US President Donald J. Trump Impeachment Megathread - Democrats commit mass political suicide

On September 24th, 2019, Nanci Pelosi did what everyone expected was some exceptional political posturing -- initiating a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

The initial "charge," such as it was, was "betraying his oath of office and the nation's security by seeking to enlist a foreign power to tarnish a rival for his own political gain." This, amusingly, was after it was discovered and widely reported on that the DNC had contacted the very same foreign power to attempt to tarnish Trump.

Specifically, this was all based on a rumor that Trump had asked the Ukraine to investigate how a prosecutor investigating Joe Biden's son for corruption had gotten fired, and withheld foreign aid until they had agreed. (He did ask the leader of the Ukraine to investigate what happened with the prosecutor, but did not hold up any foreign aid nor threaten anything of the like.)

Around this time, Trump did something they could not, and still cannot, understand: He publicly turned over all the documents. The transcript of the phone call they claimed showed him committing the crime of blackmailing the Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden for him was released, showing that Trump did nothing wrong. The only reaction the radical left had was arguing over the definition of "transcript" and spouting off a conspiracy theory about official state documents being edited.

At the same time, old video evidence of Joe Biden publicly bragging about blackmailing the Ukraine into NOT investigating his son came to light. Yes, this is exactly what they're accusing Trump of doing. The left is nothing if not subtle. Right after this, evidence came to light that Pelosi, Kerry, and Romney's kids had similar fake jobs in the Ukraine, getting paid ungodly amounts of money and embezzling US foreign aid to the Ukraine -- all things that Trump's Attorney General has openly discussed investigating.

By releasing the transcripts, the DNC was tripped up. Instead of being able to leak information from their secret investigation until November 2020, they were forced to play their hand publicly.

And they had no hand to play. The impeachment accusations came from second and third hand sources -- watercooler talk from Unelected Deep State Analysts with Trump Derangement Syndrome, outraged that President Trump refused to obey them when they felt they had a better idea as to how to run Foreign Affairs. Other allegations included that supposedly, the telepathic DNC members working in the state department knew what Trump was thinking (despite him literally saying the exact opposite) or could tell that Trump would do something even worse -- maybe something actually illegal -- in the future, and boy howdy, the imaginary Trump in their minds was a right bastard.

(As an aside, the name of the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, has been censored across pretty much all social media, a test run of whatever censorship they're going to enact in the next few months to try and swing the election.)

At the same time, the DNC performed significant amounts of partisan political fuckery to do this all publicly, but unofficially -- preventing the GOP from bringing forth witnesses or questioning the DNC's witnesses, or even reading the double plus secret evidence the DNC supposedly had. Those GOP that did get access to the evidence have confirmed it's a 3 pound 5 ounce nothingburger.

The charges have since mutated, with them initially being changed to "bribery" -- as "bribery" focus groups easier and is easier to spew out on Twitter.

On December 18th, 2019, along party lines and with bipartisan opposition, they finally drafted their articles of impeachment -- first for "Abuse of Power" and second for "Obstruction of Congress." Neither are actually crimes nor are they impeachable offenses, even if they were true -- which the DNC has provided no evidence of, explaining that it's the Senate's job to investigate and find the evidence.

Narrator: It is not the Senate's job to investigate and find the evidence.

The "Obstruction of Congress" charge is particularly egregious, as they are claiming that Trump, by reaching out to the courts to act as mediators in his dispute over the rules with Pelosi, was obstructing her. In other words, Pelosi's stance is that the President must obey her, even if she's being a batshit insane drunk. Many legal scholars, including Alan Dershowitz, have pointed out that this is absolute bullshit.

The latest development as of this writing on December 21th, 2019, is that Pelosi is demanding that the GOP recuse itself, allowing the DNC to reshape the Senate in order to make the process "fair" -- by creating a Kangaroo court. The GOP is refusing outright, as the Senate's role during this is very specifically to take the charges and all the evidence gathered from the house -- which is none -- and vote yes or no on impeachment. They need 2/3rd majority to vote yes, and the DNC does not have the votes.

Pelosi is refusing to send over the articles of impeachment until the GOP allows her to stack the Senate against Trump, an act that Dershowitz as well as Noah Feldman, the DNC's own star legal expert witness, has said is unconstitutional and "a problem," as Trump isn't impeached until the articles have been filed. Meanwhile, the DNC has put the House on vacation until the new year, while the Senate is exploring options including forcing the articles over without Pelosi's ok. Trump and the Senate have both went to the SCOTUS to ask them if any of this is constitutional.

tl;dr: Trump may have found where the Swamp was embezzling US Foreign Aid. Many politician's children working fake jobs for huge amounts of money in the Ukraine, blatantly selling influence. This caused the DNC to freak out and try and headshot Trump. They missed. The Democrats appear to have committed political suicide, making Trump a Martyr and only realizing in the aftermath that they didn't actually get rid of him or even weaken him in any way. They also appear to realize they fucked up and are trying to slow walk it back, keeping the "he's impeached!" victory while not actually having to let anyone read the evidence or have a trial on it.


