Some possible testimony by Trump can plausibly lead to criminal charges.

Trump submitted limited written questions during the Mueller investigation.

The Clinton impeachment managers thought it best to only use three witnesses to keep it simple stupid (old reference) and Clinton already submitted to in depth questioning. Trump's very limited in writing answers might lead to the managers here to think questioning in person helpful. Johnson was summoned to appear at the trial but chose not to. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Impeachment_Johnson.htm

I would think he would be obligated to appear, at any rate, if the senators here didn't allow him not to do so. They control the trial. If it came to that, I don't think another impeachment count would be much of a deciding factor for Republican senators.
 

A trial to decide whether the POTUS has committed an actual high crime or misdemeanor is more analogous to a criminal trial than, say, being sued for breach of contract.

Of course, any Democrat Articles of Impeachment will not allege any actual crime, high or otherwise, or even anything which would rise to the level of a breach of contract. There will instead be some nonsense like “abuse of power” by investigating Democrats, “obstruction of Congress” by declining to honor Democrat fishing expedition subpoenas, and maybe “disrespect in the third degree” for calling Schiff a liar and corrupt politician.

Thus, we could actually see the Democrat prosecutors argue something along the lines of our charges are so pathetically inconsequential that Trump is facing no hazard by being forced to testify.
 

1. He can assert the Fifth Amendment. And I doubt the Dems want to make an immunity deal with him.

2. He can assert executive privilege. There's a longstanding precedent of executive refusals to appear in Congress. There have been exceptions, but no Congress has ever tested the power.

3. As a practical matter, of course the President can refuse. There's no power to jail him- impeachment is limited to removal and disqualification. So he refuses, the Senate holds him in contempt (they won't anyway, but if they did), and he ignores the contempt ruling and they're stuck.

Let's stop fantasizing, OK?
 

I'm feeling kind of classical.

Yes, they can subpoena the President. Why, so can I, or any man;
But will he come when they do subpoena them?
 

Its an interesting question to which there is no clear answer. https://www.pointoforder.com/2019/06/17/does-the-president-enjoy-absolute-testimonial-immunity/ My view is that the president does not have absolute testimonial immunity, at least in an impeachment proceeding.

Note that this is not the same question as whether the president could be punished for contempt (in US v. Nixon, the Court upheld the subpoena without reaching the question of how it could be enforced). This is a closer question and I doubt that the Senate would be interested in testing the boundaries on that issue. But it is entirely possible that a majority of the Senate would be willing to subpoena the president, and his failure to appear could then be used as evidence by the House managers.

Actually, the most interesting question may be whether the House managers will want to ask for a subpoena because of the possibility that Trump could actually show up and turn the trial into a circus. What was it WC Fields said, never work with animals or children?
 

Yes, I don't think they would actually want him to show up, unless they thought they would be able to shut him up whenever they wanted to, and redact the heck out of anything he said.

Because, while they claim to believe he's an idiot, they know he's actually a good speaker. And the last thing they want to do is give him a platform to speak.
 

"any Democrat Articles of Impeachment will not allege any actual crime, high or otherwise, or even anything which would rise to the level of a breach of contract"

Bircher Bart has, in admitting the other day to being one of the Trump lemmings that would support Trump even if he knew Trump literally committed murder, totally discredited himself in these discussions. It's safe to assume that his comments on this topic are in the order of this total overwhelming of his moral sentiments by his partisan propagandist proclivities.

In actuality, if, as the evidence warrants any non-partisan blinkered observer to conclude that point, Trump has likely committed several enumerated crimes (https://reason.com/2019/09/28/evidence-increasingly-indicates-trumps-ukraine-pressure-tactics-usurped-congress-power-of-the-purse-and-that-he-may-have-committed-a-federal-crime-in-the-process/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/10/29/president-trump-may-have-violated-criminal-provisions-hatch-act/).

Of course, the Constitution doesn't limit impeachable offenses to enumerated state and federal crimes, but of course also includes things like violations of Constitutional duties and abuses of power as the epitome of impeachable offenses (https://reason.com/2019/09/24/trump-ukraine-and-congresss-power-of-the-purse/).

 

"they know he's actually a good speaker."

Lol! Of all the crazy things Bircher Brett has said here over the years, and there are many, this tops the list. Trump can barely form coherent sentences (and Bircher Brett himself has commented here on his tendency to put his foot in his mouth when he talks). Trump on the witness stand would be a goldmine for the Democrats.
 

On the question at hand: I'm not an expert but my initial opinion is: the House could subpoena Trump, but I doubt the judiciary would enforce it. Then, though, the House could add his refusal to cause for impeachment.

A question for those who know the history: did Bill Clinton have to be deposed in the affair that eventually led to his impeachment for perjury? In other words, did the judiciary say the sitting President had to give testimony in the deposition? If so then I think that has bearing on this question...
 

