I watched some of the Impeachment Hearings yesterday, where members of the House Judiciary Committee questioned the Republican-chosen and Democratic-chosen lawyers about the case for impeachment and whether the House impeachment inquiry had “proven” there is enough evidence to vote for impeachment. It was confusing, but clearly, I’m not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. It seemed to me that even the people the GOP has hand-picked to obfuscate for Donald Trump have inadvertently been making the case of impeachment too. But again, what do I know. In any case, the House is moving forward and two articles of impeachment have been introduced:
Democrats in the House of Representatives announced they will introduce two articles of impeachment Tuesday morning, making clear they intend to charge President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Both articles are based on the Ukraine scandal, meaning the party decided not to introduce any articles of impeachment solely based on the Mueller report, as some had pushed for.
Articles of impeachment are essentially the “charges” against the president that the House of Representatives is considering approving. The final House votes on impeachment will be a yes or no vote on each article. If even one is approved, Trump is impeached — and the Senate will then hold a trial to determine whether to remove him from office.
Democrats have not yet released the full articles, but they explained that Article 1, abuse of power, will address Trump’s general underlying conduct in the Ukraine scandal. It alleges that Trump abused his power by trying to pressure Ukraine’s government into announcing an investigation into the Bidens by withholding both a White House meeting and military aid.
Article 2, obstruction of Congress, will be about how Trump responded to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine scandal. It will allege that Trump obstructed the probe by urging witnesses not to cooperate and government agencies not to comply with subpoenas.
The next step is that the House Judiciary Committee will vote on whether to approve each article later this week — which is mainly seen as a formality, as the committee as a large majority of liberal-leaning Democrats which will clearly approve both articles. After that, the action will proceed to the House floor, with a final vote on both articles of impeachment expected next week. At least one article, and probably both, are highly likely to be approved by the House of Representatives’ Democratic majority. And that would make Trump only the third president in US history to be impeached.
From what I understand – Vox’s explainer is very good – Article One is about the crime and Article Two is about the cover-up. Meaning, Article One is about the crime of Donald Trump withholding aid to Ukraine until he got a verbal agreement from President Zelensky to announce an investigation into the Bidens, for the purposes of “dirtying up” Trump’s political opponent. Article Two is about what Trump did after people began asking questions about the Ukraine call, the cover-up and the obstruction. As I’ve said before… this is a good start, but I really wish this wasn’t moving so fast.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
I’m reading some stuff about how they don’t have to send it to trial in the Senate right away- they can keep investigating and trying to get more evidence, possibly add more charges, and meanwhile Donald can blow a few more fuses. [Speaking of which, did anybody else notice his pupils were as big as silver dollars yesterday?] If these experts are correct, then I don’t think that’s a terrible idea. I think they should arrest everyone who has defied a subpoena- you know the Republicans would do it that way.
have you read Dr Jack Brown on twitter? He does a great job of analyzing Trump’s (and others) non-verbal language, including his pupil dilation. @DrGJackBrown
Thanks for sending me down a Twitter rabbit-hole for a good 40 minutes. 😉
Scoot over and make room in the @DrGJackBrown rabbit hole, because here I come!
John Dean, who knows impeachment firsthand, advocates impeach, sit on it and investigate, investigate, investigate, until every dirty detail comes out and multiple rats are implicated.
I DO feel they have to move fast. This MUST be “out there”, in black and white. As Neal Katyal says, this does not have to be SENT to the Senate yet. The House can sit on the impeachment, keep investigating and ADD to the Articles of Impeachment. And while this can spur the momentum for Dems to build a Blue Tsunami for the March midterms to turn the Senate to insure impeachment, this also runs the risk of the “Base” to galvanize to come out for the March midterms to keep the Senate stacked in their favor. Right now, all Dems need is FOUR republiTHUGS to wander over (that is if we keep ALL of ours! Some have been saying they will NOT vote to impeach!).
But on the other hand, as Adam Schiff says, you can’t let this drag on.
I’m politicked out at this point. It’s 7:12 a.m. and I want a BIG glass of wine! lol
:Sings:
All I want for Christmas is D. Trump impeached/ D. Trump impeached, D. Trump impeached/ All I want for Christmas is D. Trump impeached/ so the MAGAts won’t have a Merry Christmas
I first read that as “All I want for Christmas is D & Trump impeached”. Lol! I want some D plus Trump impeached too, but I’ll just take Trump impeached if I get a choice between the two.
I actually think its good they aren’t impeaching on the Mueller report. I think they could have, certainly, and I think that’s what Mueller was pushing congress to do, but I think in many ways this is clearer, politically.
Also agree with others that while this seems to be moving fast, I think a lot is going to come out at the trial and that’s what the Dems are going for.
I think it’s a good thing too. What they have on Ukraine is rock solid, and the Mueller report at this point, cannot offer such irrefutable proof as they have on Ukraine.
Also, Dems don’t have to send it to the senate even AFTER they vote to impeach him. They can keep digging and presenting even MORE articles of Impeachment before sending it to Moscow Mitch to sit on like he does everything else.
