Mitt Romney: Trump Impeachment Trial Important For 'Unity,' 'Accountability'

I neither know nor care and that's not what I asked. My question was could this be a way of preventing Trump from running again because if he can he will and the violent insurrection he started on 1/6 will simply continue in 2024

 

He will not be convicted and thus he can still run in 2024.

Though I think it is more likely that he picks one of the flock to run

 

But, as a Senator, that would be against your own oath...to the Constitution, not to an individual.

 

Isn't it? Who knew the last standing real Rebublican could be so truthful??

 

Taking an oath to uphold the Constitution would actually ensure my presence to vote against any charges being placed on a Citizen, when the only person who should stand such a trial is a currently-seated President. It's not about Trump; it's about the unconstitutionality of the entire trial which would require a "No" vote.

 

They're very, very frightened (what else is new, eh?)

 

IF, if, if. IF his health remains. He's an old guy, who is hugely overweight. If he maintains his position in the Party versus all who would like to be the 2024 candidate. IF he isn't convicted of a felony due to what may be a variety of charges ranging from tax fraud to insurrection and/or sedition. IMO, the odds are not in his favor.

 

Agree with the first, not the second.. 2 completely separate tracks..

 

He's focused right now on being a "kingmaker" in the 2022 mid-terms.

 

Understand...but the only "standard" for a Senate "conviction" is a two-thirds vote of the Senate members present. Whereas, a federal indictment has a higher standard..."beyond a reasonable doubt." That DoJ standard - the same as for a jury conviction - is why they have a 90%+ conviction rate.

 

There is nothing preventing a felon from running for office.

Only the Senate can bar a President from holding office, and only if they first get an impeachment trial conviction.

 

Right.

 

I don't see why you believe that he will not be convicted of the insurrection as a private citizen

 

It probably won't last long.

The length of the trial is still an open question and will depend both on whether the House impeachment managers seek to call witnesses and the length of senators' questions for the legal teams. But sources say most believe the trial will be shorter than the three-week 2020 impeachment trial for Trump.

Senate impeachment trial arguments to start February 9 - CNNPolitics

That Republicans won't vote to convict in sufficient numbers is exactly why the trial must be held. These Republicans have no interest in unity. They don't even think they lost the election. It does no one any good to ignore the trial. The GOP strategy isn't changed either way. They don't unify. They fight. Everything. All the time. The nation deserves answers, and if it takes three weeks to get those answers, so be it. We have the time. Nothing would be any different without the trial; the GOP would still be engaged in obstruction, just three weeks earlier.

 

Because you need 17 Republicans and that won't happen. Most Republicans are not going to do anything to piss off a high % of their base and they don't want Trump endorsing a candidate to run against them in their next primary

 

You may be right on the felon issue. But, try getting an ex-felon the nomination for either Party, or getting elected if they established their own Party.

 

Then you shouldn't take part in an unconstitutional act. I originally had the same question...but the Belknap trial convinced be that a person out-of-office could be tried in the Senate.

 

Shouldn't last long. To career politicians, especially the Democrats, shame and humiliation is as bad or worse than committing an actual crime. Trump is guilty of political rhetoric which isn't a crime. The point of the performance art is purely vindictive shame, to have Trump's legacy be smudged. For whatever reason, Pelosi thinks that being "the first leader" to impeach a president two times will reflect well on her own legacy.

To these career politicians whose "reputation is everything" and they are largely above the law, this public shaming is the ultimate career crusher. It would be for any one of them. What they don't understand is that for an outsider non-politician, the more The Establishment hates him, the more he wins his point that The Establishment is hypocritical and corrupt. Outsiders are not supposed to be "liked", otherwise they are "doing it wrong".

 

Political experts are about 50/50. If they can't figure it out, then there is no right or wrong answer today.

I suppose that this new precedent does establish that an ex-President "can be" tried, with the evidence being that they are doing it. lol Probably doesn't settle the constitutionality question though.

Anyway, whatever precedent one side successfully sets always boomerangs back at them down the road. Maybe Republicans will impeach and put Obama on trial some day.

 

Need to go old school - impeach FDR

 

Correct. That is exactly the plan. Any Senator who votes to convict will be primaried. That may or may not be a significant threat. I believe the plan is to primary all the RINOs anyway, but a conviction vote would certainly guarantee a primary challenge.

Senators who live in purple states with a more moderate base probably don't have much to worry about mid-term challengers.

It'll be interesting to see how the votes play out.

 

Impeach them all!! LOL

 

Well...I've always said that hypocrisy is the glue of civilization. But, "political rhetoric" MAY BE A CRIME. The key is proving the rhetoric had the intent of causing a crime. In fact, that was largely the way Clinton escaped prosecution in the e-mail investigation. There are two ways to prove intent: 1) a confession or 2) overwhelming indirect evidence (such has the confessions of other people engaged in the crime that the defendant was an integral part of the plotting of the crime). In Clinton's case, she never confessed that she "knowingly broke the law" and the investigators couldn't crack her story with other indirect evidence (maybe one exception by an IT person on her staff, but he confessed the error was his, not hers. Assuming that Trump won't confess (not necessarily a certainty), other witnesses could testify against him...and remember, he is now without his pardon power and the protection of the DoJ policy on not indicting a sitting President (and probably, at this point, without many friends). I would expect Trump to be called to testify, as well as Pence, Guiliani, et al and this time under oath.

 

He didn't say anything more or less than Kamala Harris did. It's entirely possible that today's actions will be used against Kamala when the Republicans take back the House in 2023.

Bunch of useless politicking going on; not much working to benefit the citizenry. Government needs to be reformed and The Establishment is not going to reform itself. Gotta' be done by a series of outsiders chipping away at the corruption little by little.

 

Doubt it. The importance of Belknap isn't that he was convicted on impeachment (he wasn't), but the fact that there was a Senate trial.