The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (4 Viewers)

[Andrus]

By Laura Bassett

After months of internal arguing among Democrats over whether to impeach President Donald Trump, the dam is finally breaking in favor of trying to remove him from office. The Washington Post reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would announce a formal impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, following a bombshell report that Trump illegally asked Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his political opponents. (He essentially admitted to having done so over the weekend.)

“Now that we have the facts, we’re ready,” Pelosi said Tuesday morning at a forum hosted by The Atlantic. At 5 p.m. the same day, she was back with more. "The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution, especially when the president says Article Two says I can do whatever I want," referring to the segment of the Constitution that defines the power of the executive branch of the government. Pelosi's message was that checks and balances of those branches are just as central to the Constitution. And one more thing: "Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry," she said at a conference broadcast on Twitter by the Huffington Post. ...

Read the Full Story - InStyle

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

On the day of the election 538 gave Clinton an almost 72% chance of winning.

But, that's not a poll. LMAO

Are y’all laughing bc 72% is not 100%?
A few weeks ago Atl has much worse odds to beat us- what happened then?

 

[JimEverett]

The whole point is he is using channels that have no oversight. Giulani is a private citizen and is not accountable to the US Government. he is only accountable to Trump which makes this a personal investigation. The whole thing that is wrong about this is he didn't use the proper channels. If he did that, we might question what he was doing but hey he is following the right channels. Just like the DOJ investigating the FISA warrant process. That is the right way. No one is saying this is illegal.

I think the line I am trying to go down should wait on the actual Articles of impeachment (assuming there are some). At that point I can better see the relation of Giuliani to what the Democrats are alleging.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

I’m reading a lot of critical posts by people that clearly do not understand how statistics work.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

On the day of the election 538 gave Clinton an almost 72% chance of winning.

But, that's not a poll. LMAO

Are y’all laughing bc 72% is not 100%?
A few weeks ago Atl has much worse odds to beat us- what happened then?

 

[FullMonte]

Then you must not care about reading or comprehension. No other answer. I said Giuliani is troublesome for me, but on this particular issue I don't see his actions have any bearing.

Here's where i see they are critical. Let's say that the request for an investigation was an actual legitimate request for an investigation into actual corruption....and let's say Rudy returns with all of the evidence of the Bidens' corruption.

Now what?

We have a country that has a history of corruption doing an investigation, and then handing the results of that investigation to the president's personal attorney. There is ZERO chain of custody for that information/evidence. How can it possibly be considered credible enough to use in a trial?

 

[B4YOU]

“I can’t defend Trump’s actions so I will talk about Hillary and the Media”, said every Trump supporter ever.

 

[MT15]

I agree the use of Giuliani is troublesome - but I am not sure how, on this particular question, it moves the needle for me.

I am not dismissing your concerns out of hand, so please don't read my comments/questions that way.

But if it can be shown that political appointees okayed or any way directed an intelligence investigation targeting people connected with the Trump campaign in 2016 would that be strong evidence of illegal intent?

once again you seem to me to be zeroing in on a side issue. I only mentioned that Trump enlisted political appointees because we have seen that the seasoned, career employees recognized that the whole affair was improper use of government authority. Trump even ruined a woman’s career over her refusing to go along with his side scheme and telling Giuliani that he must go through proper channels. Going outside of proper channels could be seen as evidence of corrupt intent, though. Could it not?

I think we are investigating 2016, through proper channels, are we not? Personally I don’t think they will find anything truly improper, but it’s fine.

 

[Nebaghead]

once again you seem to me to be zeroing in on a side issue. I only mentioned that Trump enlisted political appointees because we have seen that the seasoned, career employees recognized that the whole affair was improper use of government authority. Trump even ruined a woman’s career over her refusing to go along with his side scheme and telling Giuliani that he must go through proper channels. Going outside of proper channels could be seen as evidence of corrupt intent, though. Could it not?

I think we are investigating 2016, through proper channels, are we not? Personally I don’t think they will find anything truly improper, but it’s fine.

I literally think Trump is looking for a physical server with the DNC emails on it. Probably similar to one he was shown back in the 90's when one of his hotels gave him a tour of their top of the line data center.

 

[MT15]

Well, I know not much about servers, either, except I haven’t seen one at work for years. I don’t think Trump ever analyzes information, as much as he decides if it’s favorable to him or not. If it’s favorable to him, or helps him in some way, then he takes it at face value. If it’s not favorable to him, or doesn’t help him personally in some way, then he discounts it and seeks to destroy the source of the information. A heck of a way to run a country.