@Yotsubaaa did a great writeup here with links to various winner posts: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/nancy...kraine-phone-call.61583/page-135#post-5606264

And @Yotsubaaa did a new version very late on the 21st of December: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/presi...chment-megathread.61583/page-260#post-5754920

Which are too big to quote here.



https://archive.fo/oVGIv

WASHINGTON — Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Tuesday that the House would initiate a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump, charging him with betraying his oath of office and the nation’s security by seeking to enlist a foreign power to tarnish a rival for his own political gain.

Ms. Pelosi’s declaration, after months of reticence by Democrats who had feared the political consequences of impeaching a president many of them long ago concluded was unfit for office, was a stunning turn that set the stage for a history-making and exceedingly bitter confrontation between the Democrat-led House and a defiant president who has thumbed his nose at institutional norms.

“The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the Constitution,” Ms. Pelosi said in a brief speech invoking the nation’s founding principles. Mr. Trump, she added, “must be held accountable — no one is above the law.”

She said the president’s conduct revealed his “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

Ms. Pelosi’s decision to push forward with the most severe action that Congress can take against a sitting president could usher in a remarkable new chapter in American life, touching off a constitutional and political showdown with the potential to cleave an already divided nation, reshape Mr. Trump’s presidency and the country’s politics, and carry heavy risks both for him and for the Democrats who have decided to weigh his removal.

Though the outcome is uncertain, it also raised the possibility that Mr. Trump could become only the fourth president in American history to face impeachment. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached but later acquitted by the Senate. President Richard M. Nixon resigned in the face of a looming House impeachment vote.

It was the first salvo in an escalating, high-stakes standoff between Ms. Pelosi, now fully engaged in an effort to build the most damning possible case against the president, and Mr. Trump, who angrily denounced Democrats’ impeachment inquiry even as he worked feverishly in private to head off the risk to his presidency.

Mr. Trump, who for months has dared Democrats to impeach him, issued a defiant response on Twitter while in New York for several days of international diplomacy at the United Nations, with a series of fuming posts that culminated with a simple phrase: “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” Meanwhile, his re-election campaign and House Republican leaders launched a vociferous defense, accusing Democrats of a partisan rush to judgment.

“Such an important day at the United Nations, so much work and so much success, and the Democrats purposely had to ruin and demean it with more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage,” Mr. Trump wrote. “So bad for our Country! For the past two years, talk of impeachment had centered around the findings of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections and Mr. Trump’s attempts to derail that inquiry. On Tuesday, Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, told her caucus and then the country that new revelations about Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, and his administration’s stonewalling of Congress about them, had finally left the House no choice but to proceed toward a rarely used remedy.

“Right now, we have to strike while the iron is hot,” she told House Democrats in a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol. Emerging moments later to address a phalanx of news cameras, Ms. Pelosi, speaking sometimes haltingly as she delivered a speech from a teleprompter, invoked the Constitution and the nation’s founders as she declared, “The times have found us” and outlined a new stage of investigating Mr. Trump.

At issue are allegations that Mr. Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son. The conversation is said to be part of a whistle-blower complaint that the Trump administration has withheld from Congress. And it occurred just a few days after Mr. Trump had ordered his staff to freeze more than $391 million in aid to Ukraine.

Mr. Trump has confirmed aspects of his conversation with the Ukrainian leader in recent days, but he continues to insist he acted appropriately.

The president said on Tuesday that he would authorize the release of a transcript of the conversation, part of an effort to pre-empt Democrats’ impeachment push. But Democrats, after months of holding back, were unbowed, demanding the full whistle-blower complaint and other documentation about White House dealings with Ukraine, even as they pushed toward an expansive impeachment inquiry that could encompass unrelated charges.

President Trump’s personal lawyer. The prosecutor general of Ukraine. Joe Biden’s son. These are just some of the names mentioned in the whistle-blower’s complaint. What were their roles? We break it down.

Ms. Pelosi told fellow Democrats that Mr. Trump told her in a private call on Tuesday morning that he was not responsible for withholding the whistle-blower complaint from Congress. But late Tuesday, the White House and intelligence officials were working on a deal to allow the whistle-blower to speak to Congress and potentially even share a redacted version of the complaint in the coming days, after the whistle-blower expressed interest in talking to lawmakers.

