Obligatory Impeachment Hearings Something or Other
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The House Judiciary Committee will be kicking off their portion of the impeachment inquiry, with coverage and live stream you can watch here:
The House Judiciary Committee is taking the reins of the impeachment inquiry, holding its first hearing with testimony on the constitutional grounds for impeachment.
The committee, which will be responsible for drafting potential articles of impeachment, is hearing from four constitutional law experts: Noah Feldman, Pamela Karlan, Michael Gerhardt and Jonathan Turley, who is also a CBS News legal analyst.
What say you? The commentareum is raring to go on this topic, join in.
Breaking:
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Like they havent been “drawn up” for months already…Report
I don’t know that the House will vote to impeach Trump thus sending articles over to the Senate.
The hearings yesterday struck me as bad for Impeachment. One of the experts making a pun/joke on Baron/Barron struck me as avoidable as hell and as evidence that the Dems were not calling Impartial Scholars as much as they were calling credentialed partisans who were the type to make Baron/Barron jokes in public on the goddamn stand.
A nocheck twitter account the other day said that new Dems were calling for impeachment articles to come up so that they could vote *DOWN* on them, given that the election was coming up and attack ads were already playing saying “Congressperson So-and-so is a puppet of Pelosi” and a “No” vote is something that they could run on. Is this true? I dunno! It strikes me as something that is verifiable, though, after the vote. If there are more than 2-3 “No” votes from Democrats, we can say that the nocheck account was full of crap.
I’m interested in seeing the Impeachment vote now.
I am willing to say that if the House votes against Impeachment and that there are no articles to be sent to the Senate in the first place, that Impeachment was a mistake.
I would have thought that the original plan of waiting until after the Holidays for an Impeachment vote was the better plan. The fact that we want to have the vote before the Holidays strikes me as an indicator of knowing that they’re in a quagmire of the sunk-cost fallacy and Pelosi is going to hold a vote and cut losses RIGHT NOW.
But I’m just speculating.
I’m very, very interested in seeing the vote numbers.Report
The Baron thing could have been worse. The guy could have mocked him using palsied hand gestures and facial expressions.
Because y’know, the American people would never stand for something like that.Report
Oh, Chip. I wasn’t saying that Pamela Karlan did something Bad or Evil by making the joke she made.
I’m saying that it was worse than that:
It was a mistake.Report
Why?
What harm was done?Report
I explain “why” in my second section of my original comment.
As for the harm done, it was to her own credibility as impartial constitutional scholar with regards to the impeachment hearing at which she was testifying.Report
In whose eyes?
Jonathan Turleys furious Labradoodle?Report
Persuadables. I’ll point below to the Washington Post for evidence for that.Report
The article that says no persuadbles were persuaded?
See, this is just concern trolling.
You tell us that you are some indifferent objective referee, and you call this as a strike against Democrats.
But, both of the statements are absurd.
You aren’t any more objective than I am, and there isnt a shred of evidence that the comment moved the needle on American attitudes towards impeachment.Report
The article that says no persuadbles were persuaded?
No, that’s not what I said.
We were playing the game where I said X and you asked “what is your evidence for X?”
And so, the last time, I said “X, oh, and here is my evidence for X”.
You aren’t any more objective than I am, and there isnt a shred of evidence that the comment moved the needle on American attitudes towards impeachment.
I wouldn’t argue that the comment did move the needle.
I *WOULD* argue that the comment did a good job of adding to the rust and cruft keeping the needle from moving.Report
So, there is no evidence that this moved any persuadables?
But it was still a mistake because it added to the “rust and cruft”?
What is this “rust and cruft”?Report
Not only is there no evidence that this moved anybody, there is evidence that nobody is being moved.
It was a mistake because, presumably, we want people to be moved.
If we do not care whether people are moved, then this was not a mistake.
What is this “rust and cruft”?
The belief that the impeachment is based in partisan politics and opposition to Trump’s aesthetic rather than based in something vaguely principle-adjacent.Report
If the absolute only thing that matters is the horse race, then that is what CNN is for.Report
“My horse should have won. The other horse had a clearer lane to run in. The principle of clear lanes is an important one and the fact that the other jockey doesn’t think so is a disgrace.”Report
Did Jonathan Turley’s hilarious refutation of everything he ever said about Obama and the Clintons add to the rust and cruft?
Did Devin Nune’s desperate collaboration with Trump’s forces add to the rust and cruft?
Did Sen. Kennedy’s bizarre conspiracy mongering on TV add to the rust and cruft?
