So I think we need a thread for procedural issues relating to Impeachment. That’s different (but of course related to) the coming onslaught of political jockeying we will surely see.
Here’s a picture of the process:
I’m thinking of issues like this - I don’t know the answers myself, but maybe others will:
Must the Senate hold a trial? Perhaps not, but Mitch apparently says they will.
Can the House Managers call witnesses? Can they call Trump?
Who pays the legal bills for all the folks who are now being sucked into this, from Guiliani to Pence to hapless Foreign Service officers?
Roughly accurate in my initial impression. Doesn’t mention that the House may choose to form a select committee for the impeachment, which replaces the House Judiciary Committee’s role. Also doesn’t delve into the can of worms that the Senate majority leader (Moscow Mitch) might choose not to hold a trial, as discussed here:
Doesn’t mention that there are no rules for the conviction trial to be held in the senate after impeachment, save that the chief justice of the supreme court “presides” over that trial. The current majority party (mostly the majority leader) makes up those rules, including what the SC chief justice “presides” means (“bang the gavel at the opening and then get out of here”). So, simple game theory, if the majority party wants a real trial to happen then a real trial happens, probably borrowing rules of procedure from federal courts. If the majority party wants a kavanaugh-style whitewash, then, well, déjà vu.
Remember, when Nixon resigned before he was impeached, the Democratic Party had 60 senate seats and he needed to lose only 7 of 40 Republican senators to be convicted. When informed he had lost 7, he did his deal and resigned. The numbers today are 47D-53R. You do the math.
Cool story @filmknight - thing is impeachment is not going to happen and even if it does Democrats will all but guarantee a landslide re-election of Trump and then there will be hell to pay in the second term.
This is an issue that many seem to think is cut and dry. It isn’t.
A vote is not required for an inquiry. Which is what the House is proceeding with and touting it as there were a vote on consensus. Yet, no vote was taken.
The term is House Managers, and by tradition it is an odd-numbered team. From my limited knowledge the Managers have always been House members though I do not know if it is a requirement. It is not mentioned in the Constitution, so if needed the House could alter their rules to permit a David Boies on the team. But I can’t see any pol giving up their place in the sun so if you want David Boies you bring him on as an advisor and he sits in the 2nd row instead of the 1st.
But impeachment, and most especially the conviction trial, is a political process, not a legal one. A conviction will be obtained due to Trump polling at 30% or lower, not through clever lawyering. If, as I expect, Trump will still be at a safe level, the trial instead becomes a tool for influencing undecideds in 2020. If that is the case I’d prefer to have practiced politicians out there throwing rhetorical haymakers rather than listen to Boies drone on about legal minutia that will not sway 34 GOP Senators.
IMO, the democrats are attempting to negate the American vote in favor of their insane agenda. This will backfire on them just as every attempt they’ve made so far has with anyone outside of the far left base.
I am really wondering why they continue to double down on this path? Is TDS that blinding?
I honestly wonder if maybe Pelosi is smarter than we give her credit for. She knows Impeachment is going to hurt their party and they know that if they can’t get an impeachment vote done before they get the big boot come 2020, the Republicans will end the probe and it’ll just have been a waste of time and tax payer money. So ultimately, why bother with it at all if all it’s going to do is hurt the Democrats and cost them both chambers and the White House?
I think the answer is simple. She wants to put the Dems on chemotherapy to purge the commie cancer from the party. She wants the Squad and their ilk booted from the party because she knows that the commies are going to be a stone around the DNC’s neck for decades to come if not dealt with.
So as I see it, she knows that the DNC will have to take severe losses so that they can admit that they have a problem and deal with those problems before they can even hope to begin winning again. The Dems need to take a hard lurch to the right if they ever want to be respected again. But quite frankly, the Dems are just so damaged now, they’ll be better off simply dissolving into multiple smaller parties and let the Republicans rule for the foreseeable future.
She is smarter than most people give her credit for, but I don’t think she’s trying to do what you lay out.
The Democrat party will likely fracture eventually. There’s too many disparate groups with contradictory goals for it to survive, but I don’t think she’s trying to hasten the process.
She knows that impeachment would hurt the party in both the short and long-term, which is why there will not be any impeachment. All they are doing is inquiries. This is all just an elaborate farce to sate the bloodthirst of the far left, and keep the party at least superficially together past the 2020 election.
I think she’s hoping that the possibility of ‘getting the bad orange man’ will galvanize enough people to keep the status quo in Congress or at least lessen the blow.
It doesn’t appear that the Democrats posting here have thought that far ahead.
Civil War has been in the making for over a decade. That’s what you get with 8 years of “everyone gets a trophy” identity politics. If Trump “wants a civil war” Obama laid the groundwork. I don’t even like Trump and that couldn’t be easier to see.
Seriously? You guys have been trying to undo an election since the day you lost. Every time you try to strike a blow you fail to land it. Don’t you think the people you’re swinging at are starting to get pissed off and fed up?
Yeah he does, and while the red hatters will deny that that’s what he’s doing, they certainly support it. Have you seen the number of threads created by them here essentially promoting civil war?
Don’t forget that one of the talking points pushed by Russia’s troll farm was that there would be a civil war if Democrats tried to impeach Trump. So Trump is a good student. Vlad will be proud.