Although Ms. Pelosi’s announcement was a crucial turning point, it left many unanswered questions about exactly when and how Democrats planned to push forward on impeachment.
 
Ostatnio edytowane:
The dems locked the GOP out of the house "investigation" and didn't allow them to call witnesses there. Now the they rolled up to a senate with a weak case and basically want a do over.

Also if they do end up calling witnesses it will drag this thing out because Trump will definitely claim executive privilege. That will have to be fault out in court.
And the longer this gets drawn out the more if fucks Sanders, Warren, and the other 2 running for president.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.
 
Hoes mad. I'll let @It's HK-47 come take a crack at Charles P. Pierce's tantrum in writing.



A Monstrous Fraud Was Perpetrated on the Senate, and John Roberts Had to Know It
Eventually, you move into a realm beyond journalism while dealing with people like Pam Bondi and Eric Herschmann.

WASHINGTON—I am glad I am leaving this place on Tuesday and heading to Iowa, where some decent people are contending to head a government and a political system so corrupted and debased at this point that the ship of state most closely resembles that homeless wandering garbage barge from 1987. The last thing I saw was Republican Senators John Barrasso and Mike Braun, red-faced and hollering, because some reporters wanted to know precisely how much of the bullshit slung by the White House lawyers on Monday afternoon anyone should believe.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW


Make no mistake about it. From about 4 o’clock, the time former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rose to speak, until about 6, when a longtime lawyer for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago named Eric Herschmann wrapped up what amounted to some MAGA rally cosplay, a monstrously obvious fraud was perpetrated on the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment. If any lawyer in any municipal court in the country had lied and misrepresented the facts of a case involving a speeding ticket as thoroughly as Bondi and Herschmann did here, that lawyer’s license would have been pulled by lunchtime. However, Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps exhausted by the effort it took to extend the work of Breckinridge Long into the 21st century on Monday morning, sat there like one of the marble vice presidents in the niches of the visitor’s galleries above. A fraud was perpetrated on the court over which Roberts was presiding, and he had to know it.
I thought the defense case had scraped bottom when Ken Starr was brought out of cold storage to lecture the Senate on the dangers of a runaway impeachment process. But that turned out to be merely particularly odious concern-trolling. Irony died a long time ago and all Starr was doing was digging up the casket and setting it ablaze. However, it was the Bondi-Herschmann pas de deux ended up shredding the last possible rags of dignity that still clung to the truth in this farce. Bondi began by explaining how it was the House managers that forced her to get up and talk about the Bidens and Burisma. Of course, Bondi was the Florida attorney general who, in 2013, buried that state’s investigation into the fraudulent Trump University after a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation landed in her campaign account. At the moment, she’s making $115-large as a lobbyist for the government of Qatar. So, naturally, she was the lawyer chosen to crank up the innuendo machine regarding the Bidens and Burisma, especially since the Republicans Have The Votes, so nothing else matters.
Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

Bondi lied and misrepresented the facts relentlessly on the Senate floor.
HandoutGetty Images
Reading her prepared argument like a seventh-grader delivering a history report, Bondi found herself inevitably stanning for the deeply corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. In reality, Shokin was removed because the government of the United States, the World Bank, and virtually every official in the western world except Sir Paul McCartney knew he was for sale and wanted him gone. Biden, then vice president, had been tasked with delivering the warning from the United States to Ukraine. Shokin had opened an investigation into Burisma but he had then stuffed it. That was part of why everybody thought he was a crook. Bondi, however, asked us to sympathize with Viktor Shokin, the victim of Biden shenanigans, a theory that has been debunked from here to glory. I swear to god, if they’d put a menu from Denny’s in Bondi’s folder, she’d have blamed Hunter Biden for the Grand Slam breakfast.
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As gloriously unmoored as Bondi’s presentation was, Herschmann’s was even more bizarre. The defense team could have saved him a lot of work, and saved the chamber a lot of agita, if they’d just piped Alex Jones’s broadcast into the Senate chamber. Herschmann concluded his presentation by attempting to equate Barack Obama’s famous “flexibility” open mic remark in 2009 with what the president* tried to shake out of the Ukrainian president in return for releasing the military aid, an arrangement that John Bolton apparently has written about.
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(By the way, did John Bolton figure in the defense presentations on Monday? C’mon. Just stop.)
Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

Herschmann, center, entered the Capitol with Jay Sekulow, left, and Pat Cipollone, right.
Drew AngererGetty Images
But the real heart of Herschmann’s presentation was a series of rhetorical questions that showed he had as much awareness of his clients as a lemming has of a cliff. For example, a lawyer representing this president* actually asked this, in the chamber of the U.S. Senate, with the Chief Justice looking on.

