When/If Impeachment goes to the Senate...

Abortion was LEGAL when the nation was founded THEREFORE it was covered by the 9th.

Voting rights for ALL CITIZENS was also covered even if the nation had not yet achieved that level of enlightenment.

That the racist South refused to give up SLAVERY is NOT the fault of those slaves who were being DENIED their RIGHTS as NATURAL BORN CITIZENS.

 

You are right that the GOP is in a Lose-Lose situation in the Senate because seats are at risk no matter which way they vote.

The BLOTUS resigning would be the best thing for the GOP Senate but that is unlikely IMO.

There is now the potential for Moscow Mitch to lose but I am not holding my breath on that one.

 

Kentucky has a long history of electing Democrats to the governorship. But not senators and voting for the Democratic presidential nominee. Beshear father was Kentucky's governor prior to Bevin. Bevin was also rated the worst governor in the nation. Yet, he barely lost. Republicans won every other statewide race and by comfortable margins except the governorship.

McConnell approval rating is in the pits. Even so, I don't think Kentucky is going to send a Democrat to the senate. McConnell may be disliked a whole bunch, but he is still viewed the better alternative to a Democrat.

 

What you said.

 

Incorrect.

Mueller made the factual determination that Trump committed 8 possibly obstructive acts and demonstrated their nexus to a federal investigation.
Mueller did NOT make the factual determination that Trump committed those with corrupt intent.
Absent a factual determination of corrupt intent, there can be no obstruction of justice.

But hey - at least YOU tried.

 

Actually abortion was only legal in some of the states/colonies. In others it was not. Not that that has any bearing on today. And what does slavery have to do with the voter suppression of today?

Oh, and before you get all huffy and puffy at me I'm pro-choice politically and I'm against gerrymandering, which suppresses votes, and both sides partake in it.

 

There is some evidence that The People are already getting tired of this.

 

I agree. The best way to attack Trump's prospects for re-election would be to hold the impeachment vote the week prior to the election. I think that is what they will do. If Trump loses, then the impeachment won't get to the Senate. If he wins, then the Senate will take it up and acquit him. Then the democrats can launch Russia Collusion III. If they do the impeachment vote too early, it will hurt the democrats.

 

No it didn't and sent no such charges to the Attorney General who with the Deputy Attorney General and the Office of Legal Counsel to the DOJ said no obstruction of justice.

Why do you think there is NOT talk of such obstruction of justice in the impeachment going on?

 

What possible innocent intent could there have been? The report does address intent, read it again. Mueller simply refused to conclude anything on a sitting president outside of a court of law, which he couldn't do without indicting, which he couldn't do according to DOJ official rules. Mueller was vocally clear more than once that the report does not exonerate the president. But hey, at least you tried.

Unless he can win reelection, Trump will leave office in Jan. 2021, shortly after which we can expect him to be indicted by that same grand jury (which btw has not been disbanded). If he is reelected, the statute of limitations will run out during his second term and he'll get off scott-free. Trump knows this, which is why he is absolutely desperate, enough to extort or bribe the president of Ukraine to help him dirty his strongest opponent.

 

The collective "people" generally have the attention span of a gnat. And who can blame them? They're busy trying to pay their bills, which gets harder to do with economic and tax policies that don't benefit them, in spite of Trump's lofty but empty promises.

Not everything can be simplified for the unknowing who often don't even have time to watch the nightly news, or for the stubbornly ignorant on the right who much prefer the simple false narratives coming from Trumpville. It's so much easier to repeat the bull pucky like "Trump is the victim" than it is to read, listen, and comprehend something as momentous as a presidential impeachment.

 

No, believe it or not, it is not

No it is not....

you mean like Clinton?

This is too funny... you cannot be serious
Ever since trump ran and was elected, I have heard conservatives complaining about how they were forced to vote for trump in order to oppose Hillary

So no one on this forum was voted for trump because they could not stomach Clinton? I guess people voted FOR trump because he was going to get Mexico to pay for the wall... or because trump would lock her up...
Or he would “drain the swamp”

​

 

Mueller:
...unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President’s intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct.

And, Mueller:
Direct or indirect action by the President to end a criminal investigation into his own or his family members’ conduct to protect against personal embarrassment or legal liability would constitute a core example of corruptly motivated conduct. So too would action to halt an enforcement proceeding that directly and adversely affected the President’s financial interests for the purpose of protecting those interests. In those examples, official power is being used for the purpose of protecting the President’s personal interests. In contrast, the President’s actions to serve political or policy interests would not qualify as corrupt. The President’s role as head of the government necessarily requires him to take into account political factors in making policy decisions that affect law-enforcement actions and proceedings.

Quote the text where Mueller makes the factual determination that Trump acted with corrupt intent.

You just (incorrectly) said that Mueller "details eight specific acts of obstruction of justice" - that is, Mueller concluded Trump committed 8 acts of obstruction.
In fact, Mueller concluded - that is, made a factual determination - there were 8 obstructive acts, and concluded all 8 had a nexus to an investigation.
Mueller did NOT conclude, however, that Trump acted with corrupt intent.