Trump can be an entertaining speaker who keeps the attention of friendly audiences at rallies when he goes off script and says whatever comes into his head. These are not ordinarily the qualities of a good witness. To take one example, suppose he is asked the question "have you ever expressed concerns to a foreign leader about corruption when it didn't involve your domestic political opponents?" He was asked this by a reporter and his response was along the lines of "I'll have to get back to you." If he is asked this or other specific fact questions and the chief justice insists he actually answer them, I am guessing he will not do well.

On the other hand, if he goes Col. Jessup and basically says (in a word salady kind of way), "I am exactly the guy everybody knew I was when I was elected, and I have acted exactly how you would expect that guy to act, and basically you have found an example of me acting in private exactly how I act in public. So why are we here?" There is a risk that half of America shrugs and says "he's right" and the impeachment kind of goes off the rails. That's the calculus, IMHO.


 

That's basically what I meant: They give him a platform, and he will almost surely be able to convince enough people the process is a politically motivated farce to derail it. (Because it IS a politically motivated farce!) Even if the Democrats went through with the formality of impeaching him, the sting would be gone, and the Senate would summarily dismiss the charges.
 

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters."

"(Because it IS a politically motivated farce!)"

Bircher Brett mans the barricades as ordered!


 

I've already demonstrated that Democrats wanted Trump impeached from the moment he took office, and didn't much care if they had a good excuse for doing it.

It was pretty damning in that early poll, that over half the pro-impeachment respondents were willing to admit that they wanted him impeached even if he hadn't committed any impeachable offenses.

All that's happened since is that you've worked yourself into such a frenzy that you look at random inkblots and see proof Trump is guilty and needs to be impeached.
 

Mr. W:

Here is what the actual evidence shows:

Obama gave Biden control over financial aid to Ukraine.

The Russian oligarch who owned the Bursima natural gas company paid Biden’s son who had no qualifications about a million dollars a year to serve on Bursima’s board to perform no known work.

When the Ukrainian top prosecutor started to investigate the Oligarch and Bursima, Biden bragged that he threatened to withhold US loan guarantees until Ukraine fired the prosecutor. Quid pro quo and prima facie evidence of bribery.

Ukraine changed governments. The new president Zelensky ran a campaign similar to Trump’s and appears to have something of a bromance with Trump.

Knowing the foreign policy bureaucracies were waging a leak campaign against him, Trump largely bypassed them and used his own representatives to communicate with Ukraine.

This pissed off the bureaucracy, leading to the parade of disgruntled bureaucrats testifying in Schiff’s SCIF about how shocked and appalled they were at Trump’s improprieties with Ukraine, but offering no evidence of an actual crime.

For our purposes, chief among Trump’s representatives was personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. What we do not know is whether Trump directed or even knew about many of Giuliani’s actions.

Based on the transcript of Trump and Zelensky’s conversation...

Trump asked Zelensky to look into the Democrat’s Ukrainian IT firm Crowdstrike, but never stated what he wanted investigated. There has been a great deal of speculation, but no actual evidence to date, on the subject matter of the requested investigation.

Zelensky, not Trump, raised the Biden investigation, noted past contact with Giuliani and suggested he would reopen the investigation with a new prosecutor.

Key for our purposes, Trump repeatedly requested Zelensky work through both Giuliani and Attorney General Barr in these investigations. This was not a Clinton-esque effort to obtain oppo research for his campaign.

As to military aid to Ukraine...

Remember this was Trump’s policy initiative in reversal of the Obama policy to deny Ukraine military aid. He had not reason to see it fail.

The aid was reportedly temporarily “suspended” and then fully delivered. No timetable has been disclosed, so the “suspension” may have been nothing more than an internal US administrative act without any practical affect on Ukraine.

White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, has admitted Trump suspended aid to get Ukraine to address ongoing corruption, to pressure NATO to chip in more aid and to get Ukraine to cooperate with the Justice Department investigation of the Obama administration spy and dirty tricks operation.

According to Democrat leaks to the NY Times, State’s top diplomat in Kiev, William Taylor, confirmed Ukraine knew about the suspension, but the communications with Ukraine did NOT involve demands for the investigations discussed on the telephone call (Crowdstrike and Bursima). Instead the communications suggested Ukraine work through Mulvaney.

What does this amount to?

Trump may have suspended military aid in part to pressure Ukraine to cooperate with the Justice Department investigation of the Obama administration spy and dirty tricks operation against his 2016 campaign.

There is no evidence Trump suspended military aid to pressure Ukraine to reopen their investigation of Bursima. The telephone call transcript suggests Ukraine willingly agreed with this request some time before the call.