Further, Herschmann asked us to put our brains in a pickle jar on the subject of why the president* would’ve shaken down Ukraine in the first place. I mean, who thinks that this president* in particular could be so arrogant and clumsy?

Corrupt intent? From the Deadbeat King of the Atlantic City Service Economy? Unpossible!
(Also, you will note that they can’t let go of that Schiff paraphrase, and that they still refuse to acknowledge that nobody outside of the White House has seen the real transcript of that phone call. These are the two ur-lies of the defense’s case.)
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More of this.

And all say amen. Wait, this is a lawyer defending this president*? Take that amen back.

Good god, give us strength.
This was all said in what passes for a court in front of an actual Chief Justice and what passes for a jury in the Senate of the United States. This was double-dog daring the universe to set your tongue on fire. Eventually, you move into a realm beyond journalism while dealing with this, and it is not a place in which any citizen of a democracy should feel comfortable. Which is why I’m glad to be going off to Iowa now, where the unreality still has a kind of innocent charm.

A formal investigation would make it very clear if shokin or biden was wrong.

e: rereading it , the equire peice doesn't really do much rebuttaling of Bondi's testimony.
 
Ostatnio edytowane:
Hoes mad. I'll let @It's HK-47 come take a crack at Charles P. Pierce's tantrum in writing.



A Monstrous Fraud Was Perpetrated on the Senate, and John Roberts Had to Know It
Eventually, you move into a realm beyond journalism while dealing with people like Pam Bondi and Eric Herschmann.

WASHINGTON—I am glad I am leaving this place on Tuesday and heading to Iowa, where some decent people are contending to head a government and a political system so corrupted and debased at this point that the ship of state most closely resembles that homeless wandering garbage barge from 1987. The last thing I saw was Republican Senators John Barrasso and Mike Braun, red-faced and hollering, because some reporters wanted to know precisely how much of the bullshit slung by the White House lawyers on Monday afternoon anyone should believe.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW


Make no mistake about it. From about 4 o’clock, the time former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rose to speak, until about 6, when a longtime lawyer for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago named Eric Herschmann wrapped up what amounted to some MAGA rally cosplay, a monstrously obvious fraud was perpetrated on the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment. If any lawyer in any municipal court in the country had lied and misrepresented the facts of a case involving a speeding ticket as thoroughly as Bondi and Herschmann did here, that lawyer’s license would have been pulled by lunchtime. However, Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps exhausted by the effort it took to extend the work of Breckinridge Long into the 21st century on Monday morning, sat there like one of the marble vice presidents in the niches of the visitor’s galleries above. A fraud was perpetrated on the court over which Roberts was presiding, and he had to know it.
I thought the defense case had scraped bottom when Ken Starr was brought out of cold storage to lecture the Senate on the dangers of a runaway impeachment process. But that turned out to be merely particularly odious concern-trolling. Irony died a long time ago and all Starr was doing was digging up the casket and setting it ablaze. However, it was the Bondi-Herschmann pas de deux ended up shredding the last possible rags of dignity that still clung to the truth in this farce. Bondi began by explaining how it was the House managers that forced her to get up and talk about the Bidens and Burisma. Of course, Bondi was the Florida attorney general who, in 2013, buried that state’s investigation into the fraudulent Trump University after a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation landed in her campaign account. At the moment, she’s making $115-large as a lobbyist for the government of Qatar. So, naturally, she was the lawyer chosen to crank up the innuendo machine regarding the Bidens and Burisma, especially since the Republicans Have The Votes, so nothing else matters.
Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

Bondi lied and misrepresented the facts relentlessly on the Senate floor.
HandoutGetty Images
Reading her prepared argument like a seventh-grader delivering a history report, Bondi found herself inevitably stanning for the deeply corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. In reality, Shokin was removed because the government of the United States, the World Bank, and virtually every official in the western world except Sir Paul McCartney knew he was for sale and wanted him gone. Biden, then vice president, had been tasked with delivering the warning from the United States to Ukraine. Shokin had opened an investigation into Burisma but he had then stuffed it. That was part of why everybody thought he was a crook. Bondi, however, asked us to sympathize with Viktor Shokin, the victim of Biden shenanigans, a theory that has been debunked from here to glory. I swear to god, if they’d put a menu from Denny’s in Bondi’s folder, she’d have blamed Hunter Biden for the Grand Slam breakfast.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW




