The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (5 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]

The piece you quoted says exactly what I said -- there is no legal term for collusion. Read it again:

"But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office's focus... was on conspiracy as defined in federal law."

And again note -- as I pointed out in another thread, the explicit language used in the report:



(Emphasis mine)

The report states it will point out when there is absence of evidence about a fact or event. It then states explicit language that will be used ("the investigation did not establish particular facts") that does NOT MEAN there was no evidence of those facts. It then uses that same exact language when referring to the "facts" of Trump Campaign Coordination with the Russian government -- therefore, it does NOT mean that there was no evidence of coordination. It did NOT state that there was absence of evidence about coordination, because it says it would have stated as such if that were the case.

In a court of law when they don't find enough evidence to charge someone is that person still considered guilty?

 

[LA - L.A.]

In a court of law when they don't find enough evidence to charge someone is that person still considered guilty?

Are the hearings being held in a court of law under the same rules as a court of law? No.

Does getting impeached and removed from office carry the same consequence of being found guilty of a crime in a court of law? No.

The framers made it very clear that impeachment was a political process and not a judicial process, therefore the process of impeachment is not held to the same rules as the process of a judicial trial.

Let's accept the incorrect comparison to a court of law.

In a court of law, is a verdict rendered before the investigation, grand jury indictment and trial have been concluded? No.

So why this rush to a verdict while we are still in what would be the grand jury phase of the impeachment?

Trump's innocence or guilt is not being decided and will not be decided by the House. The House is simply trying to reach a decision as to whether or not there is enough evidence to warrant indicting Trump and sending the case to the Senate for them to present cases both for and against Trump's guilt and whether or not he should be removed from office.

 

[SaintForLife]

Are the hearings being held in a court of law under the same rules as a court of law? The framers made it very clear that impeachment was a political process and not a judicial process, therefore the process of impeachment is not held to the same rules as the process of a judicial trial.

I was talking about the Mueller as the special counsel and his report.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I was talking about the Mueller as the special counsel and his report.

Same thing applies. Mueller made it clear that he was only conducting an investigation in regards to Trump.

He made it clear that he could not and would not make any recommendations regarding whether or not Trump should be charged with crimes or impeached.

He made it clear that evidence was found that the Trump campaign sought out and welcomed the aid of Russia, but not enough to state for certain that he coordinated with Russia.

He made it clear that whether or not Trump would be further investigated for that was up to the House of Representatives.

Not proving someone guilty is not the same thing as proving someone is innocent.

It's not accurate to say that Mueller's report proved that Trump didn't coordinated with Russians, just like it's not accurate to say that his report proves that Trump did coordinate with Russians.

That fact remains publicly unsettled and unknown, because Mueller pointed out in his report that Trump did in fact obstruct all investigations into whether or not Trump coordinated with Russians.

Why did Trump do everything he could to block investigations into whether or not he coordinated with Russians?

Why is he still doing it now?

Why is he blocking the investigation into whether or not he used foreign aid to force Ukraine into helping him hurt a political rival?

Why is Trump acting like he has something to hide, if he has nothing to hide?

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

Same thing applies. Mueller made it clear that he was only conducting and investigation.

He made it clear that he could not and would not make any recommendations regarding whether or not Trump should be charged with crimes or impeached.

He made it clear that evidence was found that the Trump campaign sought out and welcomed the aid of Russia, but not enough to state for certain they coordinated with Russia.

He made it clear that whether or not Trump would be further investigated for that was up to the House of Representatives.

Not proving someone guilty is not the same thing as proving someone is innocence.

It's not more accurate to say that Mueller's report proved that Trump didn't coordinated with Russians as it is to say that his report proves that Trump did coordinate with Russians.

That fact remains publicly unsettled and unknown, because Mueller pointed out in his report that Trump did in fact obstruct all investigations into whether or not Trump coordinated with Russians.

Why did Trump do everything he could to block investigations into whether or not he coordinated with Russians?

Why is he still doing it now?

Why is he blocking the investigation into whether or not he used foreign aid to force Ukraine into helping him hurt a political rival?

Why is Trump acting like he has something to hide, if he has nothing to hide?