Absent a factual determination of corrupt intent, there can be no obstruction of justice. - let me know when you can quote the text where Mueller made that factual determination.

 

And that was because Trump refused to be interviewed and witnesses lied and obstructed

 

You cannot demonstrate this be true.

 

You were the one who brought up the BoR, not me!

 

Boiled down to the simple, in deference to Trump supporters: Mueller couldn't answer intent without interviewing the subject, which he did not do. He could have subpoenaed Trump, but wimped out and opted to accept written answers.

The good news is that those written answers were considered to be under oath, and now they're finding the lies in them.

You do have my respect, though, for being one of the few who actually read the report.

 

Not sure which part of the quote this applies to?

Then things need to change.

Something that I was against.

As already noted by me in the same post that you quote and splice up.

There were people that vote for him for those things or other reasons. And there were people that voted for him because they couldn't stomach Hillary. Do you see the same happening this election season? Or is there a difference? …Perhaps a more hardened stance?​

 

Boiled down to the simple:
You are fully aware of the fact Mueller did not make a factual determination of corrupt intent; as no such determination was made, there is no validity to your (individually and collectively) claim that the Mueller report details eight specific acts of obstruction of justice.

 

And here I thought you had read the report.

Mueller answers that in the Introduction to Volume II.

 

This is from the transcript provided by the White House. This is what Trump told the Ukrainian president.

"I would like you to do us a favor though. The other thing, there's a lot of.talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me."

No hearsay, no second or third hand testimony, the quote above is straight from the horse's mouth.

So, is this.

At a recent briefing, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney blithely described quid pro quo. “What you’re describing is a quid pro quo,” asserted a reporter. “We do that all the time,” replied Mulvaney. “Did he also mention to me the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about it. But that’s it. That’s why we held up the money … I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in [Trump's] foreign policy.”

 

Impeachment Hearings Live Updates: Republicans Question Vindman’s Loyalty

Republicans, as usual, cannot challenge the evidence against Trump so they attack the integrity of the witness.

The top Ukraine expert at the National Security Council, Colonel Alexander S. Vindman, testified that Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president in which Trump asked for investigations of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was “inappropriate” and “a partisan play.”

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio cited critical comments about Colonel Vindman’s judgment from two other impeachment witnesses, Timothy Morrison and Fiona Hill, Vindman’s former boss at the National Security Council.

“Any idea why they have those impressions?” Mr. Jordan inquired.

“Alex is a top one percent military officer and the best army officer I have worked with in my 15 years of government service,” Vindman said, quoting Hill. “He is brilliant, unflappable, and exercises excellent judgment.”

Republicans also pressed Colonel Vindman, an American citizen and Army officer who was born in Ukraine, about how Oleksandr Danylyuk, the director of Ukraine’s national security council, had approached him three times to offer him the job of defense minister in Kiev.

This as if, because the Ukrainians offered Vindman a job three times, has something to do with Vindman's loyalty. In defending their guilty President, Republicans are reaching. Vindman confirmed the offers and testified that he repeatedly declined, dismissing the idea out of hand and reporting the approaches to his superiors and to counterintelligence officials.

“Every single time, I dismissed it,” he said, adding that “I’m an American. I came here when I was a toddler. And I immediately dismissed these offers, did not entertain them.”

 

Republicans spent most of the day avoiding the testimony of the witnesses, providing their own testimony, attacking the media, and attacking the integrity of the Democrat's witnesses, Jennifer Williams and Colonel Alex Vindman.

In the afternoon the Intelligence Committee dealt with the Republican witnesses, Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison. They basically substantiated the reasons for the impeachment inquiry.

Volker offered very different testimony on Tuesday than he did when he spoke behind closed doors with House impeachment investigators.

"Since these events, and since I gave my testimony on October 3, a great deal of additional information and perspectives have come to light," Volker told the House Intelligence Committee.

Volker said in his October testimony that any conversations with the Ukrainians about making an announcement on the opening of an investigation into the Bidens had ended in August. But on Tuesday, Volker acknowledged that US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland had told a top Ukrainian official on September 1 that he believed the military aid was tied to the announcement of an investigation.

In an eyebrow-raising text he sent to a Ukrainian official Volker wrote “assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”

Timothy Morrison, who recently quit as the senior director for Europe and Ukraine at the National Security Council, said he did not think the President’s July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was inherently wrong or illegal, but feared it would ignite a political storm if it became public.

“I feared at the time of the call on July 25 how its disclosure would play in Washington’s climate,” he said. “My fears have been realized. I understand the gravity of these proceedings, but I beg you not to lose sight of the military conflict underway in Ukraine today.”

These are Republican witnesses. The Democratic leadership can only thank Nunes, Jordon, and the rest of Trump's defense team.

 

Mueller knew there was no collusion early on so why do you think he wasted so many taxpayer dollars trying to create an implication of obstruction?

 

and what is wrong with a president saying this?