As gloriously unmoored as Bondi’s presentation was, Herschmann’s was even more bizarre. The defense team could have saved him a lot of work, and saved the chamber a lot of agita, if they’d just piped Alex Jones’s broadcast into the Senate chamber. Herschmann concluded his presentation by attempting to equate Barack Obama’s famous “flexibility” open mic remark in 2009 with what the president* tried to shake out of the Ukrainian president in return for releasing the military aid, an arrangement that John Bolton apparently has written about.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW


(By the way, did John Bolton figure in the defense presentations on Monday? C’mon. Just stop.)
Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

Herschmann, center, entered the Capitol with Jay Sekulow, left, and Pat Cipollone, right.
Drew AngererGetty Images
But the real heart of Herschmann’s presentation was a series of rhetorical questions that showed he had as much awareness of his clients as a lemming has of a cliff. For example, a lawyer representing this president* actually asked this, in the chamber of the U.S. Senate, with the Chief Justice looking on.

Further, Herschmann asked us to put our brains in a pickle jar on the subject of why the president* would’ve shaken down Ukraine in the first place. I mean, who thinks that this president* in particular could be so arrogant and clumsy?

Corrupt intent? From the Deadbeat King of the Atlantic City Service Economy? Unpossible!
(Also, you will note that they can’t let go of that Schiff paraphrase, and that they still refuse to acknowledge that nobody outside of the White House has seen the real transcript of that phone call. These are the two ur-lies of the defense’s case.)
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW


More of this.

And all say amen. Wait, this is a lawyer defending this president*? Take that amen back.

Good god, give us strength.
This was all said in what passes for a court in front of an actual Chief Justice and what passes for a jury in the Senate of the United States. This was double-dog daring the universe to set your tongue on fire. Eventually, you move into a realm beyond journalism while dealing with this, and it is not a place in which any citizen of a democracy should feel comfortable. Which is why I’m glad to be going off to Iowa now, where the unreality still has a kind of innocent charm.
What is this faggot even trying to say?
 
I have checked out of this big league; however, I heard on Monday about a John Bolton "bombshell". Since then I have heard very little about this revelation. So was it anything or did it turn out to be nothing? If it was something I figure that they would be talking about it non-stop on television.
 
I have checked out of this big league; however, I heard on Monday about a John Bolton "bombshell". Since then I have heard very little about this revelation. So was it anything or did it turn out to be nothing? If it was something I figure that they would be talking about it non-stop on television.
Trump wanted the Ukrainian ambassador studycunt out for like a year before this shitshow happened.
 
Literally all the shit he’s done with Ukraine is what his job entails. Absolutely nothing he did is impeachable on an objective standard. If a politician in your nation is doing corrupt shit in another country even by proxy, you have treaty allowing you to investigate it and they’re dumb enough to air said corruption on television, then you ought to investigate it as head of the executive(i.e law-enforcement) branch pf government. You can talk about whether it is censurable, which I doubt but honestly some people may see it as uncouth and unwarranted (and probably wouldn’t blow up in the Dems’ face and might be more popular), but doing your fucking job to the point that the president of the Ukraine says nothing bad happened and even thanks you for going and helping him fight corruption in his country is not impeachable unless literally everything you do is.

I think it would look a lot worse had the Ukrainian President actually done what he told him to but while he didn't exactly tell him to go fuck himself, he didn't do what Trump said, either. So if there was intimidation or extortion, he doesn't seem to have been intimidated or extorted. It would also look worse if Trump had actually illegally delayed the funds. The funds, however, were transferred on time as legally required. I don't see how you get a conviction on that even if we were living in some perfect world where it wouldn't come straight down to a purely partisan vote.

And frankly I expect a couple Democratic votes to peel off when it comes down to it because as presented, this is a weak ass case.

Strategically and politically, I also think it's incredibly poorly timed, set up perfectly to give McConnell free rein to time it exactly how he likes, and he will probably time it to give Trump a big win when he needs it politically. Thinking in terms of sheer ratfucking, it would have been better to have this, if at all, in Trump's second term. Either they're going to win in November in which case the problem is solved, or they can use it to lame duck him. And they've blown that opportunity.

Meanwhile, they've accomplished nothing. Nobody who supports Trump is going to stop because of this blatantly political impeachment, especially after he easily wins it, which is pretty much what's going to happen.
 
I have checked out of this big league; however, I heard on Monday about a John Bolton "bombshell". Since then I have heard very little about this revelation. So was it anything or did it turn out to be nothing? If it was something I figure that they would be talking about it non-stop on television.
Supposedly someone "leaked" a tiddly bit from Jon "the Neocon" Bolton's new "tell-all" book about his time in the White House (trying to convince Trump to war the Russians, let Europe have more NATO gibs, and invade more shitholeistans) wherein this leak claimed that Bolton knew of everything the Dems want to convict him of, wrapped up in a nice little bow - so supposedly this "leak" is absolute proof that the disgruntled Neocon should take the stand in the impeachment trial.

