

Why do you guys keep thinking this is some killer talking point?

First of all, you act like we'll be quaking in our boots if Hunter Biden testifies.  But we won't.  It's so obviously a partisan move.  Even if he totally embarrasses himself, nobody really cares about the nominee's son.

I don't think you can even legally call the whistleblower, since you're not supposed to identify him according to whistleblower protection laws.

And it's stupid anyway.  I was listening to conservative talk radio this morning and their big gotcha was "Democrats want to call witnesses but won't let us call the whistleblower!"  Like do you guys really not understand how whistleblower protections work?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Haven't really been paying attention but it looks like the GOP voted in lockstep to rig it as much as possible in the president's favor?

[GeneralMacArthur]

So now the new defense line from senate R’s is to cry that Nadler’s comments hurt their feelings

Per CNN & Spokesperson for Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski "She was very offended" by Nadlers Comment.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski's spokesperson said the Alaska lawmaker was “offended” by House Impeachment manager Rep. Jerry Nadler’s comments at the trial that if senators didn’t support the need for witnesses in the impeachment trial, they were "voting for a cover-up."

“I took it as very offensive. As one who is listening attentively and working hard to get to a fair process, I was offended,” Murkowski said Wednesday, according to her aide Karina Borger.

Murkowski is a key swing GOP vote.

Another one of those missteps by Mr. Nadler and Murkowski might be gone for Democrats.

But then, what do you expect from Nadler considering he is a purely partisan hack.

Nadler, Schiff, Demings and Jeffries are acting often like spoiled brats.

The lone Impeachment Manager I genuinly like listening to is Jason Crow. While I don't like the case he is making against Trump the guy at least acts like you should act in the United States Senate.

You are a Russian bot.

Anyone who disagrees with you is a Russian bot? That's an unfair characterization, and one made too often on these boards. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Nadler went over the line with what he said. If Murkowski-who is one of only three Senate Republicans (Collins and Romney being the others), with which there is a greater than zero probability that they might vote to convict Trump-was upset by what he said, then you know it didn't go well with Collins or Romney, and certainly not with the rest of the Republican caucus. He only reinforced their conviction to acquit Trump.

It's a foregone conclusion that Murkowski is going to vote as part of the McConnell bloc.  She will block all testimony, block all witnesses, block all evidence, block all subpoenas, vote to acquit, and try to stay as far out of the spotlight as possible.

Nobody wants to be the one senator who breaks ranks.

Her spokesperson putting out whiny statements like this is just a lame attempt to build the case for her being a partisan hack.  As if voting to block key witnesses from testifying in a criminal trial for no good reason is anything but a cover-up attempt.

And I say this as someone who has a lot of respect for Murkowski.   At the end of the day, Trump has a knife to her throat, and she'll cave like the rest of the Republicans.  The only way they can overcome this menace is to unite... get 20 of them together and agree that enough is enough... but there are too many spineless cowards in the party to make that possible.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Democrats should offer to let Hunter Biden testify if Republicans will let Stormy Daniels testify, as well as Sherrill Redmon (Mitch McConnell's ex-wife).

That is, of course, if we want to turn this whole thing into a farce where we pull in politically-expedient witnesses who have zero relevant testimony to offer.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I've been paying a lot of attention to the right over the last week and they have no defense.

Their defenses are:

• LOL Democrats
• Democrats are so lame
• The whole thing was rigged from the beginning!  Democrats didn't follow the rules!
• This is so f***ing boring and nobody is watching!
• What a waste of time!
• Democrats say they want a "fair trial" but won't let us interrogate the whistleblower, Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton!
• What a bunch of LOSERS!
• This is a DISASTER for the Democrats!
• Did anyone actually watch that little bitch Adam Schiff testify?  LOL he just wasted his time!
• Scooooore boooooard!  Trump approval hasn't gone down!
• Adam Schiff has big creepy eyes and looks like a pedophile!

Of course not a word of this has anything to do with the actual allegations against Donald Trump.  I think the point is to try to flood the airwaves with all this messaging about Democrats being losers, the trial being a disaster, etc. so that people just hear that and assume, that since everyone is saying it's a disaster, that much be true, without ever investigating for themselves what's actually going on.

[GeneralMacArthur]

At risk of wasting my time.

I am still trying to figure out what the crime is with which he is charged.

The two charges are abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

Abuse of power:  Trump used the power of the executive to recruit the interference of a foreign power for personal political gain at the expense of the country.  He ordered the executive branch to halt congressionally-approved military aid to a critical ally during wartime, and used the aid halt as blackmail to force Ukraine to interfere in our elections by announcing an investigation into Joe Biden over a Breitbart-fabricated conspiracy theory.