There is no evidence Trump suspended military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike, unless this is part of the Justice Department investigation of the Obama administration.

None of this is remotely illegal or even improper.

Where there is evidence of a crime, criminal investigations are not only proper, but should be SOP.

Investigating evidence of a crime is not a campaign contribution.

And, yes Reason, Presidents legally leverage congressional spending to achieve national interests and :::gasp:: even political ones.
 

Bircher Bart has, in admitting the other day to being one of the Trump lemmings that would support Trump even if he knew Trump literally committed murder, totally discredited himself in these discussions. It's safe to assume that his comments on this topic are in the order of this total overwhelming of his moral sentiments by his partisan propagandist proclivities.
 

"There is no evidence Trump suspended military aid to pressure Ukraine to reopen their investigation of Bursima. The telephone call transcript suggests Ukraine willingly agreed with this request some time before the call."

Bircher Bart caves a bit here. But why? His credibility is totally shot.
 

This is a closer question and I doubt that the Senate would be interested in testing the boundaries on that issue. But it is entirely possible that a majority of the Senate would be willing to subpoena the president, and his failure to appear could then be used as evidence by the House managers.

Sure. And since nobody is voting based on "evidence", that's a meaningless statement.

Unless the public cares about the President showing up at his impeachment trial enough to sway votes in the Senate, it's irrelevant whether the House managers can use it as "evidence".
 

A question for those who know the history: did Bill Clinton have to be deposed in the affair that eventually led to his impeachment for perjury? In other words, did the judiciary say the sitting President had to give testimony in the deposition? If so then I think that has bearing on this question...

Different situation. Clinton v. Jones held that a suit against a sitting President is not barred, which means that the President is prima facie subject to all the same judicial sanctions. Judge Weber Wright could have defaulted him if he didn't show up.

But impeachments are governed by Nixon. They are political, and the judiciary has no role. There's no such thing as a default judgment or an evidence sanction or anything else. If he doesn't show up, all the Senators can do is whine and get hackish law professors to write dishonest articles about how unconstitutional it all is. The President holds all the cards, which was not true in Jones.
 

Mr. W:

You claimed: "Trump has likely committed several enumerated crimes"

Your Reason link did not support this claim.

I noted the evidence for you. Your attempt to kill the messenger is an admission you cannot dispute the evidence.

Now, make your case or admit you lied yet again.
 

Dilan: But impeachments are governed by Nixon. They are political, and the judiciary has no role.

The Nixon opinion in no way governs the posed question of whether the Senate can subpoena a POTUS during an impeachment trial.

The Impeachment Clause assigns the role of trial judge to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, so the judiciary obviously has a lead role in ruling on the POTUS's inevitable objection to the subpoena.
 

The Nixon opinion in no way governs the posed question of whether the Senate can subpoena a POTUS during an impeachment trial.

That's not what I said. I said the judiciary would not enforce such a subpoena, because courts have no role in impeachment proceedings.

The Chief Justice presiding is not the same thing as courts having any sort of a role. Nixon says courts have "no role". Says it several times, in fact.

The Senate can serve a subpoena, the President can, if he wants to, throw it in the trash, use it as toilet paper, or burn it, and the Senate has no recourse other than to consider that an impeachable offense if they wish to.
 

Dilan- these are the points I would make

1. There is a strong argument that the Senate has the right to subpoena the president to an impeachment trial (the decision would be made by either the senate directly or the chief justice with a right of appeal to the senate)

2. Trump is a wild card and House managers have to consider that he might show up in response to a subpoena (and whether they actually want him to testify).

3. Assuming Trump refuses to show up, no one is going to send the Sergeant at Arms to arrest him.

4. That doesn't mean that it is "meaningless." If the senate issues a subpoena and Trump fails to appear, that could have a direct impact on some senators and an indirect impact through public opinion. I am not saying that alone is going to sway the requisite two-thirds of senators to convict. But there are a lot of factors at play and I think generally people are underestimating the potential that a trial could persuade a significant number of senators and a larger percentage of the public that impeachment and removal are appropriate.
 

And again, the key point here is to stop injecting the law into politics.

When you ask a question like "can the Senate subpoena the President", game it out as a political matter. The relevant questions are "what will happen, politically, if they do?" and "what will happen, politically, if he disobeys it?".

It pains people who engage in legal reasoning all their lives to deal with a group of people who have no obligation to give a crap what my profession says. But it's true! They have absolutely no obligation. They can basically do whatever they want to do here, and opinions by lawyers about the law just aren't important here.

So whenever anyone starts talking about unconstitutionality of this or that impeachment procedure, go back and utilize your knowledge of politics to generate the answer. Because whatever flies politcally, goes.
 

In Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court held that Bill Clinton could not hold up the Paula Jones civil suit until after the presidency. He was not immune from court process in matters not official. This led to a sworn deposition in that lawsuit.

But, since this involves official acts (immunity in Nixon v. Fitzgerald), it would only go so far. Impeachment however is a special animal. It is all about dealing with that in a special proceeding. For various reasons, though the people here are debating why, I think both sides have reasons to make the question theoretical here.

(There are various ongoing lawsuits against Trump; one involves unofficial acts but is being brought -- unclear why -- in state court. Clinton v. Jones expressly did not decide that question though its principles might apply there too.)
 

That doesn't mean that it is "meaningless." If the senate issues a subpoena and Trump fails to appear, that could have a direct impact on some senators and an indirect impact through public opinion.

1 and 2 of your 4 points are meaningless. If you are right that it impacts public opinion enough to shift a Senate vote, that's what matters.

But your legal opinion is meaningless to that question. Either the public will be so outraged that he doesn't show up that it moves Senate votes, or they won't be. Law professors' opinions about what the Constitution says have NOTHING to do with this, because the public doesn't give a hoot about the technical meaning of the impeachment clause or what Presidents did 200 years ago. And again, nor should they. The last thing the public should do is listen to lawyers on this.
 

And again, the key point here is to stop injecting the law into politics.

It's nice some guy on the Internet believes this, but over the last two hundred years, questions of law were mixed in by the actors in the play here.

Sorry if this taints your profession somehow or something, but it's the case. This is especially the case since many of the actors here are lawyers. For instance, many of the members of the Senate. Legal language is used in the Constitution and was seen in some fashion legal from when the clauses were drafted.

Some kind on the Internet aside, those with the power treat this differently. Meanwhile, others do get to opine, including those that have some influence on the political actors. That is how political affairs work.
 

Dilan:

If the Chief Justice treats the Senate impeachment trial like a judicial trial, this trial judge has the power to order POTUS or his counsel to appear before the Senate to show cause why the subpoena should not be enforced, take evidence and hear argument, then rule the subpoena is enforceable and order the POTUS to testify. If the POTUS refuses to present himself to testify, the Chief Justice / trial judge may hold the POTUS in criminal contempt and theoretically add this to the Articles of Impeachment or really push the envelope and order the US Marshals to take POTUS into custody and transport him to the Senate.

The Senate has no real power to do these things. The judiciary and the chief judicial officer does.
 

It's nice some guy on the Internet believes this, but over the last two hundred years, questions of law were mixed in by the actors in the play here.

I know this is a sort of No True Scotsman argument, but you need to separate these two categories:

1. Reasoned legal decisionmaking based on legal arguments.

2. Dishonest politicians invoking selective legal argumentation in nonjusticiable cases as a cover for whatever political gain they want to attain.

2 is not law. It's just dressing up political arguments as law. And given there's no actual court adjudication at the end of the road, only a decision of the Senate, it's important not to confuse 2 with law.

The operative issue is what persuades the public. If the public is persuaded by people getting up and lying about things they say are "the law" that are just their political arguments dressed up, that's unfortunate for both the public and the legal system. But I don't think the public is persuaded by such arguments at all. Indeed, Ken Starr and his team made nothing but legal arguments, and they lost because in the end the public saw it as a case about lying about getting head from his mistress.

In other words, the actual evidence that these arguments WORK politically is very slim. Meanwhile, what it does do is encourage a cottage industry in my profession and in legal academia to opine on these purely political issues as if they are going to be settled by this or that part of the Constitution or this or that case, when the truth is the Senate can literally announce that they don't care what any law professor says and will do whatever it wants, and there's nothing my profession or the judiciary can do to stop them.

So yeah, it's really bad for the legal system- which isn't just lawyers. It's the entire public, which is treated to a scene where- in order to try to gain some power that we were denied under the Constitution- my profession makes arguments that the Senate then ignores, and the public wonders what happened to the Rule of Law.

Whereas if people would tell the public the truth- that the law doesn't matter and this is all about politics- the legal system would benefit immensely, and so would the public.
 

If the Chief Justice treats the Senate impeachment trial like a judicial trial

The Chief Justice is not that stupid.

this trial judge has the power to order POTUS or his counsel to appear before the Senate to show cause why the subpoena should not be enforced

"Chief Justice Roberts has made his order. Now let him enforce it."

If the POTUS refuses to present himself to testify, the Chief Justice / trial judge may hold the POTUS in criminal contempt and theoretically add this to the Articles of Impeachment or really push the envelope and order the US Marshals to take POTUS into custody and transport him to the Senate.

"How many divisions does the Chief Justice have?"
 

And one other comment. I think a lot of the reasons lawyers and law professors write so much garbage about impeachment is because they hate the holding of Nixon. NOT because they really believe it will lead to any unfairness, but because they hate the entire idea that there could be any segment of life where our opinions don't count for a hill of beans.

