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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 11, 2021 19:25:53 GMT -5
It's necessary for conviction to come in the right way. Impeachment, it turns out, is not a criminal trial. It's not about punishment, accountability, or justice. If you're hoping for any of that to come out of impeachment, you won't get it. Constitutionally, the only function of impeachment is to remove and disqualify someone from office -- "[t]he purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment; its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government" (source: HJC report on grounds for impeachment, 1974, page 24: ia802905.us.archive.org/33/items/constitutional_grounds_for_presidential_impeachment_-_house_judiciary_comm_staff_report_february_1974/constitutional_grounds_for_presidential_impeachment_-_house_judiciary_comm_staff_report_february_1974.pdf -- I read this back in 2019 for the first impeachment trial.) Since Trump is already out of office, impeachment is almost entirely political theater at this point. If you want accountability, you have to have trials in criminal and civil court. (Because impeachment is not one of those, it doesn't provide double-jeopardy immunity. That's explicit in Art I Sec 3: "Judgment ... shall not extend further than ... removal ... and disqualification ... but ... the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to [regular] Law".) Certainly everyone who invaded the Capitol should be tried and convicted. I don't think the incitement charges could stand in court (they fail the Brandenburg test: www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test ) But there are charges that could be made against Trump, probably in the fraud and reckless endagerment directions. That would be the direction someone who cared more about justice than political theater would proceed.
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Post by GBG on Feb 11, 2021 20:33:40 GMT -5
It's necessary for conviction to come in the right way. Impeachment, it turns out, is not a criminal trial. It's not about punishment, accountability, or justice. If you're hoping for any of that to come out of impeachment, you won't get it. Constitutionally, the only function of impeachment is to remove and disqualify someone from office -- "[t]he purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment; its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government" (source: HJC report on grounds for impeachment, 1974, page 24: ia802905.us.archive.org/33/items/constitutional_grounds_for_presidential_impeachment_-_house_judiciary_comm_staff_report_february_1974/constitutional_grounds_for_presidential_impeachment_-_house_judiciary_comm_staff_report_february_1974.pdf -- I read this back in 2019 for the first impeachment trial.) Since Trump is already out of office, impeachment is almost entirely political theater at this point. If you want accountability, you have to have trials in criminal and civil court. (Because impeachment is not one of those, it doesn't provide double-jeopardy immunity. That's explicit in Art I Sec 3: "Judgment ... shall not extend further than ... removal ... and disqualification ... but ... the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to [regular] Law".) Certainly everyone who invaded the Capitol should be tried and convicted. I don't think the incitement charges could stand in court (they fail the Brandenburg test: www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test ) But there are charges that could be made against Trump, probably in the fraud and reckless endagerment directions. That would be the direction someone who cared more about justice than political theater would proceed. The purpose is accountability via disqualification from running for office in the future. Public officials have been tried after leaving office by senate in history. The 80-page brief put out by the prosecution team of House Managers dealt with the Trump objections. This is a valid, constitutional trial with precedent. Trump incited insurrection. It was seditious. Sedition is another crime beside what you mentioned that Trump could be tried for, and it’s a felony with up to a 20-year prison sentence. Fraud and reckless endangerment are obvious too. It was criminal fraud to raise over $200 million for Trump’s PAC, which he can use for personal living expenses or however he likes, and was raised under false pretenses that the money would go toward #StopTheSteal campaign. In fact, very little if any did. Trump defrauded his donors just as Bannon did with his Wall scam, which Trump pardoned. I read that 80-page brief. Here it is... judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/house_trial_brief_final.pdf?utm_campaign=5706-519
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 11, 2021 20:49:37 GMT -5
insurrection ... Sedition ... Fraud and reckless endangerment ... raised under false pretenses ... This all sounds like criminal stuff. That's what criminal trials are for. Disqualification itself isn't about accountability, but about protecting the government. Criminal trials are about accountability. Do you have a link to the 80-page brief? [EDIT: cool, thanks, there it is.] That sounds like a good evening's read. I've heard subsets of the arguments that I think are pretty weak, but perhaps there's something better in the full thing.
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 8:44:04 GMT -5
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Post by GBG on Feb 12, 2021 11:41:47 GMT -5
I read that Haley article from beginning to end just now. All I can say is I have a nickname for her if she’s the 2024 nominee... “Tricky Nikk”! She’s Nixon in a skirt, paranoia and all.