Nvmd the fact that there were multiple acts of obstruction that clouds both the Mueller Report and the impeachment hearings. One has to wonder what the Mueller Report would have concluded if people like Stone, Flynn and Manafort had been more forthcoming. Perhaps his conclusions would have been that he could establish the trump campaign did coordinate its efforts with Russian operatives.

 

[SaintForLife]

He made it clear that he could not and would not make any recommendations regarding whether or not Trump should be charged with crimes or impeached.

He made it clear that evidence was found that the Trump campaign sought out and welcomed the aid of Russia, but not enough to state for certain that he coordinated with Russia.

Why did Mueller make a judgement on conspiracy? He didn't find enough evidence to state for certain that he coordinated with Russia, but you still consider that guilty?

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Why did Mueller make a judgement on conspiracy? He didn't find enough evidence to state for certain that he coordinated with Russia, but you still consider that guilty?

I asked you this before, but are we not in a thread where we now have multiple testimonies from multiple witnesses demonstrating Trump's personal role in bribing foreign officials to interfere on his behalf in our electoral process? Now with at least one first-hand account of this solicitation.

Either you don't actually care about colluding with foreign governments to affect elections, and that is why you refuse to condemn him still, to which you are not having an honest conversation here, or you do, and if you do, why are you not simultaneously calling for the president's removal on the basis of his behavior with regards to Ukraine?

Twice I asked for clarification on this and twice you have dodged.

 

[Slackermod]

There has been some general clean up of this thread, which has somewhat devolved. Accusations against other poster’s motives, bickering about the TOS, and posting “naked“ links are frowned upon on this board. Let’s seek a higher level.

 

[Andrus]

To follow up on slackermod's comments, I know that the topic is volatile, but you all really have to keep it civil without exception.

We welcome members helping members with reminders regarding the rules as long as they are in line with the guidelines. Self-policing can be very helpful. However you should pick your spots. You don't want to lend the appearance of being a self-appointed moderator.

The problem being that we already have partisan members reporting other members for such and using the self-appointed mod reference, which in itself is not the real problem, which is that in some cases the same member doing the reporting is known for practicing the same. So then we have to moderate that too. It's petty. In regard to that, nothing is more irritating to me than partisans trying to manipulate the staff into moderating on their side.

-Andrus

 

[BobE]

Silly tattle tales. Settle it at Sonic like real men.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Why did Mueller make a judgement on conspiracy?

Mueller didn't make any judgement of innocence or guilt on anything regarding Trump in his report. He said that was Congress's constitutional role, not his.

He didn't find enough evidence to state for certain that he coordinated with Russia, but you still consider that guilty?

In my post that you quoted, you left out this important part:

It's not accurate to say that Mueller's report proved that Trump didn't coordinated with Russians, just like it's not accurate to say that his report proves that Trump did coordinate with Russians.

Your question is invalid and misleading, since it ignores the fact that I've already made it clear that I don't think Mueller's report proved Trump's innocence or guilt.

I think a full public investigation, free from obstruction and interference by Trump, is necessary to reach an informed opinion of whether or not Trump is guilty.

I suspect Trump is guilty, because he's acting like someone who is guilty. Innocent people usually don't act the way Trump is acting.

 

[V Chip]

In a court of law when they don't find enough evidence to charge someone is that person still considered guilty?

No.

Can people repeatedly say there was zero evidence of the crime despite the investigation specifically stating that it was not the case?

I guess they can because people certainly are stating that despite the Mueller report explicitly stating otherwise. However I will repeatedly correct that false narrative every time it is brought up in an attempt to change the narrative and claim there was zero evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

 

[Dadsdream]

No.

Can people repeatedly say there was zero evidence of the crime despite the investigation specifically stating that it was not the case?

I guess they can because people certainly are stating that despite the Mueller report explicitly stating otherwise. However I will repeatedly correct that false narrative every time it is brought up in an attempt to change the narrative and claim there was zero evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Well V-Chip,

Did the Russians try to tilt our election? Of course they did. They've been doing that for decades. So have we, in countries around the world in far more egregious ways than the Russians did. Yes, there were people convicted and sent to jail and that's a good thing. But not DJT, who was the actual target of the whole investigation.

It's my learned opinion that the whole reason for the Muller investigation was to find enough dirt to remove DJT from office and overturn the results of the 2016 election It failed to do that. As such, the Mueller Report will go down in history as exactly what the president labeled it - a witch hunt.

