The Likelihood of Impeachment

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) indicated in a note last night that he will NOT vote for witnesses, but it sounds like he probably WILL vote for conviction & removal.

Wouldn't it be something if 13 of his colleagues joined him?

News reports are saying a different conclusion from what I concluded when I heard it read on the air.  I might've misundertood.

Soooo.....

What'll happen after Trump's acquittal this evening? Wednesday

• Trump will claim "total vindication" in all his rallies from now on
  
  
• Trump will feel emboldened by his "legal" victory and will be even more aggressive against immigrants, against whistleblowers, against foreign aid
  
  
• Bolton's book will come out in 3 weeks and Trump will not look good in it.  This will not matter
  
  
• Democrats will talk about drafting more articles of impeachment, but they won't
  
  
• Trump will win re-election against whomever the Dems put up, with a large amount of help from Russian propaganda and disinformation
  
  
• Putin will be invited to the White House in January
  
  
• Staff and cabinet will continue to flee the Trump administration.  Most positions will remain unfilled
  
  
• The Democrats will sweep the Senate in November, McConnell will retire rather than serve as minority leader.  He will find a new career on Trump TV
  
  
• The nation will be even more divided in 2021-2024 than today
  
  
• In 2023 a new Democratic candidate will emerge, an Obama-like figure with broad appeal, probably a woman.  She'll win by a comfortable margin
  
  
• With the Senate, the House and the White House in Democratic hands, the nation will slowly begin healing 2024-2030.  The thoroughly-discredited Republican party won't be able to win dogcatcher, and their demographic of white rich men will shrink to insignificance
  
  
• Democrats will face their first serious opposition around 2030 from the newly-energized Green Party (or something like it)
  

NoCoPilot wrote:

• In 2023 a new Democratic candidate will emerge, an Obama-like figure with broad appeal, probably a woman  
  

I'll go on record right here, right now: Val Demings.  She has the experience, she performed remarkably at the impeachment trial, she's likable, smart, serious, and her policies are in line with the national priorities.  Look for her star to ascend.

I hope she addresses the 2020 Democratic nominating convention.

Marco Rubio wrote:

Voting to find the President guilty would not just be a condemnation of his action. If I vote guilty, I will be voting to remove a President from office for the first time in the 243-year history of our Republic.

Why does impeachment exist?  The sole purpose of this extraordinary power to remove the one person entrusted with all of the powers of an entire branch of government is to provide a last-resort remedy to protect the country. That is why Hamilton wrote that in these trials our decisions should be pursuing “the public good.”

Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office.  To answer this question, the first step was to ask whether it would serve the public good to remove the President, even if I assumed the President did everything the House alleges.  Determining which outcome is in the best interests requires a political judgment — one that takes into account both the severity of the wrongdoing alleged but also the impact removal would have on the nation.  Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country would view his removal as illegitimate — as nothing short of a coup d’état?

It is difficult to conceive of any scheme Putin could undertake that would undermine confidence in our democracy more than removal would.

Source

There you have it, in black and white.  Astonishing cowardice and fear of Putin.

Chris Cillizza wrote:

So, and just hear me out on this, what if Rubio, who says he takes as true the allegations against Trump, voted to remove Trump. Wouldn't that make the impeachment bipartisan? And therefore nullify -- or at least mitigate -- the core of his argument that the country would see all of this as nothing more than a partisan affair?

And, more broadly, how can anyone read -- much less write -- this sentence and think that it all makes sense: "Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office."

Huh? So Trump has done things that meet the standard of impeachment but impeaching him for committing impeachable acts would be, uh, bad for our partisan divide? Am I reading that right?

Okay, so Trump has been impeached, and acquitted.  Johnson and Clinton were impeached and acquitted too, and Nixon chose to resign rather than be removed from office.  So technically, we've never removed a president through impeachment.

Even one who fully deserves it.

Evidence will continue to leak out.  John Bolton's book.  Secret e-mails.  Other whistleblowers.  Not just the Ukraine affair, but I'm absolutely certain Trump's remaining ten months will be scandal-ridden.  New, and old.

GOP Senators will look like absolute dildos.

23 of them are up for re-election in 2020 and at least 11 will lose their seats.  They'll come to rue the day.  The Democrats won't even have to work that hard -- the campaign slogans write themselves.

• Martha McSally (AZ)
  
• Cory Gardner (CO)
  
• Joni Ernst (IA)
  
• Mitch McConnell (KY)
  
• Susan Collins (ME)
  
• Thom Tillis (NC)
  
• John Cornyn (TX)
  
• Dan Sullivan (AK)
  
• Bill Cassidy (LA)
  
• Lindsey Graham (SC)
  
• Lamar Alexander (TN)
  

GOP senator Joni Ernst says Joe Biden should be impeached over Burisma.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-02/ernst-warns-of-gop-push-to-impeach-biden-over-ukraine-if-he-wins

You can’t make this shit up.

And Lindsey Graham wants to subpoena the whistleblower!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lindsey-graham-ukraine-whitleblower-senate_n_5e37ab07c5b69a19a4b1dcd2

You just can't make this shit up.

It's important to try and intimidate potential future whistleblowers.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I wonder if the Senate can vote to censure the president, instead of removing him from office?

Joe Manchin heard my suggestion, and made a censure motion. This would not “overturn the election,” this would acknowledge that what Trump did was deeply inappropriate and illegal even if not impeachable.

I could see censure as a viable alternative for many Dems AND Republicans who are not willing to go all the way to removal.

Lamar Alexander said that the first removal in history would be seen as a “coup” by almost half of all Americans. You could argue about the percentages, but he has a point about the divisions. Maybe censure would make the point without ripping the fabric.