Also TL;DR the Dems' theme for this impeachment has been "witnesses for me, but not for thee!"
 
Supposedly someone "leaked" a tiddly bit from Jon "the Neocon" Bolton's new "tell-all" book about his time in the White House (trying to convince Trump to war the Russians, let Europe have more NATO gibs, and invade more shitholeistans) wherein this leak claimed that Bolton knew of everything the Dems want to convict him of, wrapped up in a nice little bow - so supposedly this "leak" is absolute proof that the disgruntled Neocon should take the stand in the impeachment trial.

Also TL;DR the Dems' theme for this impeachment has been "witnesses for me, but not for thee!"

There's more.

Nobody knows who the leaker is, but if you believe Breitbart, a person who would be in position to do it just so happens to be Alexander Vindman's identical twin brother.

 
I think it would look a lot worse had the Ukrainian President actually done what he told him to but while he didn't exactly tell him to go fuck himself, he didn't do what Trump said, either. So if there was intimidation or extortion, he doesn't seem to have been intimidated or extorted. It would also look worse if Trump had actually illegally delayed the funds. The funds, however, were transferred on time as legally required. I don't see how you get a conviction on that even if we were living in some perfect world where it wouldn't come straight down to a purely partisan vote.

And frankly I expect a couple Democratic votes to peel off when it comes down to it because as presented, this is a weak ass case.

Strategically and politically, I also think it's incredibly poorly timed, set up perfectly to give McConnell free rein to time it exactly how he likes, and he will probably time it to give Trump a big win when he needs it politically. Thinking in terms of sheer ratfucking, it would have been better to have this, if at all, in Trump's second term. Either they're going to win in November in which case the problem is solved, or they can use it to lame duck him. And they've blown that opportunity.

Meanwhile, they've accomplished nothing. Nobody who supports Trump is going to stop because of this blatantly political impeachment, especially after he easily wins it, which is pretty much what's going to happen.

What's why - despite people like Ashy trying to "rub our faces in it", or whatever it is she? thinks she's? doing, lots of people were surprised it got this far, and why the poll for this thread turned out the way it did.

The writing on the wall for how this was going to turn out was there from the point Trump released the transcript, which was... I don't remember if it was on day one, but it was day 2 or 3 if not. Because there was basically a domino chain of failure.

The senate wasn't going to vote to convict to begin with,
But that doesn't matter because they don't have any evidence to support their allegations,
But it wouldn't matter if they did, because their allegations aren't criminal in any event.

There was no way they could possibly win this. They had to know that going into it. The only possible victory they could have gotten was a PR victory "Oh, we tried our best, but those fucking deplorables wouldn't see reason, the traitors!". Which is the song Schiff and Nadler have been trying to sing for the last week... But that too was a doomed proposition. Without evidence - which they knew they didn't have, from day one - of an actual crime - which there wasn't - the only people their theatrics would work on were people who already had made up their minds. The only people they could possibly influence were people they could only influence against them. And they should have known that, but for some reason they did it anyways.
 
There was no way they could possibly win this. They had to know that going into it. The only possible victory they could have gotten was a PR victory.

That was the exact victory they were going for, though. People seem to keep forgetting how many people listen to PR.

Second, there's an argument this is really to rile up the base to try and take back the Senate.
 
iirc didn't he specifically work with the feds against the mob?

From what I remember, Trump (and Hilton ircc) was a driving force behind the scenes in the 80's, in wresting the construction unions from mob control & city subsidies. The mob's primary focus had by then shifted to narcotics and money-laundering.

How? He paid them better than the mob and state ever did, and rarely (if ever) had to use scabs when unions threatened to strike; Trump just made them deals they couldn't refuse.
 
I have checked out of this big league; however, I heard on Monday about a John Bolton "bombshell". Since then I have heard very little about this revelation. So was it anything or did it turn out to be nothing? If it was something I figure that they would be talking about it non-stop on television.

My understanding is that he basically wrote in his upcoming book "I know that Donald J Trump committed impeachable crimes and expressly wanted quid pro quo from Ukraine" and the Democrats have apparently never once heard of something lying about something contained in a book in order to sell more copies.

Bolton now has (basically) every media site and TV channel in known existence shilling and talking about his soon-to-be-released book nearly 24/7 for several days now.
 
