The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (3 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

 

[SaintForLife]

I think it’s crazy to believe that a Republican-led Senate would release an explosive allegation against a Republican-led administration without evidence.

Do you remember the Iraq War claims about WMD? How did those Republican claims turn out?

 

[MT15]

I don't know. Why did the FBI say releasing the Nunes memo would endanger national security? Once we saw the Nunes memo then we knew the FBI lied.

Do you think it's a crazy concept to want to see evidence of an explosive allegation before believing it?

I wish you were as skeptical of your Twitter sources, just sayin

 

[SaintForLife]

I wish you were as skeptical of your Twitter sources, just sayin

You are by far the biggest complainer here about people's sources you don't like, but you post stuff from Weissmann, Empty wheel, the Lawfare bunch, & CNN's Asha Rangappa and can't see that they are biased as well.

If I'm saying someone's source is biased it's usually in response to them claiming the same thing about me. Or I say they are biased and then I specifically say what part of their articles or posts aren't accurate.

All you do is complain and you rarely ever point out specifically what something I posted was wrong and what it should be. Normally you complain about my sources being biased and you throw out a bunch of generalities. I respond specifically to your posts and you ignore those responses and throw out more generalities.

 

[MT15]

Well, it was just a joke, geez. Hence the smiley face.

 

[FullMonte]

Where did you see that the Senate has more investigative powers that the Special Counsel? That's the opposite of what I've read. For example, the Special Counsel can get the tax records whereas the Senate doesn't have that power.

On a technical note, the Senate does have that power. The law requires the IRS to hand over anyone's tax records upon request to Congress. They requested Trump's tax records, and the IRS refused to give them up.

More importantly, you seem to be doing what others have done, and conflating Counterintelligence Operations with Criminal Investigations. It appears (as someone else stated) that Mueller was focused on the criminal aspect of the investigation and any intelligence information he uncovered was incidental. So, in that case, tax records could be relevant in determining if someone committed a crime. However, whether or not someone is a russian spy might not be as relevant. The Senate was focused on the counterintelligence side, so they would probably dig deeper into whether or not someone was a spy.

To give the short version:
Mueller was looking to see if members of Trump's campaign coordinated with members of the Russian government. So, if Mueller found evidence that Kilimnik had ties to the russian government, that would be enough information to use in his case.

Congress was looking at whether or not someone created an intelligence risk or compromised our intelligence, so at that point, they would probably want to know exactly how deep Kilimnik's ties to russian intelligence went.

 

[brandon]

Do you remember the Iraq War claims about WMD? How did those Republican claims turn out?

That’s not analogous to the current situation at all.

 

[SFIDC3]

Do you remember the Iraq War claims about WMD? How did those Republican claims turn out?

Exactly how I thought they would...bogus claims....

It is funny, there are some things purportedly happening right now that would appear as if some of Trump's core supporters/henchmen/stooges are already trying to distance themselves from him a bit...realistically I think it is too late for that though....

 

[V Chip]

A bipartisan report released Tuesday by the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee cuts through the chaff. The simplicity of the scheme has always been staring us in the face: Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign sought and maintained close contacts with Russian government officials who were helping him get elected. The Trump campaign accepted their offers of help. The campaign secretly provided Russian officials with key polling data. The campaign coordinated the timing of the release of stolen information to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The Senate committee’s report isn’t telling this story for the first time, of course. (Was it only a year ago that Robert Mueller testified before Congress about his own damning, comprehensive investigation?) But it is the first to do so with the assent of Senate Republicans, who have mostly ignored the gravity of the Trump camp’s actions or actively worked to cast doubt about the demonstrable facts in the case.

(Emphasis mine)

Opinion | The Trump Campaign Accepted Russian Help to Win in 2016. Case Closed. (Published 2020)

“Cooperation” or “collusion” or whatever. It was a plot against American democracy.

www.nytimes.com

 

[TaylorB]

there aren't any footnotes that cite the evidence for the claim Kilimnik is Russian intelligence.

The Senate making an explosive allegation without any evidence is not proof that Kilimnik was Russian Intelligence. Until they produce that evidence I don't believe the Senate report in regards to Kilimnik being Russian intelligence.

Seeing as we've had multiple exchanges discussing the portion of the Senate's report in which the evidence against Kilimnik is meticulously discussed -- pages 158 through 169, among others -- it's hard for me to understand how you could possibly argue as a serious point of rebuttal that the Senate alleged Kilimnik was Russian intelligence "without any evidence."