In other words, when Republicans play naked partisan politics about impeachment and make it obvious that they have no principles, how do you think this looks to Mr. Persuadable American?Report
“Golly, these Republicans are partisan jerks! I wonder if the Democrats are treating this seriously or are equally treating this like a bunch of partisan jerks.”Report
So for you that one line, a throwaway comment, is equal to the avalanche of Republican partisan behavior?
Really?Report
Oh, no. That one throwaway comment is not equal to the avalanche of Republican partisan behavior.
But if I were wondering if this were a matter of principle or a matter of partisanship, I would see that throwaway comment as a tip of an iceberg.
Which would be totally unfair if it wasn’t an iceberg but, like, throwaway Styrofoam.Report
Are you in fact, wondering if the impeachment is a matter of principle, or a matter of partisanship?Report
I am no longer wondering that, no.
I have reached the conclusion that it’s about aesthetics and partisanship.Report
Shame there hasn’t been any evidence or several hundred page reports of evidence people could consult.Report
The report’s summary is full of all sorts of wild charges, but the report’s body lacks any actual evidence. That’s because there wasn’t any. In fact, it’s chock full of evidence that supports Trump’s defense.
What it has are a bunch of bureaucrats whining that they should be in charge of setting US foreign policy, not the elected President. Under Obama that kind of attitude would get someone fired in a few days.
The report tried to make a big deal about Trump firing an ambassador (she was just re-assigned). Obama fired every ambassadors, every single one, and nobody batted an eye because Presidents routinely fire ambassadors.
The problem Democrats will never get around is this: If what they accuse Trump of was somehow wrong, or at least unusual, then threatening Ukraine with a cutoff of $1 billion in US aid, in six hours, unless they fire a prosecutor investigating the wildly corrupt energy company that gave Hunter Biden a lucrative no-show job on the board, should be something that lands Biden in jail for 20 years.
If investigating Biden for doing that is wrong, then so is investigating Trump for investigating that. Judging by the big swings in the polls, these absurdities are not lost on independents in battleground states.Report
You’re stating that the President is not in fact guilty of impeachable acts?
Or that the opposing party is just exploiting the actual impeachable acts for their partisan gain?Report
Oh, of course he is.
But that’s not what you asked me.Report
You’re stating that the impeachment is all about aesthetics and partisanship, though.
That you think the Democrats are just exploiting this for partisan gain.Report
Not entirely. They’re also doing it in an attempt to stay out of prison for colluding with the prior Ukrainian government to rig the 2016 election, along with taking bribes and kickbacks. That’s why, after all the charges they’ve hurled since before Trump took office, they only took action on the day that they found out Trump was encouraging an investigation into what they’d been doing over there.Report
Careful, don’t make me call the Vince Foster Hit Squad on you.Report
The trouble for Democrats is that’s exactly what happened. Vindman’s job with the NSC was coordinating between the White House and anti-Trump Ukrainian politicians. They Ukrainian government was running anti-Trump op-eds in the US.
Their go-to lobbyist, Alexandra Chalupa, who was working for the DNC, met with Obama’s special assistant for European affairs, Charles Chupcan, on Nov. 9, 2015. She met with Valerie Jarrett’s special assistant on June 2, 2015. She met with Valerie Jarrett’s adviser Asher Mayerson on Dec. 18, 2015, and on Jan. 11, Feb. 22, May 13, and June 14, of 2016. She also met with Obama. In fact, she visited the White House 27 times.
A Ukrainian embassy official told Politico that he was told to help Chalupa connect Trump, Manafort, and the Russians, which would be a key part of Hillary’s campaign, and later an attempt to undermine the government of the United States.
Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson have already requested all relevant records of these meetings.
Most people remain unaware of all this, perhaps because they just watch CNN, CBS, and NBC, which is why so many Republicans want impeachment to move to the Senate, so the public can spend six months becoming intimately familiar with it.
Yeah, Republicans are loving this opportunity for a teachable moment.Report
This particular impeachment seems to be that, yes. I’m not sure whether they’re successfully exploiting this for partisan gain, though.
I think that they realize that they are not, in fact, exploiting this for partisan gain which is why they’re pushing for a quick vote so they can move onto something where they can exploit it for partisan gain.Report
“The mirror of morality doesn’t cast a reflection with these ones.”Report
They can give what, 17 people cover and still pass it. Two Democrats voted against the inquiry so that leaves 15…not a big life boat for the 40 odd freshman from swing districts. Will be interesting to watchReport
Pelosi is shrewd and wouldn’t let articles be drafted unless they were passable. it will be interesting to see if they include the obstruction charges levied in the Mueller report as well as the Ukraine findings of the House Intel Committee.Report
Nancy used to be shrewd, years ago, but now one could posit that she’s at the stage where family members talk about “finding her some help” in hushed tones at holiday gatherings.Report
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/republicans-invade-barron-trumps-privacy-drag-him-into-politics.htmlReport
So, a Democrat star witness (and I use that term lightly) makes a canned joke about a 13yo, and its the Repubs fault? Wow, talk about a Slate pitch and a miss!