Hoes mad. I'll let @It's HK-47 come take a crack at Charles P. Pierce's tantrum in writing.



A Monstrous Fraud Was Perpetrated on the Senate, and John Roberts Had to Know It
Eventually, you move into a realm beyond journalism while dealing with people like Pam Bondi and Eric Herschmann.

WASHINGTON—I am glad I am leaving this place on Tuesday and heading to Iowa, where some decent people are contending to head a government and a political system so corrupted and debased at this point that the ship of state most closely resembles that homeless wandering garbage barge from 1987. The last thing I saw was Republican Senators John Barrasso and Mike Braun, red-faced and hollering, because some reporters wanted to know precisely how much of the bullshit slung by the White House lawyers on Monday afternoon anyone should believe.
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Make no mistake about it. From about 4 o’clock, the time former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rose to speak, until about 6, when a longtime lawyer for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago named Eric Herschmann wrapped up what amounted to some MAGA rally cosplay, a monstrously obvious fraud was perpetrated on the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment. If any lawyer in any municipal court in the country had lied and misrepresented the facts of a case involving a speeding ticket as thoroughly as Bondi and Herschmann did here, that lawyer’s license would have been pulled by lunchtime. However, Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps exhausted by the effort it took to extend the work of Breckinridge Long into the 21st century on Monday morning, sat there like one of the marble vice presidents in the niches of the visitor’s galleries above. A fraud was perpetrated on the court over which Roberts was presiding, and he had to know it.
I thought the defense case had scraped bottom when Ken Starr was brought out of cold storage to lecture the Senate on the dangers of a runaway impeachment process. But that turned out to be merely particularly odious concern-trolling. Irony died a long time ago and all Starr was doing was digging up the casket and setting it ablaze. However, it was the Bondi-Herschmann pas de deux ended up shredding the last possible rags of dignity that still clung to the truth in this farce. Bondi began by explaining how it was the House managers that forced her to get up and talk about the Bidens and Burisma. Of course, Bondi was the Florida attorney general who, in 2013, buried that state’s investigation into the fraudulent Trump University after a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation landed in her campaign account. At the moment, she’s making $115-large as a lobbyist for the government of Qatar. So, naturally, she was the lawyer chosen to crank up the innuendo machine regarding the Bidens and Burisma, especially since the Republicans Have The Votes, so nothing else matters.
Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

Bondi lied and misrepresented the facts relentlessly on the Senate floor.
HandoutGetty Images
Reading her prepared argument like a seventh-grader delivering a history report, Bondi found herself inevitably stanning for the deeply corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. In reality, Shokin was removed because the government of the United States, the World Bank, and virtually every official in the western world except Sir Paul McCartney knew he was for sale and wanted him gone. Biden, then vice president, had been tasked with delivering the warning from the United States to Ukraine. Shokin had opened an investigation into Burisma but he had then stuffed it. That was part of why everybody thought he was a crook. Bondi, however, asked us to sympathize with Viktor Shokin, the victim of Biden shenanigans, a theory that has been debunked from here to glory. I swear to god, if they’d put a menu from Denny’s in Bondi’s folder, she’d have blamed Hunter Biden for the Grand Slam breakfast.
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As gloriously unmoored as Bondi’s presentation was, Herschmann’s was even more bizarre. The defense team could have saved him a lot of work, and saved the chamber a lot of agita, if they’d just piped Alex Jones’s broadcast into the Senate chamber. Herschmann concluded his presentation by attempting to equate Barack Obama’s famous “flexibility” open mic remark in 2009 with what the president* tried to shake out of the Ukrainian president in return for releasing the military aid, an arrangement that John Bolton apparently has written about.
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(By the way, did John Bolton figure in the defense presentations on Monday? C’mon. Just stop.)
Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump Continues

Herschmann, center, entered the Capitol with Jay Sekulow, left, and Pat Cipollone, right.
Drew AngererGetty Images
But the real heart of Herschmann’s presentation was a series of rhetorical questions that showed he had as much awareness of his clients as a lemming has of a cliff. For example, a lawyer representing this president* actually asked this, in the chamber of the U.S. Senate, with the Chief Justice looking on.

Further, Herschmann asked us to put our brains in a pickle jar on the subject of why the president* would’ve shaken down Ukraine in the first place. I mean, who thinks that this president* in particular could be so arrogant and clumsy?

Corrupt intent? From the Deadbeat King of the Atlantic City Service Economy? Unpossible!
(Also, you will note that they can’t let go of that Schiff paraphrase, and that they still refuse to acknowledge that nobody outside of the White House has seen the real transcript of that phone call. These are the two ur-lies of the defense’s case.)
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More of this.