I can honestly say I wasn't expecting to have to add "bipartisan Senate intel" to the growing list things and people you reject as lacking enough credibility to factor into your opinions on Trump and his associates' behavior. I can't figure out for the life of me why a bipartisan group of senators would push a false or misleading narrative about an operative of the Russian government to the detriment of Trump and/or his allies in the context of the Russia investigation. Even if the redactions might have precluded you from becoming satisfied with the conclusion that he's Russian intel, it's audacious to disregard the conclusions of a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee and instead demand *more* evidence when you didn't even bother to parse through the evidence they did lay out.

I will say this -- if Kilimnik wasn't really tied to Russian intel, what an awful stroke of bad luck for Manafort to have chosen to share with him, of all things, internal polling data in key battleground states, and to have offered private campaign briefings through him to a key Putin ally at the same time Putin was interfering in our election by selectively targeting voters in key battleground states with disinformation campaigns, only to have the Senate *mistake* him for Russian intel in a 1000+ page report on counterintelligence.

SFL, if you can't agree to attribute even some credibility to bipartisan reports of evidence and conclusions, it rings empty when you snipe Mueller (who was a hero in the war Trump lied to dodge fighting in) and Weissmann, take vague shots at the media's credibility, demand that we read and rebut twitter threads you found in support of your positions, and take offense if anyone dares question the credibility of one of your sources. By rejecting the credibility of nearly every person or idea on both sides of the aisle that doesn't toe the Trump line -- now including a bipartisan Senate committee -- you are way farther out on a limb than you realize.

 

[JimEverett]

So the DC Circuit ruled that the House cannot sue to enforce its subpoena of McGahn - providing more reason to think the charge of obstruction was wrong.

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/08/31/mcgahn.opinion.rewrite.pdf

 

[TaylorB]

So the DC Circuit ruled that the House cannot sue to enforce its subpoena of McGahn - providing more reason to think the charge of obstruction was wrong.

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/08/31/mcgahn.opinion.rewrite.pdf

In late February, a 3-judge panel ruled 2-1 in the McGahn case that the constitution forbids the court from intervening in an inter-branch dispute. Henderson and Griffith voted to dismiss, saying Congress lacks standing to enforce McGahn subpoena, Rogers dissented.

A larger panel in the DC Circuit took up the issue en banc, and on August 7, ruled by a 7-2 vote -- overturning the 2-1 panel -- that Congress has standing to seek enforcement of the subpoena to McGahn. Henderson and Griffith were the only two dissenting opinions.

The 7-2 vote kicked the case back down to the same 3-judge panel to determine whether Congress -- which has just been determined to have standing to sue by a 9-judge en banc panel -- has a cause of action to enforce the McGahn subpoena. Henderson and Griffith voted that Congress doesn't have a cause of action. Rogers dissented. 2-1 vote, same judges, nearly the same issue, same outcome.

Today, I take issue -- as I did at the beginning of this discussion back in March -- with the suggestion that Henderson's and Griffith's votes are some sort of proof that the charge of obstruction was illegitimate. My logic back then -- before we even knew the ruling would go to an en banc panel, much less be overturned by an otherwise unanimous vote against the two judges' position -- is applicable now:

if the DC decision had been 2-1 the other way with two D nominees against McGahn vs one R nominee in his favor, I don’t think you’d be proclaiming that ruling validated the obstruction article and the entire impeachment. And if DC overturns this en banc or SCOTUS overturns it, I won’t be proclaiming victory either. It’s similar to Ds saying that impeachment is valid because Turley was 1 of 3 testifying constitutional scholars who didn’t think it was impeachable. It’s people with differing legal opinions. The ruling doesn’t specifically address the legitimacy of impeachment.

When the en banc panel actually did overturn the original 2-1 ruling by a 7-2 vote, I posted about it:

The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun

By Laura BassettAfter 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...

madaboutpolitics.com

I didn't proclaim victory, as I promised I wouldn't, because it was only proof of the fact that seven judges ruled one way, and two ruled the other way. Conservatives didn't speak up about the 7-2 ruling to try to draw some broader conclusion about the validity of the obstruction article -- not one conservative even responded to my post about it.

This week's 2-1 ruling by the same judges, on basically the same issue, is no more proof of the GOP's claims now than it was six months ago. It is proof of two judges' opinions on that issue. If it were proof that the obstruction case was invalid, then another 7-2 drubbing at the appeals level would cut the other way. Claiming victory in one instance, but not accepting defeat in the other, is illogical. I reiterate the position that neither set of votes is solid proof in either direction, but I'm not going to watch conservatives play "heads I win, tails you lose," as observed by @MT15, without calling it what it is.

 

[JimEverett]

In late February, a 3-judge panel ruled 2-1 in the McGahn case that the constitution forbids the court from intervening in an inter-branch dispute. Henderson and Griffith voted to dismiss, saying Congress lacks standing to enforce McGahn subpoena, Rogers dissented.