Sorry, the Prof. rubbed feces all over herself and tried to claim it as warpaint.Report
My contrarian take is that the Baron thing is/was irrelevant.
However, the same Stanford Law professor spewing nonsense about Ukraine/Russia convinced Pelosi that the hearings were about to go down a twitterati path for no perceptible gain.
She cut them off because this is the *peak* non-partisan “just the facts” state that the hearings would ever possess. Such as that is.
She correctly realized that everything that the committee must have lined up here on out was pure fanservice… and shut that down.
I’d like to say they successfully made the case for impeachment, but I’m forced to conclude they made a case for impeachment.Report
I think that it’s relevant insofar as it demonstrates that this is an impeachment of Trump rather than an Impeachment of The President.Report
Ok, I guess that’s what I mean by fanservice… it wasn’t an outrageous comment in context, but when you combine it with the nonsense around Ukraine/Russia and lots of other parts of her testimony, it becomes Twittersplaining Impeachment and it jumped the shark from a desire to be a formal legal(ish) proceeding into, well, a Twitter fight – which I think Pelosi sensed was a no-win situation.
Once Karlan is hectoring the US Congress that our National Interest is to be the Global City On a Hill of Democracy Promotion, that we want the Ukrainians fighting the Russians over there so we don’t have to fight them over here, and um suggesting that any sort of global interference in National Elections is un-American (oof)… well, agree or not, she’s slipped the bounds of useful testimony.Report
I disagree. The whole point of these proceedings is that, beyond partisanship, Trump needs to be removed. And to do that you have to remove all traces of partisanship. You absolutely cannot have an expert witness come up and be making jokes with the prosecution. That expert has to appear absolutely non-partisan. A Just-The-Facts Ma’am, square-G, straight shooter. You can’t have any question about there integrity. As at that point, they have proven themselves to be, well, partisan. And thus ignorable.Report
…is what I said… my point is that people are falling for the dumb comment and ignoring the crazy.
“However, the same Stanford Law professor spewing nonsense about Ukraine/Russia convinced Pelosi that the hearings were about to go down a twitterati path for no perceptible gain.
She cut them off because this is the *peak* non-partisan “just the facts” state that the hearings would ever possess. Such as that is.”Report
Gotcha, I was thinking from a different, non-euclidean direction.Report
“That expert has to appear absolutely non-partisan.”
This has never, in the entire history of America, been true.
The Army-McCarthy hearings, the Watergate hearings, the Warren Commission, the 9-11 report…all of those things were chock full of partisanship and spin.
When the US government accused the Stalin regime of human rights abuses, there were plenty of people, like McCarthy who were partisan grandstanding and using it for their own electoral advantage.
Should we say that all the claims against Stalin are “ignorable”?
(Not that I am itching to support Uncle Joe…just askin’ for a friend.)Report
There is “perfect objectivity is impossible!” and “there is, in fact, a difference between a Bible scholar who argues about the the language and sources of a particular book and a Calvinist who argues for Inerrancy”.
It makes sense for the guy arguing for Inerrancy to point out that *EVERYBODY* has a point of view.
(I got into that here, a million years ago.)Report
But we are all citizens, not spectators, right?
As an engaged citizen, are you able to see the truth through the smoke and dust of partisan claims?
Or are you hopelessly confused, and unable to see a difference?Report
I see it as akin to the OJ trial.
There were legit reasons to hope that the man be found guilty.
There were legit reasons to hope that the man not be found guilty… even though he was guilty.
I look at the impeachment and I see a similar dynamic.
Trump is guilty.
And yet… and yet…Report
And yet what?
What’s with all the ominous ellipses?Report
I can totally see why people wanted the corrupt prosecution of OJ to fall flat on its face.
So, too, here.Report
By “people” you mean “Jaybird” and by “corrupt prosecution” you mean what?Report
There were more people than I who held the prosecutors in the OJ case in contempt, Chip.
You should be old enough to remember the events.Report
What about the impeachment hearings is corrupt, such that you hope it too falls on its face?Report
It’s vaguely different insofar as “corrupt” is the wrong word. “Partisan” would be a better one. Instead of coming across as a principled attack on a corrupt president, it’s an opportunistic attack on an unaesthetic one.