The acquittal will be done tomorrow, but quite a few people are spitting mad about it:

Need To Impeach wrote:

On Wednesday, February 5th, thousands of Americans across the country will mobilize to reject the results of the corrupt cover-up that has unfolded in the Senate. Republican Senators have blocked evidence from the American people and refused to hold a corrupt president accountable.

There are over 150 “Reject the Coverup” marches happening across the country Wednesday. Most start at 5:30 PM, but make sure to look up exactly when and where yours begins. We need to let our members of Congress know: we will not tolerate a blatant cover-up of the Ukraine Scandal. And we will be the jury they face come November.


Thanks and keep up the fight,

Let's hope this righteous indignation carries through to November.  There are 23 Republican senators up for removal.

Even if "Moscow Mitch" won't bring a censure resolution to a vote on the Senate floor before the acquittal, Democrats could continue to push for one afterward.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/factchecking-the-state-of-the-union-3/

Trump continues to take credit for the Obama recovery from the Bush disaster.

The acquittal is complete.

Let the retribution begin.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The acquittal is complete.

Let the retribution begin.

They didn't take long to start, did they?

Meanwhile, as the rest of the country burns up with a fever, Nero continues to quietly fiddle away as if the USA was his own business to ruin.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/media/john-bolton-book-delayed/index.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-firing-michael-atkinson-whistleblower-ukraine_n_5e87f022c5b6cbaf28294de6

Senate Republicans have nobody but themselves to blame.  I hope the country broadly realizes that the Senate had the opportunity to remove this president, and were warned in no uncertain terms what would happen if they didn't.  Their dereliction of duty is scandalous.

Quote :

Senate Republicans on Tuesday distanced themselves from President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama committed “treason,” refusing to back up the unfounded allegation that has fueled the president’s revenge campaign against his predecessor.

But accusing Obama of treason was a bridge too far, they said.

“I don’t think that President Obama committed treason,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is up for reelection this year.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” added Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I don’t have any evidence to believe he committed treason.”

Trump’s allies often claim the president was joking whenever he makes a controversial statement, even when Trump’s tone is serious and he repeats the claim several times. For example, Trump told a reporter on Tuesday that “I don’t kid” when asked whether he was serious when he said he had ordered a slowdown of coronavirus testing.

“It’s a silly, comedic thing, and you guys got to stop taking it all so seriously,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who laughed off the question. “I don’t think the former president committed treason.”

But not everyone is amused. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of Trump’s more vocal GOP critics, said that she did not see the president’s comments but that “obviously, he shouldn’t have said that.”

In the aftermath of his acquittal in the Senate’s impeachment trial, Trump has gone after his predecessor and other senior Obama administration officials as he seeks revenge for what he calls a “coup” against his campaign and presidency. Trump has said it began with the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into possible ties between his presidential campaign and the Kremlin.


But Trump has not cited evidence for the claims, and a Justice Department inspector general’s report last year stated that the counterintelligence probe was properly opened in 2016.

Trump feels empowered to flout the law, in little ways as well as big.

If I was Governor Murphy, I'd have him arrested.  It's within his powers.

This lying sack of shit.  He should face legal consequences for his cowardice.  Feeling that the hearings had a predetermined outcome does not excuse him from refusing to testify.

He can't be impeached.  He could be charged.

And he needs his fucking chain pulled.  He self-justifies like an idiot.

To my knowledge, there's nothing that says a sitting president can't be impeached a second time.

He deserves to be impeached again. For any number of reasons.  Really, the articles of impeachment should contain everything that's come out since January. 

It could be written, voted on, and passed in the House, and sent to the Senate, well before the election.  The GOP Senators might have a different reaction this time.

And even if they didn't, it would put the 2020 elections in sharper contrast.  Every Senator up for re-relection should have to vote for, or against, this president's abuses of power.

It might even give DJT pause about escalating the violations leading up to the election, being the only president in history to be impeached twice.

Here’s another possible scenario:

The country continues to spiral out of control.  Trump will do everything he can to fan the flames and make things as horrible as possible — because, well, he’s Donald Trump and this is all a reality TV show to him. With him as the star. If he feels Biden is likely to win, he’ll make sure Biden inherits such a host of disasters that he (Biden) will have serious trouble digging out from under them.

Either that, or he will use these catastrophes (including, I heard tonight, attempting to prevent the post office from delivering ballots) to impose martial law and cancel or delay the November election.

Here’s the question.

If Trump subverts the election, do you think we can rely on the military to physically pick him up and remove him from the White House?  I hope we can.  A military coup, yeah, I could see that.

Pretty fucking amazing. People are seriously thinking about this, and discussing options, and proposing solutions for if it happens. Unfuckingbelieveable!  Unthinkable before Trump.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/25/nation/bipartisan-group-secretly-gathered-game-out-contested-trump-biden-election-it-wasnt-pretty/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/27/trump-loses-election-what-happens-possibilities
https://www.newsweek.com/bipartisan-group-predicts-violence-if-trump-loses-election-refuses-leave-white-house-1520561
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-could-happen-if-donald-trump-rejects-electoral-defeat

NoCoPilot wrote:

Either that, or he will use these catastrophes (including, I heard tonight, attempting to prevent the post office from delivering ballots) to impose martial law and cancel or delay the November election.

Here it comes, folks.  He's floating the first trial balloons to try to normalize the idea.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Trump feels empowered to flout the law, in little ways as well as big.

And has for a while.

A friend of mine participated in this

NoCoPilot wrote:

If Trump subverts the election, do you think we can rely on the military to physically pick him up and remove him from the White House?  I hope we can.  A military coup, yeah, I could see that.

Yup. Some people in the military are seriously discussing what they will do if - when? — this situation comes up.

I think it will actually be the Secret Service's job. On January 21st, they stop being Trump's guys and become the president's men.