They just can't stand that the framers put such an important decision in the hands of POLITICIANS, rather than us. So they expend great amounts of energy trying to pretend that we really do get a say, and that those politicians better obey what we say the law is or there's gonna be trouble.

It's sad. We are acting like 3 year olds that got kicked out of the sandbox.
 

So I recognize a distinction between what the law "is" (which is a matter of opinion) and how it actually will operate in practice. For example, the issue of whether the president "can" be indicted is moot under our current circumstances because there is no practical way that indictment and prosecution could be the mechanism for his removal from office.

That, however, is not the same thing as saying that the legal arguments will not affect what actually happens. Take my point 1, which you say is meaningless. (I don't understand your beef with point 2, which is an empirical/political observation, not a legal opinion at all). It is possible/likely that the initial ruling on whether the president can be subpoenaed will be made by the chief justice, who I take it you would acknowledge will care about the merits of the legal arguments. Even if you think the senators care zero about the legal merits (which I think is an overstatement), political appearances alone will make the senators reluctant to overrule his decision on this point.

I am sure you are aware that the reductionist argument that everything is political and that the legal arguments are just cover for whatever judges want to do is also frequently made about the legal system itself. I gather you don't buy it there so I am not sure why you are so insistent on it with regard to Congress. See generally, Donald Morgan, Congress and the Constitution.

I will let you have the last word as I have other things to do.
 

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Dilan:"Chief Justice Roberts has made his order. Now let him enforce it."

Thus, you are conceding the judiciary has a role in impeachment.

The most interesting part of my scenario is what the Senate would do if the Chief Justice attempted to add a criminal contempt charge (which is an actual crime) to the Articles of Impeachment like a normal criminal court judge?
 

Had Clinton failed to appear for his deposition in the Jones case, I don't believe the court would have tried to jail him for civil contempt or anything like that. The (legal) remedy would have been a default judgment. With Trump, if he failed to appear, the Senate would have the option to reach a default judgment also. Maybe one is "legal" and one is "political", but it's hard to see the distinction.
 

Mark will now move on since he has other things to do like have a snack or something.
 

Heh. Actually I'm on vacation and I was without internet for part of the week. Generally speaking my life is such that this is my "other things to do" option.
 

I looked into that Morgan book and it looks like the author also wrote a book on Justice William Johnson that I once read. Also, this was interesting (to me):

https://www.lawfareblog.com/strategic-underpinning-and-limits-republican-due-process-defense-donald-trump
 

I've got Robert Tsai’s "Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation" waiting at the library for me to pick up. I don't get the impression from the discussion that I'm going to agree with it, but it's important not to limit your reading to just ideas you find congenial.
 

I'm sympathetic with his basic approach but when I checked it out couldn't really get into it. But, happy reading.
 

An impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, in that the President is not in jeopardy of his liberty or property. The sole penalty is removal from office (and maybe also bar from future office holding). Most assuredly the Senate could subpoena him, and if he refuses to comply for any reason, they could readily draw an adverse inference (Baxter v Palmigiano). Or not. Or not convict. Or convict anyway. It’s an impeachment, for Chrissakes. Trump could assert the self-incrimination privilege (Murphy v Waterfront Commission) and could be “compelled” to testify only on grant of use immunity (Kastigar). Or so it seems.
But a Senate vote to convict, or acquit, is final, as far as removal from office goes. “It is a political act,” in the immortal words of Barbara Jordan.
 

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Real Clear Investigations identified the Democrat mole masquerading as a “whistleblower” as Eric Ciaramella, a Democrat Obama admin holdover, who worked for Joe Biden and John Brennan and who worked with DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.

Brennan and Chalupa were part of the Obama administration's spy and dirty tricks operation against Trump in 2016. Brennan is an apparent target of the IG and Justice Department investigation of that operation. It is unknown whether the IG and Justice are looking at Chalupa or Ciaremella.

In 2017, the White House removed Ciamarella for leaking to the Democrat media.

This Democrat mole is currently in hiding.

The first witness the Republicans should demand to subpoena to testify under the new Democrat impeachment resolution is Ciaremella.

The first questions they should ask concern his communications with Schiff and the Democrat media, the latter of which almost certainly involve the felony disclosure of classified information, and whether he participated in the Obama administration spy operation against Trump.

When he takes the fifth, the GOP should demand the Democrats provide him will immunity to testify.
 

Or the White House could release the transcript of the call that confirms everything that the whistleblower reported. Oh, right, that already happened...
 