Obstruction of justice:  When he was caught red-handed, Trump issued a blanket order to the entire executive branch to reject all subpoenas and hide all documents from the congressional committees overseeing the investigation.  There was no legal basis for this order, it was simply Trump wanting to obstruct the investigation into himself.  This is the textbook definition of obstruction of justice.

It sounds like a scripted setup by the cops (Democrats) where they think they have a bank robber (Trump), don't know if a bank (Ukraine) was even robbed, don't know where he was and let's throw into Court and see if he confesses simply because we want him off the street.

The Democrats didn't even find out about this until the whistleblower leaked that it was happening.  At that point Trump had already been withholding the aid for months.  He keeps saying "read the transcript" when the transcript itself, which occurred before any Democrats discovered this, directly implicates Trump in blackmailing Zelensky.  So no, this isn't a setup by the Democrats in any way shape or form.  Trump did this to himself.

Throwing this all into the senate without charges or evidence just seems way out of whack with a normal judicial process.

They have literally mountains upon mountains of evidence.  Do you not remember just a few weeks ago when we spent an entire week hearing from all these witnesses, including Gordon Sondland, who corroborated this story and provided evidence and directly implicated Trump in both charges?

It just seems like the Democrats have had this fantasy since 2016. This is their big moment in the sun, and only time will tell if this pure politically motivated witch-hunt will pay dividends in November.

So if I really hate you, and then you go on a shooting spree and murder 100 people and there are 50 eyewitnesses and you confess to the crime on live TV, and I call the cops, they should just hang up the phone and say "well MacArthur really hates you so it must just be a witch hunt"

For if it does not, Adam Schiff will go down in history as a liar who gave the unlovable President Trump another 4 years in office.

I don't think Adam Schiff has told one single lie in this entire proceeding.  On the other hand, Trump and the Republicans have been caught lying dozens upon dozens of times.  That's why they keep having to change their story while Schiff has kept the same story throughout.
(I realize I'm setting myself up here for you to find one thing Schiff said that's maybe slightly inaccurate, so of course Schiff's entire legal case is a pack of lies and everything Trump has tweeted is 100% true).

[GeneralMacArthur]

Long breakdown on Twitter of the whole Trump fundraiser recorded and released by Parnas

Please do not post Seth Abramson on here.  That guy has been posting that Trump will be impeached, indicted, implicated for murder and other such things for three years now and nothing has come of it.

He also made a fool of himself during the 2016 primaries where he got on the H.A. Goodman bandwagon of writing daily "Sanders' victory is imminent" articles, and then when Sanders lost he claimed that it was "experimental journalism" where you write what you want to be true instead of what's actually true.  I am not making this up.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Let's make a deal.  Democrats agree to show up wearing underwear on their heads for the remainder of the year.  In return Republicans will allow Democrats to call relevant witnesses.

Hurr durr if the witnesses are so important why don't the Democrats take this deal hurr durr

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://twitter.com/JonathanTamari/status/1222531742084534272

Hunter can't tell why aid was withheld, which is the central argument of this impeachment. He wasn't in the WH at the time, but Bolton was. GOP hacks are trying to distract from the real issue here because their case for Trump is so weak.

Even if Hunter Biden were to appear in Congress, weepingly confess to stealing a billion dollars from Ukraine, and then phoning daddy and pleading for rescue, it wouldn't matter.

Trump didn't withhold the aid because of things he knows today.  He withheld the aid because of what he knew at the time.  And at the time, based on the knowledge available, no reasonable person would actually believe that investigating Hunter Biden was a vital national security interest worth imperiling an ally over.

Furthermore, it's a moot point.  We already know that the president wasn't actually interested in the corruption.  The aid wasn't conditioned on Zelensky actually starting an investigation.  It was only conditioned on him announcing live on CNN that he was starting an investigation.  Once the political damage was done, Trump was satisfied.  We have plenty of witness testimony and direct evidence to prove this, as well as circumstantial evidence such as the fact that Trump has never bothered to use the resources of the United States to investigate Hunter Biden.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Republican lawyer essentially saying that Watergate would have been OK if Nixon had claimed he thought the McGovern campaign was collaborating with the Soviet Union and it was in the nation's best interests to investigate.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Who even would have been witnesses in the Clinton impeachment trial.  He was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice.  The details of his relationship with Lewinsky were already public knowledge.

Did they want to bring Lewinsky in to ask her lewd details of Clinton's sexual habits?