If it were a matter of principle, it’d be an easy call.
The dems didn’t play it as a matter of principle.
They played it as a matter of partisanship.
Which makes me kinda root against both teams at the same time.Report
So, your position is that Trump has done things worthy of impeachment and yet some part of you is hoping he isn’t impeached/found guilty because you don’t like how the Democrats have handled it?Report
Please, keep in mind. I’m one of the kinda crazies who thinks that most Presidents (certainly in the modern era) ought to have been impeached. (Maybe not necessarily *REMOVED* from office… but impeached.)
So Trump meeting my bar of “ought to have been impeached” isn’t that tough to reach.
And, good news! Looks like he’s actually *GOING* to be impeached! Hurray! Justice!
(I suppose I should have a prediction thread for people to guess what the numbers will be for each part of the process.)Report
That doesn’t answer my question.Report
Yes, I am pleased he is going to be impeached.
Yes, there is part of me that hopes that this does not result in him being removed from office.Report
Has it occurred to you that by elevating your disdain for the Democratic Party over your concern for the republic, you are engaging in the very epitome of partisanship?Report
I have spent a great deal of time arguing for stuff like “the Republic”. Arguing for stuff like “the First Amendment” and “the Second Amendment” and “the Ninth Amendment”.
The fact that people are now coming up to me and saying “if you cared about the Republic, you’d agree with me on this issue!” doesn’t strike me as an appeal to my principle, really.
As such, it kinda makes me hope that they reach the point where they start saying “huh, if the Republic is actually important, maybe we should re-read some of this stuff?”
Lemme know when you want to discuss important things like the best ways to save the Republic. I have some thoughts.Report
But, you have already said you agree with us on the issue.
You agree the President is corrupt and as a matter of principle, should be removed.
Right now, you are just preferring to hand your political enemies a defeat, even if it means a corrupt president is allowed to remain.Report
Impeaching Trump is handing him a political defeat, though.
This way *BOTH* sides can get a political defeat.Report
And what happened to McCarthy in the end? That partisanship was turned against him, as he couldn’t unite the nation under it (then it becomes non-partisan.)
It’s the appearance, Chip. That is what gives the opposition cover. Everyone knows the D’s are out for blood, that is a given. But, and this is the important part, they need to give cover to anyone crossing the aisle. That what they are doing is about good governance. Above mere partisanship. If it appears from day one that it is something that only an election should fix, then you cannot convince anyone, and give partisan disagreement validity.
The claims against Stalin were irrelevant. It’s overstepping the constitution by McCarthy that wasn’t ignorable. Because communism isn’t illegal. Stupid, but not illegal (though I do have some interesting family stories about that.)Report
And if the WaPo is an indicator of anything at all, this piece seems to indicate that no minds have been changed:
Report
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12/05/joe-biden-campaign-ad-laughing-trump-trudeau-macron-nato/Report
Trump kicks hundreds of thousands of people off food stamps in time for the Holidays, Republicans and trolls feign outrage over punning because they have no moral compass:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/food-stamps.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=HomepageReport
Come on Saul. The horse race and cynical ginned up furor over word play are what matter. What affects people is only for discussion when its good for arguing. How does this really fit with any of that. Move on , nothing to see here.Report
It seems like a bad move, not only because of the question of the inhumanity of it, but also because no small number of Trump supporters use food stamps too. They didn’t flock to trump for his republitarian bnoa fides.Report
LBJ’s observation of poor rural people comes to mind.
Give them someone to hate, and they will empty their pockets for you.Report
Oh yes they did. They flocked to Trump for his hate and lack of dog-whistling.Report
I think both can be true. Trump didn’t run on Republitarian “I’m gonna take away your safety net and cut taxes for rich people” lines. He ran explicitly as promising to protect and/or improve safety net programs. And yes, he said the soft parts loud on immigration and race too.Report
I kind of agree but not in the way you do. His cultists love him because he gives undiluted racism, not the typical dog whistles. Plus how many times have we seen “I did not think the Leopard’s would eat my face” stories since 2017.Report
Saul, you can learn about “a href” here.
It’s as easy as cutting and pasting the website you have in the https part of the link and whatever you like (I enjoy using the word “here”) in the W3Schools part.Report
Here are my thoughts on timing. Let me know how I’m thinking about this wrong:
If I have the goods on Trump, I want to have the impeachment vote after the Holidays. I want to call more witnesses. I want each of those witnesses hammering it home. Wham. Russia. Wham. Ukraine. Wham. France. Wham. Canada. Make Republicans defend Trump. Or make them fail to defend him. Make them retire instead of running for re-election. I want this going into March. April.