The two articles they’ve selected, there is rock solid evidence of both, so I’m fine with the pace.
We all know the Senate is going to ignore the facts and save him, but I think the House committees have made a very clear cut case. I just hope the voters make the GOP pay for it in November.
I feel like the nails are finally lining up on his coffin. Even the republicans are not pushing back so much on this anymore and the noise/ chatter has diminished greatly.
Notice the melt-downs on twitter by big orange cry baby have also diminished significantly. When you add last weeks humiliation on the world stage and recent boos at sports events it feels like he is finally getting the message….
Oh he’s on Twitter foaming at the mouth this morning and says it’s an injustice that the greatest president this country as ever had is a . . .victim of the democrats hate, because he’s done nothing wrong and is 100% INNOCENT!
hahaha! Suck it, trump!
I thought he’d ramped up the tweets? I haven’t looked, but I heard he’d tweeted almost 100 times in the last day or so.
There is really nothing to wait for though. Minds have been made, more details about the facts at hand is good for gossip but doesn’t convince any Republicans to turn on Trump. Convict him and go work on stopping any dirty trucks he will try to pull to stay in office.
And soon, our long national nightmare will be over.
Does anyone think the Creature might resign?
He won’t resign. He’s scream Witch Hunt! and Deep State! and Ukraine until he’s forcibly removed.
No. He doesn’t have a noble or selfless bone in his misshapen body.
I believe that Ukraine may still not have received the entire package (they’re still withholding some) and Rudy Colludy has been over there (I guess telling them to back Mango Mussolini if they want the rest of package released)
“We stand here today because the president’s continuing abuse of his power has left us no choice. To do nothing would make ourselves complicit in the president’s abuse of his high office, the public trust, and our national security.”
“The argument why don’t you just wait amounts to this: why don’t you just let him cheat in one more election?”
BOOM! Rep. Adam Schiff bringing down the hammer on this presidency.
We already know that the Senate will not vote to remove him from office, but it doesn’t matter because if the House passes these two resolutions HE IS IMPEACHED. Just like Nixon, Clinton and. . .Johnson. (There’s actually 4 presidents that have been impeached, not 3).
Nixon was not impeached.
Articles of Impeachment were sent to the full House, but Nixon resigned before a vote, so, technically, not impeached.
Interesting, I’ve always thought he was impeached. Well, despite that, my original point still stands — IMPEACHED will be attached to dump FOREVER, and there isn’t any amount of wailing or screaming from Republicans that can change it.
@what… – yes, I agree that impeached, even without being convicted, will be a stain on Trump forever and despite all his protestations to the contrary, I think it will kill his ego.
The Nixon thing is interesting though bc it wasn’t until the Articles of Impeachment were sent to the house (not voted on), and the “smoking gun tape” came out (early August 1974) that the Republicans in the senate made it clear to him that they would convict. (or at least enough Rs would do it.) Until then, there weren’t enough votes.
So, I think its highly improbable that Trump gets removed from office. Maybe a .0000000000001% chance. But, people may have thought that in 1974 as well.
(trust me, I don’t have my hopes pinned on the senate doing the right thing. But, it is something to think about.)
You know the Senate won’t do the right thing. For them, they are 100% party before country.
They are all toadies and suck asses. I bet for many of them (especially you Lindsey Graham!!), russia has the goods on them too. Remember how Graham announced that he’d been hacked–and then all of a sudden he’s dear leader’s biggest cheerleader? Yah, I’m sure the RNC got hacked and all this devotion to trump is the price they pay not to have their dirty laundry aired. . .
F*ck trump. Figuratively I mean, not literally, because who the hell would want to do that?? Meanwhile, here’s a message from MY president.
https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/1204448901291487233?s=21
Republicans crawling out of the woodwork now, of course, to argue this isn’t legal and it’s all ~partisan~ behavior. To those of us who lived through Clinton’s impeachment, dog that he was, the audacity is astounding.
The GOP behavior is astounding. But their claims of “partisanship” mean nothing at this point. They are no longer a viable party in a democracy. They are nothing but an authoritarian clique taking action to destroy our republic. I wish the reporting would stop calling it a “Democratic impeachment.” At this point, Democrats are an “even-bigger-tent party” that basically represents everyone in the U.S. who believes in upholding our constitution.
This is what I get from the coverage summery of the trial nightly. (CNN)
No matter what happens the Republicans will vote against Impeachment and Trump will still stay in office.
There was not the rancorous partisanship between the two parties back in 1974. There were actually more statesman-like people serving in both the Senate and the House. Not that there weren’t any shmucks, but there were not as many, that’s for sure.
I followed all of it in 1974 and am following it now. The behavior of the Republicans during the hearing on Monday was disgraceful. They showed no respect for our form of government. But then, of course. the president they are supporting is disgraceful and shows no respect for our form of government.
I pray that 20 Reoyblican senators will have the ethics and the strength to vote to remove trump from office. They were about to do it with Nixon, causing him to resign before it got to that point. I am holding hope that the same will happen in this case.
This is what happens when dumb, proudly uneducated people vote for the tea bags.