[GeneralMacArthur]

When you have a party with a clear majority hell-bent on ruling autocratically, a clear mandate from their own party to continue on that path, and a solid 50% of the country at least weakly supporting them, what are you supposed to do?

The constitution only works if the people want it.  30+% of this country wants to completely reject at least parts of the constitution -- specifically, the parts that restrict the powers of the executive and the majority party.  Another 20-ish % is at least open to it, or doesn't see it as an important think to preserve.  You can't have a country where half, or more than half, fundamentally disagree with the pillars that make that country what it is.

The arguments made in the Senate today are obviously in total violation of not just the constitution, but our collective American understanding of the constitution as recently as a decade ago.  "The president can do whatever he wants as long as he believes it's in the best interests of the nation for himself to get re-elected" would have completely validated Watergate.  "The president can do whatever he wants as long as he has a reason for it to be in the national interest" is essentially the same thing, since Nixon could have just claimed someone told him McGovern was a Soviet spy and therefore Watergate wasn't impeachable.  Even the excuse most senators are going with, "he did it but it's not impeachable" could be literally applied to anything, since they haven't set any standard for what is or is not impeachable; again, Nixon would have been able to get away with Watergate if the only thing he needed was for Lamar Alexander to say "yes, he did it, but I personally believe it doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense."

While it's understandable that 40-45% of Americans think Trump should not be impeached -- having been exposed to a non-stop firehose of excuses from Facebook, Fox, and talk radio -- it is much more disturbing that a consistent 30+% of the country has cheered on the complete tear-down of this process.  They don't just want Trump to get away clean, they want the entire process to be rigged, a sham, a complete mockery of the constitution.  They cheer on the autocratic practices of their party, revel in the power it gives them, and delight in the frustration of their hated enemies.  This group includes 2016 and Russian Bear.  This group is in complete control of the party right now, and the Republican Senators have been doing their best to please them.

It's the responsibility of the other 20-25% of the country, those Republicans who may believe Trump is innocent but want to preserve a fair process and constitutional norms, to stand up to the 30% who make up the rest of their party.  It has never been clearer than today that we to your left do not have the power to stop this.  So long as you continue to vote Republican, and not punish men like Lamar Alexander who are all too willing to throw away the basic pillars of balance of power, you are more responsible than your power-hungry fellows.  Because you know what is happening is wrong, and you have the power to act, yet you do nothing.

So I want to ask something of the Republicans on this board, not folks like 2016 who are completely lost to partisanship, but you blue and brown avatars who feel uncomfortable with this, and wish you could stop it.  I am not going to tell you to vote straight-blue in 2020.  But at least consider splitting your vote.  Maybe vote for Trump but also vote for a Democrat in congress so you can balance out Trump's abuses of power.  Maybe vote for an independent Bloomberg instead of Trump.  I assure you, if Democrats win back control due to your vote, nothing we do will be anywhere near as damaging to this country as four more years of this regime at its current unchecked strength.  Most likely we won't get a damn thing done, just like the two years before Trump.  You won't have that guilt on your conscience.

But if you vote straight-R on your ticket, and Trump and the Republicans take complete power in this country, I hate to think where we'll be in four years.  And I know you do too.  

[GeneralMacArthur]

So I want to ask something of the Republicans on this board, not folks like 2016 who are completely lost to partisanship, but you blue and brown avatars who feel uncomfortable with this, and wish you could stop it.  I am not going to tell you to vote straight-blue in 2020.  But at least consider splitting your vote.  Maybe vote for Trump but also vote for a Democrat in congress so you can balance out Trump's abuses of power.  Maybe vote for an independent Bloomberg instead of Trump.  I assure you, if Democrats win back control due to your vote, nothing we do will be anywhere near as damaging to this country as four more years of this regime at its current unchecked strength.  Most likely we won't get a damn thing done, just like the two years before Trump.  You won't have that guilt on your conscience.

But if you vote straight-R on your ticket, and Trump and the Republicans take complete power in this country, I hate to think where we'll be in four years.  And I know you do too.  

I will vote for Biden or Bloomberg in 2020 and even if Bernie is the nominee I will not vote for Trump and instead write-in John Kasich or Mitt Romney.

For Senate I will vote for the Republican candidate as Jeff Merkely is one of my most disliked senators


I will NOT vote for Trump though

That's good.  I don't think it's fair to ask you guys to completely reject your ideology or swap parties.  Just do your part to restore balance of power and either remove Trump from office or create a more solid check on his power.  If the Dems had 51 votes in the Senate, for instance, they could force Trump to cut out some of his most egregious abuses by holding nominee confirmations as a bargaining chip.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I just want completely undo all the things that a certain Barack Hussein Obama did. He enacted the most dangerous Legislations EVER in this Country like ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, etc.