[Mod Edit Getting Personal]

Denying that the purpose of the Muller investigation was to dig up enough dirt to get rid of DJT and overturn the 2016 election result is a false narrative as well, at least from my perspective. I am not alone in that opinion.

 

[Ayo]

Daniel Dale - whom I've cited before as a thorough fact-checker - has been fact-checking claims made by Trump about Ukraine and posted an article:

Relentless deceit has seemed to be his primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. Trump has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the whistleblower who complained about the call to Democrats' impeachment inquiry hearings.

The article is broken down into lies according to the sections: phone call with Zelensky; the whistleblower; Adam Schiff; impeachment process; the Bidens; dealings with Ukraine; and polls.

 

[The moose]

Daniel Dale - whom I've cited before as a thorough fact-checker - has been fact-checking claims made by Trump about Ukraine and posted an article:





The article is broken down into lies according to the sections: phone call with Zelensky; the whistleblower; Adam Schiff; impeachment process; the Bidens; dealings with Ukraine; and polls.

Thank you!

Now hopefully we can break down all the facts of this rather than the junk.

The fact that the money was released to the Ukraine in less than 48 hours of the whistle blower report being filed is the fact you cant run from in all this.

When your defense of all of this is they got their money. It does not hold water at all.

The time line is the key.

The bribe happened the money was held up and was given because they were reported.

 

[Nebaghead]

Well V-Chip,

Did the Russians try to tilt our election? Of course they did. They've been doing that for decades. So have we, in countries around the world in far more egregious ways than the Russians did. Yes, there were people convicted and sent to jail and that's a good thing. But not DJT, who was the actual target of the whole investigation.

It's my learned opinion that the whole reason for the Muller investigation was to find enough dirt to remove DJT from office and overturn the results of the 2016 election It failed to do that. As such, the Mueller Report will go down in history as exactly what the president labeled it - a witch hunt.

[Mod Edit Getting Personal]

Denying that the purpose of the Muller investigation was to dig up enough dirt to get rid of DJT and overturn the 2016 election result is a false narrative as well, at least from my perspective. I am not alone in that opinion.

What other attempts have they made? I am curious. Before social media, I don’t think there was a method to influence people directly in the manner that is possible.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Thank you!

Now hopefully we can break down all the facts of this rather than the junk.

The fact that the money was released to the Ukraine in less than 48 hours of the whistle blower report being filed is the fact you cant run from in all this.

When your defense of all of this is they got their money. It does not hold water at all.

The time line is the key.

The bribe happened the money was held up and was given because they were reported.

It's been one of the most absurd defenses so far.

"Sure officer, I stuck up the teller, but I dropped the bag and ran when we heard you were right around the corner! I tried to clean the prints off the gun I used, but the real story here is the money never left the building!...So we good?"​

Republicans: I do declare, that man is no bank robber! WITCH HUNT

 

[Dadsdream]

What other attempts have they made? I am curious. Before social media, I don’t think there was a method to influence people directly in the manner that is possible.

Are you seriously asking what attempts the Russians have made in the past to influence our elections?

During the Cold War, it was their standing goal. They had a whole branch of their government that was dedicated to election meddling.

The reality is that the two main Soviet intelligence and security agencies—the KGB and GRU (military intelligence)—kept up a vigorous campaign for several decades to meddle in U.S. politics and discredit the United States. The “active measures” used by the KGB and GRU during the Cold War, including disinformation, forgeries of documents and letters, and the spread of propaganda through sympathetic individuals and front organizations, were remarkably similar to the tactics and goals of Russian intelligence agencies in 2016. Even though the World Wide Web and email did not exist during the Cold War, the basic methods used by the KGB and GRU in 2016 were simply adapted for the cyber age.

Mark Kramer
Director, Cold War Studies Program, and Senior Fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Harvard University

The Soviet Roots of Meddling in U.S. Politics - PONARS Eurasia

(PONARS Policy Memo) The release on January 6 of an unclassified version of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s report describing efforts by Russian security services to influence last year’s U.S. presidential campaign in favor of Donald Trump evoked a sense of deja vu. Despite the advent of...

www.ponarseurasia.org