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 12, 2021 13:36:10 GMT -5
How disappointing... The part I care about is the "is impeachment the right way to deal with a former official" part (pages 58-75). And they start it off by spending one paragraph making a pretty sensible argument -- that the House had the right to impeach then-President Trump, and the Senate has the right to hold a trial once a valid impeachment begins, and Trump leaving office does not render every consequence of impeachment moot (since disqualification is still valid.) If they made that argument and stopped, I'd be ruminating pretty heavily on it. But in typical lawyer-who-gets-paid-by-the-word fashion (don't at me; I said the same when I rekt Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis' s**t head-to-head on a friend's facebook wall bc I happen to run in a social circle she also runs in) ... it follows it with 25 pages of Gish Gallop of increasingly desperate arguments. The textualist segment reads like someone cosplaying as a textualist, and ends up giving us such an open-ended definition of impeachment that they make a halfassed "you don't have to worry about slippery slopes" argument (never trust a lawyer who says you don't have to worry about slippery slopes but can't show precisely why.) It closes with a set of examples that show Congress impeaching someone they didn't have the right to impeach (that's considered a *good* example LOL), a current official with a pattern of behavior that included both the current and prior office, and 2 cases that had the same jurisdictional questions and the same degree of controversy (29 of 66 Senators voted against jurisdiction in one case; the House Managers asserted their right to impeach in the other.) It always makes me uneasy when someone makes what seems like a pretty good argument, but then they stop talking about the good argument, they don't carefully support its critical points, but instead they spend orders of magnitude more energy making a bunch of follow-up bad arguments. Feels like deliberately manipulative advocacy rather than careful analysis.
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Post by GBG on Feb 12, 2021 13:50:49 GMT -5
Lothar, please boil down your commentary into a simple answer to a simple question:
Do you not agree with the many legal and constitutional scholars, some of whom are conservatives, that this impeachment trial is valid, constitutional, and under the proper jurisdiction of the US Senate?
Besides, the Senate voted 56-44 that this trial is valid and under their jurisdiction. As one of the House managers said during trial after this vote, this issue has been “put to bed”. The senate can write the rules, and they have concluded this trial is constitutional, consistent with a consensus viewpoint of constitutional scholars.
Now that this has been put to bed, the trial needs to be decided “on the facts”, not on the constitutionality. Lothar, given that reality, if you were one of the 100 senate jurists, would you vote to convict or acquit?
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 13:58:29 GMT -5
Arguing against impeachment is stupid beyond belief, although they should go after him criminally as well.
This guy is a good lawyer. However they keep repeating the same thing ad nauseum. Question is, why didn't Trump do anything to stop the riot or send in the National Guard?
Republicans will love this clown. They thrive on repeat, repeat, repeat, especially when it's partisan lies. The Antifa claim is, of course, a total lie.
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Post by GBG on Feb 12, 2021 14:04:49 GMT -5
Arguing against impeachment is stupid beyond belief. This guy is a good lawyer. However they keep repeating the same thing ad nauseum. Question is, why didn't Trump do anything to stop the riot or send in the National Guard? And Trump primed his angry base with constant lies about the election being stolen for months after Election Day, leading up to a crescendo at the DC rally on 1/6 when he directed their anger, now at a fever pitch, on the Capitol. The use of the word “Fight”, and the phrase “fight like hell” have to be viewed in context to all the fomenting of the base with lies, whipping them into a frenzy on 1/6. This is pure incitement. The defense lawyers harped on the common use of the word “fight” by many Democratic politicians. No care to cite the context of word usage, and the House Managers case goes far beyond the use of this one word. Weak sauce by the defense, if you ask me.
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 14:09:13 GMT -5
Of course it is. To deny is insane. The last lawyer was perfect as far as the base is concerned. The are suckers for lies, deception, and repeat repeat repeat.
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 12, 2021 14:16:34 GMT -5
I do my own analysis, and it takes however much space it takes. I don't do "boil it down to a simple yes/no"; that s**t is for people trying to score points, not people trying to understand concepts.
It doesn't really interest me whether "many" legal scholars agree with a point, or more than half of Senators voted a particular way. It interests me how strong the arguments are. The arguments presented thus far don't seem compelling to me. I found the 1974 HJC report much more coherent and sensible than the current legal brief.