Wait, is this a thing?  Is Dodd-Frank on par with Obamacare now for things you guys want to destroy?  I haven't heard this siren song yet.

Do you realize that Dodd-Frank is at least part, if not most, of the reason we've gone this long without a recession?  Almost all financial experts and economists are in agreement that it created a much more robust economy and provided for much more secure growth.

Also, Barney Frank is awesome, you can't overturn his signature achievement.  That's just rude.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Democratic Legislation? None of Obamas Major Legislations were Bipartisan.

The Stimulus Bill had the entire GOP House voting against it. Only 3 GOP Senators joined Democrats (Collins, Snowe, Specter)
The initial ACA was passed with 60 Democratic Senators and not a single GOP Senator or GOP House Member voted for it.

Dodd-Frank was passed on Party Lines.

So don't give me that his Legislation was Democratic.

What difference does it make if its bipartisan these days? It's long been made clear that the Congressional GOP strategy is to deny Democrats even the appearance of bipartisanship, even when they support a particular policy. So all the lack of GOP support proves is that they closed ranks to deny a Democratic president any policy wins, regardless of the purpose or need for said policy. There are some exceptions, but this is not exactly a secret. The Republican Party is much more strict about this than Democrats too, given that there are plenty of Democrats who just can't help but want to work with Republicans no matter how badly they are treated.

Also, if you think legislation under Obama was the "WORST EVER" (hyperbole if I ever saw it), what do you think of New Deal / Great Society legislation? I mean, unless you just think everything Obama did was the "worst" ever, I'd imagine you would have a worse opinion of reforms passed generations ago.

This.  Do we really think that every single one of the 250 Republicans who voted against it actually opposed Dodd-Frank?  Of course not.  The caucus as a whole knew it was going to pass regardless of what they did, and made the calculation that it would be more politically advantageous to opposed it and then lie to people about it what it was.  Once you've made that calculation, it's idiotic to cross over the aisle and vote for it, even if you personally support it.

That pretty much summarizes the entire Republican strategy these days.  You can just devote all your resources to demonizing every major legislative move by the Democrats, and you'll win politically.  Crossing the aisle means you're now attached to something that's been heavily demonized and will be forced to defend your vote; not only that, but you're hurting all your colleagues by denying them the "purely on partisan lines" talking point.

[GeneralMacArthur]

This is probably the last chance I'll get to write this, but it bears repeating.

Suppose you are a black man and a cop pulls you over and searches you for drugs.  Nothing about you was suspicious, and the cop had no reason to pull you over, so you sue the cop for being a racist.

Now the cop can try to make the case that he did have good reason to pull you over.  But whether or not you, in fact, had drugs is immaterial.  Whether or not he was ultimately right doesn't matter.  What matters is the reason he took action in the first place.  If he pulled you over just because you were black, that's still a crime, whether or not you ultimately had drugs.

It's the same way with this Hunter Biden stuff.  Whether or not Biden is actually corrupt (spoiler alert: he's not) doesn't matter.  What matters is Trump's actions.  That an investigation would have actually caught corruption does not change the fact that unilaterally taking secret action to withhold congressionally-approved military aid from a crucial ally as blackmail for political gain is an abuse of power.  It doesn't change anything about what Trump's motives were at the time.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So now that we as a country have decided that this is perfectly legal and OK, is Trump free to continue cheating?  Can he now resume withholding the aid until Zelensky goes on CNN and announces an investigation?

I guess it's looking likely that Sanders could be the nominee so Trump will have to come up with some foreign interference scheme against him as well.  Maybe he offers to recognize Crimea as Russian territory in exchange for Fancy Bear hacking his wife's personal e-mail?  All in the national interest of course.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Now, Pelosi has to run on a record, absent impeachment, what little she has done the remaining 6 mnths.

Trump did commit crimes, but she risked it all and she isnt gonna be fundraising off impeachment anymore

She passed 400 bills the Senate wouldn't even bring to a vote. For the love of god, shut up.

Honestly it's better for Pelosi now.  The base has been screaming at her to impeach Trump ever since she took the gavel, and it was drowning all the media coverage of her.  Maybe now that the impeachment is over they'll shut up and we can focus on what's really important, passing legislation and presenting a cohesive agenda to America.

Ah, who am I kidding.  Starting Thursday we're gonna have shadily-funded activists camped out in Pelosi's office day and night demanding she put the Green New Deal up for a vote, or whatever new embarrassing piece of wedge-islation the far-left comes up with.