If I *MIGHT* have the goods on Trump, maybe yes, maybe no, I’d pencil in the impeachment vote for after the holidays. Have meetings and get a temperature reading from everybody who came back after talking to a handful of constituents and a couple of handfuls of donors. If the temp comes back hot, IMPEACH! If the temp comes back cold? Eh, forget about it. Why are we still talking about that? That was last year. It’s 2020. We care about the election now.
If I knew that I did not have the goods and that the impeachment was likely to be a liability, I’d probably want to hold the vote RFN. Get it behind me and then look to the important stuff that might get rid of Trump for real: The Election and talk about impeachment as something that we don’t talk about. Forget about impeachment.
How am I thinking about this incorrectly?Report
You are correct, except that if impeachment passes then it control of the whole mess falls to “Rogue Leader”, Mitch McConnell (he might switch from “Cocaine Mitch” to Nancy’s new moniker for him).
What I’ve been wondering is if some profoundly pro-Trump Republicans will vote for impeachment if it looks like Nancy is going to fall short. Trump says he wants a full Senate trial where Republicans can subpoena absolutely everybody and expose the corrupt criminals and deep state operatives who’ve been driving this nonsense, saying it would help him drain the swamp. They would grill Schiff (who will perjure himself), Pelosi, Nadler, Ciaramella, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and everybody else, even the Democrat on Nadler’s impeachment committee whose husband took $700K from a Ukrainian oligarch whose been investigated several times for contract killings. McConnell could drag it out for six months, keeping Bernie, Warren, Gildebrand, and Harris sitting in their Senate seats ten to fourteen hours a day. Since Biden won’t survive the roasting, the only viable option left would be Buttigieg, at least if he can figure out how to keep his supporters from getting in brawls with BLM activists.Report
And what will you do when Chief Justice Roberts shoots down those subpoena’s as immaterial? Or better yet when those folks fail to produce exculpatory evidence for the President?
You are very good at motivated reasoning and throwing whining bombs of disgust, but you seem unwilling to consider that you may in fact be wrong.Report
Under the Senate rules for an impeachment trial, they vote on which witnesses to call.Report
I just watched 538 polls on two things: Unfavorables and Impeachment.
What struck me as interesting is that the Unfavorables are consistently 53% but Impeachment … once it actually started, dropped from 49% down to 46%, then bumped a bit after Sondland to 49%, but started to erode again after Karlan to 47%.
Which loosely means that 5-7% of the population that is unfavorably disposed to the President still doesn’t think Removal is appropriate. That’s surprising to me. I don’t know if that’s the polling Pelosi uses, but assuming hers is saying roughly the same thing, it means that Schiff and company who made an argument that the actual hearings would create the momentum to carry out the impeachment have failed to deliver on that promise.
My personal take on the why vs. the what is that the Perry Mason style impeachments brought on by Watergate aren’t the right model… or they are if the situation is, say, Watergate and you have a gun like secret tapes that are asmoke with an 18 minute gap (plus enough left over to demonstrate knowledge).
I have my suspicions and counter-factuals on how a different approach to impeachment might have gone… but I think you are mostly right above that this particular approach failed. Pelosi knows it and she’s mopping up the end-game.
I also wouldn’t rule out some novelty impeach/censure/don’t forward articles to the Senate gambit, but that’s just a hunch and I’m not 100% sure whether that’s really possible.
We can pre-blame the Republican Senate, but the headscratcher is that the unfavorables weren’t persuaded… Not that the pro-Trumps weren’t persuaded, but the anti-Trumps.Report
If my psych profile is any indicator, it has to do with zero-sum games.
I’m not going to root for the Chiefs. I’m not going to root for the Raiders.
But I *CAN* root for injuries.Report
But even if we stick with a simple sports analogy, the *majority* of fans are perfectly willing to turn on a player and insist that an inferior back-up replace him if they think it would help.
But that’s what a successful impeachment would have looked like…Report
If I am a Broncos fan, it makes sense for me to say stuff like “well, we’re rebuilding” or “man, Shanahan sucks now! We need to dump him and bring in someone who knows how to coach someone who isn’t a First Ballot HOF quarterback” or “well, we’re rebuilding”.
But while we all know someone whose second favorite team is “whomever is playing the Patriots”, it’s possible to just hate *BOTH* teams that are on the field.
But if you love football, well, the game might be the only game in town.Report
“But I *CAN* root for injuries.”
Why would you root for injuries, when it is you who will be injured?Report