And all say amen. Wait, this is a lawyer defending this president*? Take that amen back.

Good god, give us strength.
This was all said in what passes for a court in front of an actual Chief Justice and what passes for a jury in the Senate of the United States. This was double-dog daring the universe to set your tongue on fire. Eventually, you move into a realm beyond journalism while dealing with this, and it is not a place in which any citizen of a democracy should feel comfortable. Which is why I’m glad to be going off to Iowa now, where the unreality still has a kind of innocent charm.
What a farce.

Liberals like this don't believe in God.
 
Supposedly someone "leaked" a tiddly bit from Jon "the Neocon" Bolton's new "tell-all" book about his time in the White House (trying to convince Trump to war the Russians, let Europe have more NATO gibs, and invade more shitholeistans) wherein this leak claimed that Bolton knew of everything the Dems want to convict him of, wrapped up in a nice little bow - so supposedly this "leak" is absolute proof that the disgruntled Neocon should take the stand in the impeachment trial.

Also TL;DR the Dems' theme for this impeachment has been "witnesses for me, but not for thee!"

Ironically, one of the things I actually like about Trump is he's told these neocon cunts to go take a hike and not done what they want. Bolton is a disgruntled scumbag. I heard Trump openly mocked him at staff meetings about how his solution to everything was just bombing shit. Just for not giving neocons what they want Trump is already better than Dubya.
 
Who’s the defence council guy with the yellow tie? Because his answer was just perfect.
 
I think it would look a lot worse had the Ukrainian President actually done what he told him to but while he didn't exactly tell him to go fuck himself, he didn't do what Trump said, either. So if there was intimidation or extortion, he doesn't seem to have been intimidated or extorted. It would also look worse if Trump had actually illegally delayed the funds. The funds, however, were transferred on time as legally required. I don't see how you get a conviction on that even if we were living in some perfect world where it wouldn't come straight down to a purely partisan vote.

And frankly I expect a couple Democratic votes to peel off when it comes down to it because as presented, this is a weak ass case.

Strategically and politically, I also think it's incredibly poorly timed, set up perfectly to give McConnell free rein to time it exactly how he likes, and he will probably time it to give Trump a big win when he needs it politically. Thinking in terms of sheer ratfucking, it would have been better to have this, if at all, in Trump's second term. Either they're going to win in November in which case the problem is solved, or they can use it to lame duck him. And they've blown that opportunity.

Meanwhile, they've accomplished nothing. Nobody who supports Trump is going to stop because of this blatantly political impeachment, especially after he easily wins it, which is pretty much what's going to happen.

Technically its even worse for the dems argument. Its not that Ukraine President didn't do what Trump asked him to, its that he didn't have to.

What the media have been desperately been trying to ignore is the fact that Ukraine had already reopened an investigation into Burisma about 4 months before Trumps phone call. So there was no intimidation or extortion because the Ukrainians were doing what Trump wanted of there own accord before he even asked.
 
What the media have been desperately been trying to ignore is the fact that Ukraine had already reopened an investigation into Burisma about 4 months before Trumps phone call. So there was no intimidation or extortion because the Ukrainians were doing what Trump wanted of there own accord before he even asked.

I think the argument is Trump wanted something more specific, but it obviously doesn't help the case that he was trying to "extort" them into doing something they were already doing anyway of their own free will, and that he was trying to "extort" or "bribe" them using money he gave them anyway.

I also don't think Schiff's near admission that none of this would have constituted actual violations of any actual statute, but was "criminal" anyway is going to impress many people. How much shit can you think of where you could be charged, as a normal person, with a felony, for absolutely minor shit? Almost everything is a felony. So the claim that the "high crimes and misdemeanors" aspect of an impeachment need not actually be a statutory offense is, obviously, a truism, but it really invites doubt when they can't point to any actual statutes Trump violated that would give rise to a criminal prosecution of a normal person.

It's "extortion," but nothing was actually extorted. It's "bribery," but there was no actual bribe, just money from Congress that was delivered on time. You can point to a number of statutes here and say well, this one element was met. Where are the others? Where is the actual criminal offense where all elements are met?

This doesn't mean by itself, obviously, that something isn't impeachable. It doesn't even need to be against any actual law to be impeachable. But when you look at this as a normal person and think about how many things you could possibly be found guilty of a felony for, and the absolute lack of any of these actually applying to what Trump did, you have to be seriously doubtful about the validity of this bullshit.

If this impeachment actually stands, it would more or less cripple the Presidency as any President could just be impeached at will because the opposition really, really hated him and had a temporary majority in the House. That's where it's really at.
 
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