Committee rules may provide for the full committee to issue a subpoena, or permit subcommittees or the chairman (acting alone or with the ranking member) to issue subpoenas. ... In fact, many legal rights usually associated with a judicial subpoena do not apply to a Congressional subpoena.

look here Icoud account login & Sign in
 

BB:

Trump immediately released the telephone call transcript to rebut the "whistleblower report" of the Democrat mole and the anonymously sourced lies the Democrat media was peddling that Trump told Zelensky he was withholding military aid until Ukraine investigated the Bidens.

This is the "Russia collusion" slander all over again and it appears the Democrat mole was part of that operation as well.
 

An impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, in that the President is not in jeopardy of his liberty or property.

Michael Dorf (Dorf on Law; liberal law professor) a few weeks back noted that as a matter of first principles, the presidency could be considered a property interest such as if a public employee was allegedly removed unfairly. This would raise some sort of due process concern, even if it is not a criminal matter.

But, I do not know of any impeachment process now or in the past that was done with a lack of basic fairness where this would be a red flag. Of course, Walter Nixon v. U.S. holds the contours of trial fairness in the Senate is a political question anyways.
Which doesn't take the law totally out of it, as has been argued.

The sole penalty is removal from office (and maybe also bar from future office holding).

As noted, there still might be self-incrimination concerns, which can be avoided by a grant of immunity. But, it is doubtful the Democrats want to do that, since they do not want to close off future prosecution after he leaves office at least theoretically. His testimony is not that compelling on balance for that.

The finality of the Senate decision is granted though for purposes of incrimination, there can be lasting implications. The lingering legal issues after the process if over is suggested by Ford's pardon of Nixon after he resigned.
 

One need not 'kill the messenger' when the messenger is already dead, a propagandist re-animated agitpropist who has demonstrated their terrible, conspiracy riddled reasoning and declared their total abandonment of moral principles for partisan principals. One can safely assume that such a person is flinging propagandist poo at the wall hoping something sticks. And Bircher Bart's elaborate collection of selectively chosen half truths, important elisions, mischaracterized facts and sloppy assumptions just confirms the safety of the assumption. It's increasingly clear that Trump himself and via minions such as Sondland and his *personal lawyer* Rudy pressured Ukraine to single out for investigation his chief domestic political rival (and to make a public announcement to that effect!), this is an abuse of power as well as several enumerated crimes (from campaign finance to the Hatch act to law barring using government benefits/programs for political gain, etc., all things that an actual libertarian should be quite concerned about). Any non-partisan blinkered person would make that reasonable conclusion from the evidence existing so far.
 

Joe -- yes, but also, in theory, according to what I've read of the people who participated in writing the Constitution, the presidency was not intended to allow a holder to enrich themselves in any significant way. That has also been the long-standing tradition while in office (although, of course, after they leave the WH, they've been allowed to get paid for speeches, be highly-paid "consultants" for private equity firms, etc, etc.)

That tradition and theory would negate the idea that there is any requirement for a bend-over-backward due process requirement.
 

There was a continuing concern to address enrichment, however imperfectly, including emoluments, limits on lobbying and so forth. The original concerns here, like with equality and other things, were often in breach. We continue to try to do better.

I don't think there is some "bend over backward" requirement. I think it is good policy, at the very least, to respect basic fairness. I think this has generally been shown in impeachment processes surely as to some constitutional minimum over our history.

The resolution that was just passed helps the process there though it was not constitutionally mandated. The process so far has been fair.
 

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Mr. W: It's increasingly clear that Trump himself and via minions such as Sondland and his *personal lawyer* Rudy pressured Ukraine to single out for investigation his chief domestic political rival (and to make a public announcement to that effect!),

I laid out the evidence for you and it shows nothing of the kind. Once again, you did not offer any contrary evidence to support your false Democrat slanders. Instead, you merely called me and the evidence itself names.

The only person with personal knowledge of the actual policy decisions who has offered testimony is former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney during a recent press conference:

MR. MULVANEY: Again, I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily, okay? Three issues for that: the corruption of the country; whether or not other countries were participating in the support of the Ukraine; and whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice. That’s completely legitimate.

The Justice Department investigation to which Mulvaney referred is the current criminal investigation into the Obama administration spy and dirty tricks operation against the 2016 Trump campaign.

AG Barr has been touring Europe asking the nations who provided the Clinton administration with assistance in that spy and dirty tricks operation to cooperate with the Justice Department. The White House request of Ukraine which Mulvaney described was more of the same.

Justice has not announced an investigation of the Bidens.

Documents the Democrats leaked to the NY Times when diplomat William Taylor was offering his speculation in Schiff's SCIF confirmed Mulvaney's account (although the Times struggled mightily to spin otherwise in the linked article):

[W]ord of the aid freeze had gotten to high-level Ukrainian officials by the first week in August, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times. The problem was not bureaucratic, the Ukrainians were told. To address it, they were advised, they should reach out to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the interviews and records...The communications did not explicitly link the assistance freeze to the push by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani for the investigations."

