The latest court rulings demonstrate that Congress’s investigative power predates Impeachment proceedings, and is part and parcel of them in advance.
In other words: other than a vote that will be lost in the Senate, there is no functional difference between what is going on now and what would happen during an Impeachment investigation, except that multiple committees (instead of one special committee) means more staffers and investigators pouring through everything and chasing down leads.
that the contempt citation against Barr was incompetently conceived – that Barr is being held in contempt in large part for not releasing stuff to Congress that he has no control over – like Grand Jury testimony. And that Barr is acting consistent with a claim of Executive Privilege whose merits the House has not even bothered to challenge in court.
In other words, best case scenario for not holding the vote is that the whole citation was a PR move that never should have happened.
I hear Eric Prince has a pretty impressive mercenary squad that is more than willing to turn their Nazi salute to the orange menace.
Fortunately, he won’t work without being paid. So that takes care of that.
OT but it was expected.
This would get their attention.
All the trump loyalists and those just conforming so they don’t make waves will have to think twice about the cost of their treason. As it is now, they can see no consequences. If all you do is threaten and warn, miscreants start to realize they are safe from prosecution. Enough threatening. Take action.
Their situation reminds me of someone disembarking a boat who has one foot on the boat and one on the dock, as the boat drifts away father than the leg span of the undecided sailor. Which side can he jump to safely? The longer they wait, the more likely they’ll end up in the drink.
If her stance is based purely on political calculation, and most likely it is, everyone who cares for the rule of law must oppose her.
Otherwise, we will have a lawless Presidency. Well, lawless Republican Presidency, for as soon as the Republicans find an excuse to impeach a Democratic President, even on flimsiest of grounds, no matter what the possibility of conviction, they will run to impeach him. Just remember what Kevin ‘Trump is on the payroll of Kremlin’ McCarthy said about the benefits that the GOP derived from the Benghazi hearings.
Pelosi’s strategy does not make any sense. She is harming the country and the Democratic Party.
AOC is more of a Kali Maa Durga kind of rep
I’m looking forward to AOC’s necklace of GOP skulls.
you seem to be forgetting two things.
Most crucially, the Mazar’s case involved private financial records. Trump could not, and did not, bother to make any executive privilege claims. The courts have recognized that a President has very broad executive privilege authority – and have given Congress access to documents despite those claims only because of highly specific circumstances that do not apply in this case (see Oversight v Holder). The Mehta opinion in no way impacts the executive privilege doctrine, and how it generally overrides congress’ “oversight” functions. But US v Nixon said that “judicial proceedings” can trump executive privilege claims when evidence of criminality is being sought. As long as this is just about “oversight”, its unlikely that the courts will overturn “executive privilege” concerns — otherwise, all that congress has to do is say “well, maybe there are impeachable offenses here” and executive privilege goes “poof”.
additionally, by invoking impeachment, its far likelier that the courts will provide expedited review of executive privilege cases. The Holder case took OVER THREE YEARS from the first subpoena to the first document was produced.
No one here ever denied that Congress could “investigate” whatever it wanted to – or that a case like Mazars was a slam dunk for Congress because all Congress needed was a legislative purpose to compel private entities to provide documents.
Sell more Chinese-made MAGA hats!
Or maybe trump can promise him the dictatorship of some remote principality.
The best example I can think of is Jackson and Indian removal:
“The Supreme Court has made their judgement. Now let them enforce it.”
I believe it was “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”
And the consequence, of course, was that Jackson went ahead with Cherokee Removal and the most horrific genocide committed on this continent.
So far, that is. Until the Pumpkin Traitor orders the Border Patrol to deal with the incarcerated asylum seekers and their children by burning them alive.
I really feel for Pelosi. She is all alone
With A Fourth Estate plagued by FOX
With a rabid Mob supporting Trump
With a Satanic GOP Senate
With a compromised SCOTUS
With a second-guessing Party at her “back” (that’s rich)
With an under-40 Generation in Extended Adolescence**
With the Nation poised to blame HER for the Nation’s destruction
And I do not see her abandoning her strategy. I just wish that more people born after 1980 had had a lot more history buffs. because, unless THOSE folks get about 10% as alarmed as people are on this board (presently, they are about 1% as alarmed), then we will just have to hope that the revelations I mentioned above alert the sleepyheads to voice their interest in Impeachment and the Investigations it brings
**In the 1960s and early 1970s, youth were WOKE on the Military Draft…NOW Millennials say, “support the troops”, secure that the statement is a slogan, not anything else. Trump’s sabre-rattling on Iran (which would have had him skinned alive in the 1960s) gets a yawn from a Millennial
The Democrats haven’t exactly domeinated the House with very old Nancy Pelosi at the helm…and she’s making it pretty clear she’s too old to do her job and to defend the US Constitution against a law breaking and corrupt and unfit President.
Nancy, do yourself a big favor…resign and let AOC or Omar or one of the other high energy and very bright young guns of the party take over. Change is overdue.
If she’s all alone, that means both public and political opinion are ahead of her and she needs to catch up.
No one but a denizen of the reich-wing fever swamps would blame her for tRump’s crimes. I only fault her for ignoring the party rank-and-file and those in her own caucus who want a much more robust response.
Perhaps just as topical…the Trump administration has already told Elijiah Cummings to go home. They have completely stonewalled his attempts to dig into the security clearance problems raised by whistle blowers at the WH, to the point, that it doesn’t appear Cummings is even doing the “double dog dare you” letter writing thing that Nadler is doing.
Note the date on this. Almost 7 weeks ago.
Will those be subject to tariffs? Or when everything else is tariffed, will we still have free-flowing MAGA hats, t-shirts and bumper stickers?
Just to be clear, she might be making up BS for political purposes, but one way or the other it is BS. It’s more likely that she’s saying things that range from dubious to clearly just made up nonsense because it’s part of a strategy than it is that she really doesn’t know better, but pretending that it’s not nonsense is just foolish.
You can’t impeach a President in their last year in office. That’s established precedent. Ask Mitch McConnell, he’ll tell you. Joe Biden said so, in some speech he made, a long time ago. The GOP would find it and show it to you, but they’re busy. So, you know, you’ll have to trust them on it.