Impeachment Thread

[Specula]

Tuesday, William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, delivered closed-doors testimony to Congress that would have promptly ended any presidency in American history prior to this one. Taylor, a pro's pro who Trump's amateur goons really should not have messed with, made it clear that there was indeed an organized, not-very-secret conspiracy to extort the government of Ukraine in exchange for announcing phony investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and Ukraine's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

It was all there — the quid, the pro, the quo, the whole sordid scheme laid out end-to-end and narrated capably by a career foreign service officer who is obviously about 300 times brighter and better than any of the dim bulbs who carried out the extortion scheme. Lawmakers told reporters that there were "audible gasps" of shock during Taylor's opening statement. It's good to know, at least, that on day 1,005 of Donald Trump's corrupt misrule, it is still possible to be made freshly aghast at his contemptible behavior.

In his statement, Taylor says he accepted his May appointment reluctantly, both out of respect for deposed Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and because he had already heard rumors of an out-of-control Rudy Giuliani freelancing American foreign policy totally outside normal channels. He arrived in Kiev to find that new President Volodymyr Zelensky was vigorously pursuing his reform agenda and that "a new Ukraine might finally be breaking from its corrupt post-Soviet past."

Unfortunately, Taylor discovered that, like with anything that Donald Trump has so much as brushed a shoulder against, U.S. policy in Ukraine had been turned into a hash intended to benefit the president directly rather than either the American or Ukrainian people. You should read the gory details yourself, but to sum up: Taylor quickly realized that a cabal including Giuliani, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and former Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker were carrying out a demented plan to force Zelensky to announce investigations into Burisma (the company Hunter Biden worked for) as well as the Pizzagate-level fever dream that the Ukrainians were somehow hiding the DNC server that was hacked by Russia in 2016, and that on that server is evidence that it was all a Democratic hoax.

No one, Taylor realized, was even being especially coy about what they were doing. Freshly emboldened by Attorney General William Barr's successful blunting of the Mueller Report, Trump and his minions seemed to believe that they could get away with anything.

Taylor noted that in August of 2019, "I became increasingly concerned that our relationship with Ukraine was being fundamentally undermined by an irregular, informal channel of U.S. policymaking and by the withholding of vital security assistance for domestic political reasons." This, of course, we already knew from Taylor's already-released text messages with Volker and Sondland. But Taylor brought the receipts Trump's idiotic wise guys printed out for him.


https://theweek.com/articles/873611/william-taylors-testimony-should-game-over-trump

Congratulations for doing this, Alison! People need to to hear it I just hope they'll listen!!

 

[Ireadforpleasure]

Every Republican who stormed the Laura Cooper hearing needs to have their security clearances immediately revoked, their cell phones confiscated and there needs to be an investigation into the whole desperate criminal act.

 

[Schlank]

"They have no defense for what Trump did. The tide has turned. And they know it. He will be impeached."

-Republican, Joe Walsh

Trump is fucked.

They have enough on Trump to convict him (at least) for extortion and obstruction of justice. If Trump were an ordinary citizen, he would have been arrested by now. However, Trump has been using (abusing) his governmental powers to threaten witnesses, withhold evidence, offer pardons to his accomplices AND claim that as president, he's somehow above the law and cannot be legally prosecuted.

Abusing his powers in this way slows down the wheels of justice, but does not grind them to a halt.

 

[gunthernehmen]

Trump is fucked.

They have enough on Trump to convict him (at least) for extortion and obstruction of justice. If Trump were an ordinary citizen, he would have been arrested by now. However, Trump has been using (abusing) his governmental powers to threaten witnesses, withhold evidence, offer pardons to his accomplices AND claim that as president, he's somehow above the law and cannot be legally prosecuted.

Abusing his powers in this way slows down the wheels of justice, but does not grind them to a halt.

You'll be chanting that for the next 5+ years, until the end of his second term.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Schlank View Post
Trump is fucked.

They have enough on Trump to convict him (at least) for extortion and obstruction of justice. If Trump were an ordinary citizen, he would have been arrested by now. However, Trump has been using (abusing) his governmental powers to threaten witnesses, withhold evidence, offer pardons to his accomplices AND claim that as president, he's somehow above the law and cannot be legally prosecuted.

Abusing his powers in this way slows down the wheels of justice, but does not grind t

You'll be chanting that for the next 5+ years, until the end of his second term.

There is a possibility that The Donald will, by a narrow margin, be impeached by the H of R. However, he will be easily acquitted by the Senate. The Dems know this, so I expect they will use a threat of impeachment to try to defeat Trump next year in the presidential election. This might backfire, causing the Dems to lose control of the House. Whatever else happens, I expect Trump to win next year and to garner a plurality of the popular vote.