A larger panel in the DC Circuit took up the issue en banc, and on August 7, ruled by a 7-2 vote -- overturning the 2-1 panel -- that Congress has standing to seek enforcement of the subpoena to McGahn. Henderson and Griffith were the only two dissenting opinions.

The 7-2 vote kicked the case back down to the same 3-judge panel to determine whether Congress -- which has just been determined to have standing to sue by a 9-judge en banc panel -- has a cause of action to enforce the McGahn subpoena. Henderson and Griffith voted that Congress doesn't have a cause of action. Rogers dissented. 2-1 vote, same judges, nearly the same issue, same outcome.

Today, I take issue -- as I did at the beginning of this discussion back in March -- with the suggestion that Henderson's and Griffith's votes are some sort of proof that the charge of obstruction was illegitimate. My logic back then -- before we even knew the ruling would go to an en banc panel, much less be overturned by an otherwise unanimous vote against the two judges' position -- is applicable now:

When the en banc panel actually did overturn the original 2-1 ruling by a 7-2 vote, I posted about it:

The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun

By Laura BassettAfter 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...

madaboutpolitics.com

I didn't proclaim victory, as I promised I wouldn't, because it was only proof of the fact that seven judges ruled one way, and two ruled the other way. Conservatives didn't speak up about the 7-2 ruling to try to draw some broader conclusion about the validity of the obstruction article -- not one conservative even responded to my post about it.

This week's 2-1 ruling by the same judges, on basically the same issue, is no more proof of the GOP's claims now than it was six months ago. It is proof of two judges' opinions on that issue. If it were proof that the obstruction case was invalid, then another 7-2 drubbing at the appeals level would cut the other way. Claiming victory in one instance, but not accepting defeat in the other, is illogical. I reiterate the position that neither set of votes is solid proof in either direction, but I'm not going to watch conservatives play "heads I win, tails you lose," as observed by @MT15, without calling it what it is.

I mentioned the 7-2 vote - I think based on a question by you, although it may have been someone else.
The 7-2 vote also stands for the idea that an obstruction charge is unwarranted as there is clearly a legal basis for not complying with the subpoena.
Moreso - even an unanimous decision would not "prove" obstruction was warranted (although I do admit it would make the obstruction charge appear stronger), only a noncompliance after a good faith argument to a court and a final court ruling would prove obstruction.
The 2 judges opinion in the en banc descision is proof of a good faith argument by the White House.

 

[Saintamaniac]

The 2 judges opinion in the en banc descision is proof of a good faith argument by the White House.

Geniune question. How is this different from a 9-2 guilty verdict in say a murder case? Would the 2 not guilty votes be proof of innocence?

 

[TaylorB]

I mentioned the 7-2 vote - I think based on a question by you, although it may have been someone else.
The 7-2 vote also stands for the idea that an obstruction charge is unwarranted as there is clearly a legal basis for not complying with the subpoena.
Moreso - even an unanimous decision would not "prove" obstruction was warranted (although I do admit it would make the obstruction charge appear stronger), only a noncompliance after a good faith argument to a court and a final court ruling would prove obstruction.
The 2 judges opinion in the en banc descision is proof of a good faith argument by the White House.

Agree to disagree here. IIRC, the WH objection to McGahn's testimony was primarily on the grounds of "absolute immunity," a claim which none of these judges (and no other serious lawyer) endorses. Two judges ruling on separate technical grounds that Congress can't enforce the subpoena via the courts doesn't inject a component of good faith into the WH argument that otherwise had all the hallmarks of bad faith. I know we won't agree on that, but I wanted to offer context in response to the suggestion that these rulings are "wins" for R positions. I don't think they're "wins" unless the rulings are "losses" when they get overturned. I get the distinction you're drawing -- that the very fact of a dispute is proof of your case -- I just disagree with it.

Setting that aside, McGahn is a bigger threat to Trump on the criminal allegations of obstruction of justice than on the constitutional allegations of obstruction of Congress. McGahn is an eye-witness to multiple non-privileged acts of obstruction of justice by Trump, including his ordering Mueller's firing and his efforts to curtail Mueller's investigation (p. 77 - 98 of Part II of Mueller report). So it's still important for Trump's prospects of avoiding a future indictment to keep an eye on whether an en banc panel overturns this, too. For what it's worth, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that this goes en banc, or comes down 7-2 like the last one, but Trump certainly has major heartburn about this case because he remains exposed by what McGahn has to say.

 

[JimEverett]

Geniune question. How is this different from a 9-2 guilty verdict in say a murder case? Would the 2 not guilty votes be proof of innocence?

That scenario is really different. The jury would decide questions of fact - in the obstruction case I think it is more a question of law - the facts really are not in question.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

That scenario is really different. The jury would decide questions of fact - in the obstruction case I think it is more a question of law - the facts really are not in question.

