Yup. Considering all that we know the republicans are just going to play to the base and own the libs by exonerating a treasonous criminal who sold out the nation for his own self interest. The don’t care.
She must hold the articles, forever if necessary. Open up more investigations. Add more articles. This is siege warfare. We are in a cold civil war or sorts and have been for some time. Holding the articles does not change a single vote. Those who have imbibed the MAGA Koolaid will continue to do so whether she holds them or not. Their only goal in life is to ‘own the libs.’ Even if owning them means jeopardizing the security of the nation and colluding with a hostile foreign power. She can’t allow that to stand. This is bigger than an election.
Thank you for that post mihager. Don’t know what the game is with Ms. Sneed but this is the third article she has written over the past few days where she leaves out the critical backstory of the Clinton impeachment. If writers here on the alternative media don’t point out the truth behind the talking points that the GOP senators are hiding behind then who in the hell in the Mainstream Media is going to do it?
I disagree. The idea of having 80 hours of “case presentation” before deciding on which witnesses, if any, to call is simply nuts. A far saner procedure would have been to have some short opening statements, followed by arguments concerning the need to present specific witnesses – based on the existing evidentiary record that demonstrates that the witnesses have relevant evidence not yet part of the actual record. (basically, have an opening statement creating the context for “pre-trial” motions concerning witnesses, admissible evidence, etc.)
The Clinton procedure existed because the House managers wanted to turn the trial into a circus, including questioning of witnesses about the prurient details of Clinton’s relationship with Lewinski. The Clinton people opposed this, but more importantly, neither the GOP nor Dem Senate leaders wanted anything to do with this – but there were enough wing-nut Senators willing to support the GOP House to make things difficult.
The Clinton procedure was designed specifically to avoid calling any witnesses before the Senate. The Senate leadership understood that after weeks of “case presentation”, there would be little public interest in dragging things out any more than necessary – and that they would succeed in shutting down the House demand that Lewinski testify publicly.
That’s not tenable, because public perception still matters. All the arguments Speaker Pelosi could use for withholding the articles are essentially “process” arguments. Meanwhile, the Republican narrative will be that the Dems are afraid to send them to the Senate because they haven’t proved their case, the articles are weak, it’s just a partisan maneuver to invalidate the 2016 election, and so on.
You can’t fight that with process arguments, because the general public isn’t well enough informed to understand the details. Speaker Pelosi can use the next week or two to keep the kettle on the boil and put pressure on McConnell, maybe scare up any new info. But I think she’ll need to send the articles before the end of the month, to avoid a growing perception that the House has a weak case and is afraid to act.
If I were Queen, er, speaker, I might take seriously the line from before the holidays about choosing impeachment managers.
Let the chair entertain nominations from among those who voted for impeachment. Have those nominees either participate in hearings before the appropriate committee(s) or in debate on the floor of the House to lay out their qualifications in terms of the case they would present. In short, spend a couple weeks laying out the crimes of trump and his lying, justice-obstructing cronies in succinct detail (ahem) before a kangaroo-free audience until moscow mitch begs for fair senate rules or trump blows a gasket.
In McConnell’s mind he is in fact doing his job and has renamed himself The Grim Reaper accordingly. It began in the early days of the BHO admin when he vowed to make him a one-term president.
I disagree. More information has come to light, so that is a reason to re-open the investigations and, if necessary, add more articles. You can bet your bottom dollar that if the situation were reversed the republicans would do just that. Are you suggesting Pelosi just ignore new information and send the articles over to the senate for their expected wake and burial? As a democratic voter who cares about the country I find that unacceptable.
she can hold onto them longer, if she has a rationale for doing so besides the mere “process” argument. If she can say "we acted with the expectation that the Senate would want all relevant witnesses to be heard before passing judgment, without creating unnecessary delays in the House. But the Senate wants to hide the evidence from the public, so unfortunately, the House is now compelled to enforce its own subpoenas, delaying the impeachment trial until the House gets the facts that Mitch McConnell so desperately wants to remain undisclosed.’
What I’m saying is that impeachment in the House is over and done, and Speaker Pelosi would not have allowed that process to conclude if she wasn’t confident the case was solid.
Too much delay now, weakens that case. If the House needed the testimony from Bolton or other WH inner circle to make the case, then why didn’t they take the time to move through the courts? Just to state one obvious Republican line.
Dems can walk and chew gum at the same time. There is no reason the House can’t pursue further information that may or may not be allowed in the Senate trial, but that will still have an impact on the November election.
I think she is going to run over by the developing Iran issue. There will be even less stomach for opening up new investigations into anything Ukrainian related once hostilities ramp up.
More troubling, because the precedent has been set, even if not challenged and decided by the Courts, for Trump’s “Absolute Immunity” nonsense, it will be next to impossible to investigate anything related to how he got us into this mess, or going forward, how he is prosecuting the war.
These are the big reasons why she can’t hold on to the Articles of Impeachment much longer. She might be able to get to the SOTU, but I think even that is going to be a stretch. After that, the press the Americans attention will have moved way beyond impeachment and Ukraine.
If the House subpoenas Bolton, he will just refuse to comply. He knows there will be no consequences. Also, his name will be in the headlines again, bolstering book sales.
Another reason not to re-open an impeachment inquiry and instead send the articles in short order, is that holding back feeds into Trump’s narrative that he wasn’t really impeached at all. As if the House impeachment is totally nullified by acquittal in the Senate.
Trump needs to be reminded that yes, he has been impeached by the House. The first President to have it happen in his first term. It’s a done deal and will be written into the history books.The more that fact is hammered home, the more it will drive him crazy. Re-opening the impeachment inquiry works against that.
The case is solid, which is why she has a duty to the American people to not send the articles over if they are simply going to be dismissed in the senate. As Pelosi said, we have a rogue president, but the framers never expected we would have a rogue president and a rogue senate leader too. This is different. Constitutional duty overrides any bad publicity this may generate, which I don’t think it will. Holding the articles for a fair trial helps democrats … and the country. I get that you don’t see it that way so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