 

[Dumpington]

Schlank writes: "Trump is fucked."

The Trump-haters don't understand how our U.S. Constitution works. It's true that Trump's presidency would certainly be finished if the Hollywood entertainment community and the national news media called all of the shots, in conjunction with their Democratic Party puppet-masters - but if all of that were true then Trump would never have even BEEN ELECTED president in the first place! But he was!

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that the House Democrats have already over-played their hand, and they know it! Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) describes the whole process as a “partisan clown show” – and you have to ask yourself: What are the Democrats so afraid of?

If they had a good case for impeachment, the Democrats would be proudly putting it all out into the open so all Americans could learn the facts that would convince them to support impeaching the duly elected president of the United States. But they DON'T! Back in 1998, Independent Counsel Ken Starr charged that President Bill Clinton was guilty on 11 counts including perjury, which is a felony. If Robert Mueller’s report had used the word “guilty” 11 times the Republicans would have been forced to join in a serious investigation of the president. However, when Mueller did not use the word “guilty” even once, the need for an investigation ended.

Then, as the Democrats squirmed under the attacks of their activists who were determined that President Trump should be impeached just for being President Trump, they found a new excuse to investigate. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) – who was consistently dishonest and wrong for two years about Russia-collusion stories – suddenly had a whistleblower who was anti-Trump. The Democrats were ecstatic. They now had an excuse to make their hardcore, left-wing, anti-Trump partisans happy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was so eager to appease the left that she announced the investigation before Democrats even had the whistleblower’s report and before they had seen the transcript of President Trump’s phone call with the new, reform-focused Ukrainian president. The whistleblower was going to be the centerpiece of the case against Trump. Except it turned out that he had met with Schiff’s people before even submitting his letter. Then it turned out he had no firsthand knowledge of the items he was complaining about.

In many ways, the collapse of the whistleblower's story is reminiscent of the collapse of the attacks on now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Big opening smear, wildly hostile headlines, excited anti-Trump talking heads, and then the balloon loses air, the case collapses and it is on to the next dishonest smear.

Every House Democrat should be asked: “What are you afraid of that you can’t let the American people see the facts and decide for themselves?”

 

[domroger]

Schlank writes: "Trump is fucked."

Every House Democrat should be asked: “What are you afraid of that you can’t let the American people see the facts and decide for themselves?”

Why are the GOP so afraid that they crash a meeting when half of them could enter anyway .

 

[magicalmoments]

#31 above
Pure made up garbage, not one fact in it. A complete waste of space.
You are a deluded nutter.

 

[YDB95]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that the House Democrats have already over-played their hand, and they know it!

Well, I've certainly got to hand it to Gingrich: there is no bigger expert on overplaying one's hand on impeachment.

 

[Dumpington]

domroger writes: "Why are the GOP so afraid that they crash a meeting when half of them could enter anyway"

The Democratic Party wants to avoid the embarrassment of another Mueller investigation, which is why they prefer meeting in secret, so that they can portray what happens in their own way, without admitting that they're not making any headway. The G.O.P. House members made it clear that this was the case.

YDB95 writes: "Well, I've certainly got to hand it to Gingrich: there is no bigger expert on overplaying one's hand on impeachment."

Gingrich gets it. So does Nancy Pelosi, but Nancy's lost control of her own party in the House of Representatives. The "Squad" WANTS impeachment, without accepting the backlash that will result when President Trump wins BIG in the U.S. Senate!

Bill Clinton won his victory in the U.S. Senate, and his presidency survived. Trump will win there as well, and then be re-elected in 2020!

 

[YDB95]

The Democratic Party wants to avoid the embarrassment of another Mueller investigation, which is why they prefer meeting in secret, so that they can portray what happens in their own way, without admitting that they're not making any headway.

As I and others have noted elsewhere, there is nothing unique about the conditions under which the Dems are holding their hearings. It's exactly how impeachment hearings are supposed to work.

 

[Dumpington]

YDB95 writes: "As I and others have noted elsewhere, there is nothing unique about the conditions under which the Dems are holding their hearings. It's exactly how impeachment hearings are supposed to work."

The Democrats have wanted to impeach President Trump ever since election night, 2016. But they needed to have a REASON.

First, that reason was Russia collusion. But then the two-&-a-half-year-long Mueller investigation failed to come up with the desired result.