If 2 judges dissenting is proof of a good faith argument, is the 7 judge majority 3.5 times more proof of a bad faith argument? Is there a tipping point where the dissenting votes become outliers and are no longer proof of anything?

 

[SaintForLife]

Seeing as we've had multiple exchanges discussing the portion of the Senate's report in which the evidence against Kilimnik is meticulously discussed -- pages 158 through 169, among others -- it's hard for me to understand how you could possibly argue as a serious point of rebuttal that the Senate alleged Kilimnik was Russian intelligence "without any evidence."

I can honestly say I wasn't expecting to have to add "bipartisan Senate intel" to the growing list things and people you reject as lacking enough credibility to factor into your opinions on Trump and his associates' behavior. I can't figure out for the life of me why a bipartisan group of senators would push a false or misleading narrative about an operative of the Russian government to the detriment of Trump and/or his allies in the context of the Russia investigation. Even if the redactions might have precluded you from becoming satisfied with the conclusion that he's Russian intel, it's audacious to disregard the conclusions of a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee and instead demand *more* evidence when you didn't even bother to parse through the evidence they did lay out.

I will say this -- if Kilimnik wasn't really tied to Russian intel, what an awful stroke of bad luck for Manafort to have chosen to share with him, of all things, internal polling data in key battleground states, and to have offered private campaign briefings through him to a key Putin ally at the same time Putin was interfering in our election by selectively targeting voters in key battleground states with disinformation campaigns, only to have the Senate *mistake* him for Russian intel in a 1000+ page report on counterintelligence.

SFL, if you can't agree to attribute even some credibility to bipartisan reports of evidence and conclusions, it rings empty when you snipe Mueller (who was a hero in the war Trump lied to dodge fighting in) and Weissmann, take vague shots at the media's credibility, demand that we read and rebut twitter threads you found in support of your positions, and take offense if anyone dares question the credibility of one of your sources. By rejecting the credibility of nearly every person or idea on both sides of the aisle that doesn't toe the Trump line -- now including a bipartisan Senate committee -- you are way farther out on a limb than you realize.

Pages 158 to 169 aren't proof of him being Russian intelligence. Heaven forbid that I don't believe their explosive claim without evidence. There has been quite a bit of things that the government said about Russiagate that turned out not to be true. Mueller had more investigative powers than the Senate committee and he didn't claim he was Russian intelligence.

Your reference to Mueller being a war hero, as if it makes him immune to criticism, sounds a lot like when Republicans used to say if you were against the Iraq war you weren't patriotic.

Weissman's history in the Enron case isn't a good look.

Weissman steps down as Enron Task Force chief

In a development that is intriguing by its timing, Andrew Weissmann is resigning as director of the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force, reportedly to enter private practice, although that …

blog.kir.com

The Chron Interviews Outgoing Enron Task Force Director

The Chronicle’s Mary Flood, who has done a fine job of covering the Enron case for the local newspaper, interviews Andrew Weissmann, the former Enron Task Force director who resigned as direc…

blog.kir.com

 

[TaylorB]

Heaven forbid that I don't believe their explosive claim without evidence.

When you say "without evidence," you're either lying about what pages 158-169 say, being coy about what "evidence" means, or not understanding what "evidence" means.

Just to use one random example from that excerpt -- the fact that Kilimnik was "trained in languages at the Russian Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense (VKIMO), an institute that Kilimnik himself admitted to colleagues was used by both the GRU and KGB" -- is one piece of evidence used by the Senate to reach that conclusion. That's one line extracted from 11 pages describing similar evidence, the whole of which led the Senate to reach that conclusion. Much of the evidence they describe is redacted, but much of it isn't.

I don't care if you're lying on purpose, not understanding the terms you're using, or being deliberately obtuse about them. I am just clarifying this point so that I can point to this exchange the next time you claim there is "no evidence" of something there "is evidence" of.

You are free to re-read the 11 pages and tell me what you think of individual components of the evidence laid out by the Senate. I am fine if you say the evidence is insufficient for you to conclude one way or another whether Kilimnik is or isn't a Russian intelligence officer. I am just not going to continue engaging in an argument in which you keep insisting on a premise that is definitively and provably wrong just by simply reading the report.

To be sure, the most important evidence appears to be hidden behind the redactions. There's nothing I can do about that. But again, this all stemmed from you calling me out about saying Kilimnik was tied to Russian intelligence, and now you're pretty much one of the only people in the universe besides Kilimnik who thinks there's "no evidence" in support of that proposition.

And again, it seems pretty obvious Manafort wanted the polling data to get to Deripaska, and therefore Putin. That's what the "evidence" suggests, anyway. If not, who did Manafort think he was helping? That question is rhetorical. I know I'm not convincing you of anything, but I do think it's important to point out the ways your arguments conflict with objective reality.