The hypothetical of "if I was a Senator" also doesn't interest me. If I was a Senator, I would have to sit through the political theater, and eventually I would vote according to how I was legally required to vote based on what was presented to me, but since I'm not there I'm not hearing the parts of the argument that I don't care enough to track down. If I was a Senator, I would also have pressured the House to have made a better case for impeachment the first time around, instead of the weak Ukraine case. Trump absolutely could and should have been removed from office on multiple grounds in 2019, but IMO they made an intentionally weak case so as to both not have President Pence and so as to be able to run against Trump and "Trump enablers" this cycle. It was an effective political move, but not the Constitutionally-appropriate move I wanted.
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Post by GBG on Feb 12, 2021 14:29:00 GMT -5
Let’s not relitigate the Ukraine impeachment. I thought impeachment was merited and he should have been convicted then. Unfortunately, GOP senators (except for Romney) could not be moved.
Lothar, it seems you are hiding behind your desire for thorough parsing and analysis of legal concepts to avoid either boiling this down to simple answers that I requested or to a judgment call on this case. I understand if you’re unable to watch all the hours of this case on TV, as I have time to do so, being sheltered in place at home and retired. I’ve seen it all these past several days. This case is not close. It shouldn’t be hard and require hours of analysis for anyone with “common sense”, as Jamey Raskin put it, to see this as open-and-shut based on the facts, and being meritorious of conviction and disqualification.
Lothar, that you would dodge my questions behind this veneer of intellectualism is sort of disappointing. This shouldn’t be hard. I respect the way your mind works, but in this case, which is beyond the pale incitement, you should cast that veneer aside and be willing to give me answers to two simple questions. The trial, if you are watching it, leaves no doubt.
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 14:43:57 GMT -5
JESUS...THE FIFTH TIME FOR THE SAME TAPE.
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 15:22:23 GMT -5
Today was 100% for the base, and those who were listening, which I'm sure were few, LOVED it. This was Trumpism magnified by a zillion.
All the buzzwords were hit. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...................
Unbelievable bullshit !!!!
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Post by GBG on Feb 12, 2021 15:41:59 GMT -5
It was all projection, accusing the House managers of that of which the defense team was guilty. Very Trumpian. It was partisan, took past Dem statements and words out of context, accused Dems of fomenting hate and having hate toward Trump, etc etc. Intellectually bankrupt. The GOP senators have this to hang their hats on, and Trump will skate by again, acquitted with only a handful of GOP voting to convict.
The Trump defense cast this as a politicized trial. They are right. THEY POLITICIZED IT!
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 15:48:23 GMT -5
Trump and his moron patrol have politicized everything. No other country on earth has morons who won't wear a mask because wearing one marks them as a liberal pussy.
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 12, 2021 17:02:41 GMT -5
I'm always like this. People love it when I'm on their side, and hate it when I'm on the opposite side.
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Post by GBG on Feb 12, 2021 17:26:19 GMT -5
I'm always like this. People love it when I'm on their side, and hate it when I'm on the opposite side. So, Lothar, since you are talking to us, I take this to mean that (as with the first impeachment), you think this second impeachment is weak and you wouldn’t convict. You’d make an excellent politician, btw, with your non-answers!
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Post by TNF on Feb 12, 2021 18:10:40 GMT -5
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 12, 2021 18:49:15 GMT -5
I'm always like this. People love it when I'm on their side, and hate it when I'm on the opposite side. So, Lothar, since you are talking to us, I take this to mean that (as with the first impeachment), you think this second impeachment is weak and you wouldn’t convict. You’d make an excellent politician, btw, with your non-answers! People hate when they perceive me as disagreeing with them. Doesn't mean I'm on the opposite side of the specific conclusion you care about. The thing I'm arguing at the moment isn't convict vs not, but proper procedure vs not, and you seem infuriated that I'm not on the same side as you about that and have no interest in letting you dictate how I address the subject. I genuinely do not have an answer as to whether I'd vote to convict, because I'd have to make sure that I'd actually run down every loose end in terms of process and procedure and evidential standards. I have been told I would make an excellent politician by people who were actually serious about it, for this reason. I'd rather get things right according to the specific legal standards, even if I hate the conclusion, than make a public show of doing something popular with my base (not that I have a base; both parties' bases see me as a dangerous extremist for the other side on at least 3 major issues. I'd probably best fit in with a less-Catholic version of the ASP, and even then there's some pretty serious disagreements.)
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