Why is Mitch McConnell refusing to subpoena any documents and witnesses?

There's no way for the Democrats in the House or for the Senate, or for you or for me, to know what Trump knew and when he knew it. It's all conjecture. In fact, my comments about whether he knew any particular act was a crime or not was in general context and not in the context of the Ukraine call. In the Ukraine call, there's no crime. In the impeachment, there's no allegation of a crime.

It comes down, solely, to whether the behavior of asking for an investigation was an effort to discredit a political opponent or was it an effort to investigate what everyone knows was an abuse of power by Joe Biden in demanding a quid pro quo on the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor and violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Bribery, the Hobbs Act, etc.

It is clear by law, treaty, and the Constitution that President Trump not only has the authority to ask for the investigation but, also, has the obligation to ask for the investigation. That constitutional and legal requirement to ask for the investigation doesn't, I'll concede, prove that his intent was based on that requirement. It is certainly possible that his intent as strictly to help his campaign. It's also possible it was not solely to help his campaign. Even a smidgen (that's a legal measure, right?) of constitutional intent is enough to make it completely constitutional.but no one can ever prove his intent.

So the question the Senate has to answer is, are they going to overturn an election and, for the first time in the history of the United States, remove an elected president from office over intent that they cannot prove. If it is clear that they are not, then they need to end this farce of an impeachment trial. There's no obligation or expectation that the Senate should be used to further the political motives of the Democratic Party. If there's no chance of conviction then they need to end it. It's not the Senate's job to further the House's investigation.

If the House wants to further their investigation, they can go for it. Push the subpoenas. If all the witnesses in the world aren't going to change the outcome, and they're not, then there is no reason for the Senate to call those witnesses. If the Democrats want to continue their attacks on Trump, they are free to call those witnesses in the House.

The 3 years of attacks on Trump, planning and starting the impeachment investigation the day after the election in 2016, have divided our country long enough. It's time for the Senate to put an end to it. They know what a partisan farce the impeachment hearings were; they know it's a purely political hatchet job. End it.

If the House wants to start impeachment #2 with Bolton, they should go for it. But the Senate does not need to play their game.

 

You're right that the Constitution does not require intent. You're wrong, though, that it is ignored in all other cases. A guy at work made a mistake in a computer program that ended up leaking information about one of our customers to another of our customers. Those customers are competitors. We paid a 2.7 million dollar fine to the government. The guy wasn't fired. He was one of the best programmers I have ever known. He retired a few years later, still at the top of his game and reputation. It was a mistake; people make them.

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told his members during Tuesday’s meeting that there are not enough votes to block impeachment witnesses, according to the Wall Street Journal.

He reportedly carried cards labeled “yes,” “no” and “maybe,” but did not show them to the senators.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/liveblog-impeachment-trial-begins-in-the-senate

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Of course there's a way. For example: he knows it when hey's told. Or when he himself expresses it to somebody else. And by his actions... There are multiple ways.

And, of course, there is human reasoning. Most trials (criminal and political) are resolved by common sense: logic, deductive reasoning..... It's what makes us human. And only people who is personally vested in the case (be it because of involvement or because of pure partisanship) would expect anybody who is not personally vested to refrain from using it. Independent-thinking people will use common sense anyway, no matter how much you tell them not to. So it's futile . It only helps if you are preaching to the choir. And that's the reason why you will only hear that seriously proposed in the Fox News echo-chamber.

I don't know who this "everybody else" is. I don't know anybody who doesn't cherry-pick facts who believes that. But since this discussion is not about Biden I'll just say that Trump didn't even want an investigation. He was certainly not interested in corruption.

I don't know why the right keeps repeating that. Of course he had the power to do that. You can't abuse power if you don't have the power in the first place. That's not even a question. The question is if he used it for personal gain. And that's what all of this is about.

No it isn't. Hillary does not become President if Trump is removed. Nor is the 2016 election repeated. The question they answer is if the President has abused his power for personal gain. And, in this case, to subvert our Democratic process (which is also illegal, BTW) so as to try to cheat himself into getting himself re-elected.

If you accept this notion that impeachment is a farce, you accept that a President's power has no checks, that he/she is basically a dictator and, especially when combined with a complicit senate, that the power of government over the people is very close to absolute.

That's what they want. And that's what the Senate should want. And that's what a President who is innocent would also want. But this one has been using the tremendous power of the office to shut it down. The question right now is if the Senate is complicit in this. Because if they are, we have, in effect, a dictatorship. It's ironic that the Party that once fought against what they considered "big government" would be the one that ends the Republic.

Yes they do. It's in their original oath of office, and it's in the oath they took for this impeachment trial.

 

I didn't say it's ignored. It's just not a requirement.

Are you arguing that what Trump did was just "a mistake"?

 

No; I'm not saying what Trump did was a mistake. Read the quote in context and which of your statements I was replying to. You said that there's no job in the world where you get to keep your job because you didn't know it was illegal. I gave you an example of a law broken, a very large fine paid, and the offender kept his job. You were wrong.

Trump didn't make a mistake - except in not firing, even after all the leaks he's endured, everyone in the White House - from janitors and phone answerers up to chief of staff, and building a new team, excluding all of the NSC from any monitoring, tracking, recording of any of his calls or work, firing every single US attorney, firing every single ambassador, and making them all reapply for their jobs, including background checks and lie-detector tests. Hopefully, he will do all of this after the next election. It's time for him to drain the swamp.

 

No! You said he wasn't fired because he was one of the best programmers you have ever known. Not because he didn't know that leaking information of one customer to another was illegal.

You wanted me to read the context, I did. And I still have no idea why you would even mention that anecdote unless you meant to say that you believed that what Trump did was a mistake. But I'm sure it's irrelevant.

They would likely all have past. What you seem to be trying to say is that if he planned to abuse power he should have made them take a test to make sure they were more loyal to him than to their country.