The fact is the Democrats have yet to offer testimony from anyone with personal knowledge of the policy decisions. Everything offered to date is hearsay, speculation and opinion from bureaucrats who were not part of the decision making process and are often disgruntled because Trump pushed them to the side or ignored their counsel.

You now have no excuse for ignoring the actual evidence as it stands. All of these links are from transcripts or Democrat media stories. Now, stop repeating Democrat lies.
 

The Democrats passed their belated impeachment resolution on a party line vote, with two Democrats from swing districts voting no and zero Republicans voting yes.

The GOP now have the margin of the Democrat House majority from Trump districts on the record.

Let the Democrat show trial begin!
 

The emoluments problem could plausibly be solved by a civil recoupment action.

As for due process, I agree with Joe. The process should be "fundamentally fair", which it has been and, under the House resolution, will continue to be.
 

Bircher Bart is like the person who says 'well my Capo didn't explicitly himself say something bad would happen to the store if they didn't pay him, in fact he said 'nice store you have here, be a shame if something happened to it!' Is he that gullible? Of course! We've seen him make whopper after whopper when hooked, line and sinker by some conspiracy theory he's partisanly inclined toward. Additionally, he's declared to support Trump even if he knew Trump was a murderer, so his arguments here can be safely assumed to be propagandist poo flung in defense of his Dear Leader.

We know that Trump had Rudy, his personal lawyer with a fiduciary duty to Trump and not the US government/Constitution, working in Ukraine and Rudy himself admitted it was part of an effort of a political hit on the Bidens. Trump, in the call, directs Zelensky to work with Rudy (he speaks interchangeably of Rudy and the AG, which says a lot in itself) and specifically about the Bidens. We also know that several diplomats have said they were working for the WH to get Zelenksy to make a public announcement re: investigations of the Bidens. All the while aid was being held up. Only the most gullible person, or perhaps a person whose partisanship has overwhelmed his last sense of decency and good sense (like someone who would declare he would support a murderer perhaps) would fail to come to the conclusion that Trump was executing a political hit in violation of several laws and the Constitution.
 

Mr. W: Bircher Bart is like the person who says 'well my Capo didn't explicitly himself say something bad would happen to the store if they didn't pay him, in fact he said 'nice store you have here, be a shame if something happened to it!'

Too bad Trump made no such insinuation.

The GOP noted, after LTC Vidman falsely claimed in Schiff's SCIF that Trump "demanded" Zelensky investigate the Bidens, one of the GOP Congress critters provided Vidman with the call transcript and asked him to identify where Trump made such a demand. Vidman was forced to admit that Trump never did so, but claimed having a conversation from a position of power as the POTUS was the same thing as a "demand." I am curious to see whether Schiff redacts that exchange from the transcript for "national security" reasons.

Trump was executing a political hit in violation of several laws and the Constitution.

Sorry, asking a foreign government to investigate public evidence of a crime is not itself a crime nor does it violate the Constitution.

You are just another one of the liars and hypocrites aiding and abetting the Democrat impeachment star chamber.


 

A President, personally or through a minion like his personal lawyer, asking a foreign government to *single out* your chief current domestic political rival for investigation, and to especially ask for an announcement to that effect, is a itself several crimes and a violation of the Constitution.

Bircher Bart is just doing what Trump said his followers would do and what Bircher Bart happily declared himself willing to do: defend Trump even if he's clearly guilty of crime.
 

Mr. W:

Repeating the same lie multiple times is one of Stalin's favorite propaganda techniques.

 

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Emoluments are as Prof. Teachout et. al. has shown in scholarship basically part of a wider whole. Financial corruption, including tied to foreign governments, is a basic part of this whole situation. See, e.g., the currently incarcerated former head of Trump's 2016 campaign. Ukraine was a major part of all that as well. This is also tied to campaign finance regulation breaches, like two recent Guiliani pals arrested.

There are various emolument requirements in the Constitution, some for which Congress can provide exceptions. A law, e.g., allows certain gifts of a limited amount. Congress can and should probably do more there including disclosure rules and civil approaches such as Mark notes. Congressional legislation might even help standing claims in court by providing damages to those burdened by illicit emoluments such as competitors. Legislation can also fine those who aid and abet violations. Emoluments was cited as a concern attached to at least one investigatory subpoena.

(One lesser referenced provision: "The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them." At least one lawsuit flags state government actions that allegedly breach the requirement.)
 

"Repeating the same lie multiple times is one of Stalin's favorite propaganda techniques."

It's nice of Bircher Bart to declare his general approach here.
 

Every accusation is a confession.
 

The process should be "fundamentally fair"

Why?