Next, it was that Ukraine phone call. While it certainly damaged Joe Biden's campaign, it didn't seem to be worth launching another unsuccessful Mueller probe, and so the Democrats decided to do their own investigating in private.

Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to go through with this, as she remembers the backlash caused by the Clinton impeachment. But the House freshmen don't know or care, and Nancy's lost control of them. They just want to vote to impeach Trump.

The U.S. Senate will slap them down soon enough. And yes, there will be a blacklash that greatly benefits President Trump's re-election efforts.

 

[YDB95]

Even if any of that were true, the fact remains that there's nothing unorthodox or inappropriate about the way they're conducting the hearings.

 

[allison22]

Trump is stonewalling investigations into his corrupt, impeachable behavior with Ukraine, just as he obstructed Robert Mueller's investigation into his conspiracy with the Russian government.

Trump is at war with America's constitution. He has been right from the very beginning. And Moscow Mitch, Devin Nunes and a whole flock of other Republicans have been aiding and abetting.

 

[bhurry]

Even if any of that were true, the fact remains that there's nothing unorthodox or inappropriate about the way they're conducting the hearings.

REALLY.

 

[bhurry]

Trump is stonewalling investigations into his corrupt, impeachable behavior with Ukraine, just as he obstructed Robert Mueller's investigation into his conspiracy with the Russian government.

Trump is at war with America's constitution. He has been right from the very beginning. And Moscow Mitch, Devin Nunes and a whole flock of other Republicans have been aiding and abetting.

You need help.

 

[gunthernehmen]

Trump is stonewalling investigations into his corrupt, impeachable behavior with Ukraine, just as he obstructed Robert Mueller's investigation into his conspiracy with the Russian government.

Trump is at war with America's constitution. He has been right from the very beginning. And Moscow Mitch, Devin Nunes and a whole flock of other Republicans have been aiding and abetting.

Yawn...

 

[phrodeau]

REALLY.

Oh there have been unorthodox procedures lately.

They would normally interview a whistleblower in person, with appropriate screening devices to protect his identity. But they daren’t do so, in fear of unauthorized Republicans barging in and livestreaming his face.

 

[gunthernehmen]

Oh there have been unorthodox procedures lately.

They would normally interview a whistleblower in person, with appropriate screening devices to protect his identity. But they daren’t do so, in fear of unauthorized Republicans barging in and livestreaming his face.

Yawn...

 

[Schlank]

And some of these stunts are illegal...like telling witnesses to ignore subpoenas and storming a closed door session of a Congressional Inquiry and shouting down their witness. People go to jail for shit life me that.

Give it time.

 

[Dumpington]

YDB95 writes: "Even if any of that were true, the fact remains that there's nothing unorthodox or inappropriate about the way they're conducting the hearings."

Yes, and if Nancy Pelosi were to call for Trump's impeachment because "he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016," there would probably be several Democrats willing to vote in favor of it for that reason alone. But that doesn't make it wise or even the right thing to do.

allison22 writes: "Trump is stonewalling investigations into his corrupt, impeachable behavior with Ukraine, just as he obstructed Robert Mueller's investigation into his conspiracy with the Russian government."

Robert Mueller's two-&-a-half-year, $30-million investigation resulted in the findings that there was NO Russia-collusion and not enough evidence to support an obstruction charge! The Democrats are always free to launch impeachment proceedings, but it will all come down to the U.S. Senate to vote on whether or not their charges are valid.

I'm predicting right now that, should that happen, President Trump will emerge VICTORIOUS in the Senate, and the defeat of the Democratic Party's non-stop political agenda these past three years will propel Trump to a lopsided re-election victory in 2020!

 

[icanhelp1]

Yawn...

I don't recall any of the closed door testimonies requiring a classified setting, and every politician was aware of that. More extreme bloviating by the lefty lunes.

 

[JackLuis]

Delay, Debase, and Deflect, Rethuglcunts are fearful of the LAW!

Muller dumped Trumpski in the lap of Congress, when will they get their shit together and IMPEACH THE MOTHERFUCKER!

 

[phrodeau]

Yawn...

So you were OK with Scooter Libby unmasking Valerie Plame, or Susan Rice unmasking Michael Flynn?

 

[gunthernehmen]

So you were OK with Scooter Libby unmasking Valerie Plame, or Susan Rice unmasking Michael Flynn?

I have no idea who those people are, but I assume they're your "evidence". I'm not actually following the impeachment stuff because it is all crap intended to keep you lefty's all a dither. There's clearly no substance to any of it or Pelosi would have actually called for an impeachment vote instead of just threatening it whenever the the noise dies down.