WATCH LIVE | Impeachment trial of President Trump continues in Senate (Day 3)

And yet the GAO still concluded that Trump violated the law because he failed to notify Congress about the delay or to ever provide a policy justification for the delay.

 

Wikipedia isn't a source for anything. If I used that as a college source, I would be disqualified for having done so. Of course, this isn't a college course but just pointing out.

But this is the most interesting day(day 4), because we will finally hear representative counsel. For the last month and a half and the first 3 days, we heard the prosecution state it's case. Such a one-sided affair has finally ended, and we will finally have a second opinion on this.

 

No, we get more day of the House Managers. Trump's legal team will start saturday, probably in the morning.

 

The constitution predates our laws and it was broken... I don't need to try again.

 

Oh darn, I'm busy on Saturday....maybe some friendly conservative will summarize the defense for us today.

I imagine it will go something like this

Get over it.

 

There is nothing that violates any part of the Constitution.

 

I'll summarize the defense. I haven't watched the trial thus far(and a glance at youtube videos of 9K views, etc shows that most people haven't) because the Prosecution has already made its case. More days is actually hurting the prosecution's cause. They need to deliver closing arguments to actually be nice, tidy and short today.

SInce MrtLegal expects legal defense arguments to start Saturday, that's when interest will peak up. But I do want to thank Adam Schiff for threatening Senators with jail time.(Such calls of course actually reside with Senate Leader McConnell and the Chief Justice.)

 

Hardly. They did not subpoena the witnesses they wanted. First, there is no legal precedent for the executive to be subpoenaed by the Intelligence Committee. There is for the Judiciary. They would have had to go to court to argue their case so dropped any subpoena's they had. Now they want to impeach Trump because the House didn't do it's job correctly. You can't impeach a President for upholding the constitutional separation of powers.

 

Opinion. You know what the remedy would be? Sue the executive to release the funds. Moot point.

 

Its simple.. Pelosi viewed this as her personal Christmas Present thus the rush.

I can bump all the posts mentioning this and the gloating but i'm sure you remember them /wink

 

The constitution IS law and includes the separation of powers the House did not want to test.

 

I can 100% agree with that... I never thought the House would go into a third day....

I understand today is focusing on Article 2, which is as clear as a bell... How can that take more than 2 hours?? Simply list the witnesses (most) and documents (all) you didn't get.

But the best part is they can point out the complete 180 degree differing arguments being made by the Trump administration in this trial vs the McGahn appeal.

 

As you understand by now, I'm on the President's side(actually, being more blunt. I don't think impeachment was ever warranted. A censure would have sufficed.). My argument against Article 2 is very simple: Irrelevant since the House has submitted these Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. Article II is a complaint without merit, since they complain about the lack of material they could've otherwise gotten with the withdrawn subpoena.

It lacks merit, and will easily be dismissed. That took me 3 minutes to write, and probably 1 minute to speak.

 

And I fully disagree... the case is made stronger every single day that goes by that Don McGahn doesn't appear in front of the House Judiciary committee...

I personally would vote to remove on Article 2 faster than Article 1.

 

Making a further argument: It is the courts(or even more specifically, legally compelling authority) that can compel a witness to testify. The Senate does not have this legal compelling authority that the House is asking it, given the House's lack of action and the Senate's lack of authority, the Senate needn't hear this article.

 

I think that what bothers the Left about the blatant nature of the political Left's lies is that since the liars are mere representatives, actual senators don't really care what garbage comes rolling out of their mouth. It's like expecting adults to pay serious attention to the rantings of a group of spoiled children.

 

I honestly do not know what that means. Senate lack of authority?

But as to your argument in bold... I agree with that, but the Trump administration is currently arguing the exact opposite to the court. 100% all the time... Courts have no ability to compel Don McGahn to appear.

You cannot agree with that?

 

Today's Impeachment Managers' agenda is to try to justify Article II. If anything is not worth watching, it will be today's presentation. "Obstruction of Justice" would be a more "real" accusation, but the House didn't have anything to justify that charge. "Obstruction of Congress" is watered down and ludicrous on its face, as Congress is the House and the Senate, not just Democrats in the House who didn't get everything they hoped for. It wouldn't be surprising if the Senate ends up dismissing Article II.

 

Again; they should have gone with meaningful charges and then backed that up with hard and germane evidence BEFORE crafting and passing the articles of impeachment. Now the political Left is shocked -- shocked I say! -- that the actual adults in the room are not taking their bumbling and fumbling leftist leadership seriously?

 

A few members of the House dont see the issue with trying to set the precedent that those few members can demand any communication of any sort or the appearence of anyone in the Admin at any time for any reason and if does not happen the President gets impeached...

They thought the Nuclear option blew back in their faces....

 

That's a misinterpretation of what the DOJ is arguing. The DOJ isn't arguing that the Courts couldn't hear the case(I mean, they're in the building.) The DOJ is arguing that the Courts lack the jurisdiction to rule on what is essentially a dispute between the executive and legislative branches.

Or a simpler way to frame it is how the Supreme Court puts focus on 'precedence'(the idea that future rulings back off on, and rely upon past rulings.) This is why Justices must give strong legal opinions that can be referenced over time.(IE: Dissent/consenting orders.)

The solution is for the House to argue that the Court does have jurisdiction. That is, that the court has a political power within the political dispute. The DOJ is arguing that this case, though it has political implications is not a political remedy and therefore the Court cannot be seen as a bridge between the executive and legislative branches.

It's a very nuanced argument, and it's somewhat making a distinction for distinction's sake, but it is sound. As an example: When Devin Nunes(think whatever you will of him) sued Crowdstrike, he didn't sue Crowdstrike as a "member of the House of Representatives", but rather as Devin Nunes.

It's not anywhere as close as far fetched as "absolute immunity", which was a legal concept but not granted into law.

 

I tbink their argument is the same one Washington made as president. In an impeachment they house has a right to everything.

 

Some would call that "Abuse of Congressional Power".

 

“The DOJ is arguing that the Courts lack the jurisdiction to rule on what is essentially a dispute between the executive and legislative branches. “
So they don’t turn over docs and say rhe court can’t make them. How exactly would they still have any oversight authority at all??

 

That's splitting major hairs, dude... Nobody is saying the courts couldn't hear the case... The DOJ were the ones that appealed the November decision.

Their argument is the courts cannot decide the issue at hand. In other words, the ruling needs to be we appealed to you so you can rule that you cannot rule on this.

The DOJ is essentially arguing NOBODY can check the Executive Branch and thus combined with the BS OLC opinion on presidential indictment, puts the President 100% above the law.

That's crap and why it's incumbent on the courts (Appeal and Supreme) to say that's crap.