I am reminded of what woke liberals often say about political correctness and cancel culture- that all that anyone is losing as a result of PC and cancel culture is their job.

And this isn't any person losing a job. There will always be enormous economic opportunities for ex-Presidents. Nixon did plenty well after leaving office.

You know what's fundamentally fair? That you can only lose your job if 50 percent of the house and 67 percent of the Senate vote you out. I *wish* I had that job protection. Most of us, I bet, would love to have that job protection.

This whole desire to graft some additional requirement on top of that, as if supermajorities are ever going to "railroad" someone who is going to remain a rich person whether or not they keep their current job, just says all sorts of bad things about lawyers. It's like we are scratching at the window saying "please, please, listen to us, let us in".

It's pathetic.
 

Dilan reponded...The process should be "fundamentally fair" >> Why?

PLEASE have the Democrats run for reelection with such honesty in 2020. We'll see if anyone else but a Democrat agrees with the sentiment.
 

Indeed, it's very telling that conservatives do so little for the criminally accused or the every day worker in general re: due process protections and then caterwaul over a billionaire (allegedly) President as a poor, pitiful victim of a 'star chamber.' But for authoritarians, the principle is strength and power are admired and they rush to defend the strong and powerful, the weak are despised and to be punished.
 

You know who faced something *actually* akin to a 'star chamber' experience? The Central Park Five. Trump called for their execution and when the abuses involved in their case were revealed, their sentences vacated and they awarded a settlement Trump continued to say they were guilty. This man, and his followers, know something about star chambers alright, they're all for them as long as the victims are not powerful (or Republicans).
 

Mr. W:

The class card? Really?

Your average indigent mass murder gets FAR more due process than the Democrat star chamber is giving Trump.

Imagine a criminal trial where the defense counsel required prosecutor permission to call witnesses and to ask questions, cross examination was limited to five minutes, and the defense could only discover prosecutor redacted prior witness testimony and was forbidden from asking the witness what he said that was redacted.

Come to think of it, the analogy to the English star chamber may be generous. The Democrats idea of due process is more akin to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union's trials provided to enemies of the state.
 

So, legal minds, is the House impeachment decision like a trial, or is it more like the deliberations of a grand jury, or AG office deliberation? It's clear that Bart and Brett both insist that this is a trail, which to my non-legal mind makes very little sense, as the actual "trial" phase (or that part of the proceedings which is analogous to a trial) would be in the Senate.

 

C2H5OH said...So, legal minds, is the House impeachment decision like a trial, or is it more like the deliberations of a grand jury, or AG office deliberation?

The House impeachment process really doesn't have a good judicial analogy.

The Impeachment Clause tasks the Senate with conducting a trial. I do not expect the House to conduct a trial. My notations to criminal trials are merely to contrast the full panoply of due process provided by a court of law with the almost complete lack of due process provided by the Democrat impeachment star chamber.

The grand jury comparison is not really apt. Federal grand juries are governed by FRCP 6. The accused has the right to a jury of neutrals who can question each witness offered by the prosecution for as long as they wish about anything they wish and then decide if the facts provide probable cause of a crime. The only reason grand jury proceedings are private is to protect the accused from a prosecutor publishing embarrassing facts which do not amount to a crime.

During House impeachment proceedings, the majority party is the prosecution, judge and jury. The only check on these elected prosecutors are the voters, which is why basic due process like public hearings and the POTUS's attorneys or at least members of the POTUS's party being able to call and cross witnesses and offer argument is so important.




 

"So, legal minds, is the House impeachment decision like a trial, or is it more like the deliberations of a grand jury, or AG office deliberation?"

The actual vote to impeach is more like a grand jury indictment. Not "the same as", just "more like". Trump is getting much more "due process" than the ordinary target of a grand jury indictment.

The vote today is more like the decision to empanel a grand jury (not identical, just similar). Until now, the depositions were investigatory. Again, Trump is getting far more than an ordinary criminal target in both the investigations and in the "decision to empanel".
 

Bart, my knowledge of pretrial legal maneuvering is, obviously, very limited -- but I've heard all kinds of complaints about how grand juries are notably lacking in protections for potential defendants. Isn't it true that a defendant has no absolute right to a lawyer at these affairs? And there's no right to question other witnesses, isn't that right?
 

The Party of BENGHAZI!! is worried about “show trials”? Lol
 

C2H50H:

Grand jury proceedings are directed by the prosecution. The accused is not present except maybe as a witness. If the accused is called as a witness, she does not have representation.
 

Bart, I've got to say that I'm smelling a lot of smoke coming off your comment at 5:28. There are very few formal human activities that do not have at least some "judicial analogy", if you think about it. And saying that the House is analogous to the judge and jury flies in the face of even what little I know about the law and the impeachment process.