 

[FullMonte]

I literally think Trump is looking for a physical server with the DNC emails on it. Probably similar to one he was shown back in the 90's when one of his hotels gave him a tour of their top of the line data center.

Well, that's LITERALLY what he said on Fox and Friends:

....They gave the server to CrowdStrike, or whatever it's called, which is a country-Which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server

So, apparently, he thinks that the DNC gave their physical server to Crowdstrike (a california based company owned by an American citizen who was born in Russia---not in the Ukraine), and Crowdstrike sent that physical server to somewhere in Ukraine, where it is still sitting there....

 

[Nebaghead]

Well, that's LITERALLY what he said on Fox and Friends:



So, apparently, he thinks that the DNC gave their physical server to Crowdstrike (a california based company owned by an American citizen who was born in Russia---not in the Ukraine), and Crowdstrike sent that physical server to somewhere in Ukraine, where it is still sitting there....

I didn't see that interview but I've heard the way he was talking about it in his tweets. I kept thinking he believes there is some server being moved around physically with all these emails on it.
Crowdstrike is one of the most reputable companies in cyber security, so I think it is funny how he keeps talking about them like they are some mickey mouse company. Compared to his Cyber Czar Rudy who can't even remember the passcode on his iPhone and takes it to Apple to back up on local storage and restore for him.

 

[samiam5211]

It is a sad day for freedom when there are a significant number of people in the United States who find legitimate a Russian promoted conspiracy theory.

The whole Crowdstrike thing is total nonsense. It shouldn't have to be refuted at this point. Refuting it make it appear as a legitimate issue. This is just Donald Trump being a tool of Russia who are using this to put blame for their crimes in 2016 on Ukraine.

It is pathetic that US citizens are serving as instruments of the Russian government.

 

[SaintForLife]

Turley talks about the 3 things House Democrats need to do to prove the case for impeachmen.

 

[MT15]

So his first sentence made me stop reading. People with first hand knowledge weren’t avoided by the democrats, they refused to testify and they refused to provide documents.

 

[MT15]

Are you saying it's not true that the DNC operative A.Chalupa didn't work with some Ukrainian government workers to get them to publicly release that Manafort was under investigation before the 2016 election? Manafort was not under investigation by Ukraine and the public announcement was retracted after the election.

Ukraine Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Caused ‘Meddling’ in U.S. Election (Published 2018)

A prosecutor and a lawmaker broke the law by revealing details about possibly illegal payments earmarked for Paul Manafort, which “resulted in meddling” in the 2016 election, a court in Kiev said.

www.nytimes.com

you know we can debate about whether that happened in the way you suggest or not, but it doesn’t change the most important aspect of Trump’s difficulties and why he is being impeached. And that is the use of US government assets (threatening to withhold the aid) to extort a personal political favor. Can you see the difference? One is potentially a campaign dirty trick, and the other is abuse of his presidential power.

And the fact if the matter is that Manafort was convicted of several felonies related to his time in Ukraine during which he worked to restore Ukraine to Russian influence.

 

[wardorican]

No. I can not read. You must have went to college or something.

Cannot.

And Jim E, why are you going so willingly in the mud?

 

[JimEverett]

once again you seem to me to be zeroing in on a side issue. I only mentioned that Trump enlisted political appointees because we have seen that the seasoned, career employees recognized that the whole affair was improper use of government authority. Trump even ruined a woman’s career over her refusing to go along with his side scheme and telling Giuliani that he must go through proper channels. Going outside of proper channels could be seen as evidence of corrupt intent, though. Could it not?

I think we are investigating 2016, through proper channels, are we not? Personally I don’t think they will find anything truly improper, but it’s fine.

Why is it a side issue? I thought it was evidence of a corrupt intent? In fact, isn't it THE evidence?

As far as investigating 2016 - didn't the Administration make that demand as well? And wasn't that demand tied to a WH meeting/aid/or something else? That seems fine, even if political opponents will call it a sham. But the Burisma investigation demand is illegal because it is cover for asking Ukraine to do something that might embarrass Joe Biden.
Does the 2016 investigation demand pass muster simply because DOJ has an attorney investigating it? That is what initially got me thinking about this when people were so focused on the concern (really the lack of concern) that the Administration had taken towards Ukranian corruption.

 

[Beach Friends]

Cannot.

And Jim E, why are you going so willingly in the mud?

What are you talking about Ward? Fist you come in and make a snarky little correction and then you ask him why he is in the mud?