Kupperman probably doesn’t feel that tRump would pardon him.
Mulvaney and others are clearly defying Congress at tRump’s direction. tRump is using social media to try to intimidate witnesses like LTC Vindman. These are clearly efforts to obstruct Congress’s ability to do oversight.
Except the Constitution clearly gives CONGRESS oversight powers, including the power to impeach. There’s no need for Congress to go to court to force the administration to provide testimony. The law is clear on that. Listen to the arguments Republicans are making- they are arguing against the process they put in place. They aren’t arguing that tRump did nothing wrong. tRump’s attorneys stated tRump would not cooperate, while tRump tours the country whining about not being given the opportunity to participate. The compromised portion is McConnell telling the world he’s coordinating with tRump and his legal team.
WRONG. tRump has a history of abusing the federal, state and local court systems. We are seeing this play out here as well. Going to court would not add to the legitimacy of impeachment. Just like having Republicans vote for impeachment would. Republicans have dug in deep, and as long as no documents (or recordings) float to the surface, they are prepared to ride this out. It was the same with Nixon, but it in that case, a whistleblower stepped forward and announced the existence of recordings. That’s when Republicans caved.
In this case, Republicans have claimed that there was no one other than two leaders on a call, but when witnesses came forward, they then attacked the witnesses. Some Republicans are still engaged in trying to publicly out the person they think is the whistleblower. But I guess that’s okay.
What do you want the courts to decide? There’s no doubt that tRump withheld money that Congress allocated to Ukraine. There’s plenty of evidence that tRump allowed a private individual to direct our foreign policy to aid tRump. There’s further evidence that tRump is willing to smear Hunter Biden to cripple Joe Biden’s presidential run. There’s also evidence that tRump has publicly attacked witnesses and is okay with death threats targeted towards those witnesses. All of this has played out in the media and social media. Meanwhile tRump continues to withhold key witnesses and documents.
going to court will only delay the process, and that’s what tRump is counting on.
So why go back to court when tRump will only appeal to a higher court, and offer more spurious arguments such as absolute immunity? That’s a stalling tactic, so the House chose not to participate any further in that stalling.
The House took what it had, and declared that anyone who refused to comply was probably involved in either the high crime or cover-up. That move short-circuited the stall. There are witnesses who were close enough to know something was wrong and reported it. If there was nothing there, why would Pence declare his aide’s testimony was classified? Again, the cover-up and abuse of power continues.
I’M 100% with you on the witness intimidation stuff. That, rather than the attempted use of testimonial immunity, should have been the focus of any second article of impeachment, because that goes to the very heart of Trump as a person. But the Dems chose to ignore that stuff (IIRC, it wasn’t even directly mentioned anywhere in the articles) and focus on Trump’s defiance of the House’s claims of its prerogatives.
except that it gives congress no such oversight powers at all. Oversight powers are like executive privilege – something that the courts have decided exist because the government supposedly doesn’t work without it. (Oversight is derived from Art 1, sec 1. Impeachment is a completely different thing – Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5, if memory serves).
actually, the law is completely unclear on that. certainly there is neither statuory law, nor directly applicable court precedent, establishing anything approaching clarity on that question. (indeed, the most frequently cited case Nixon v US, does not provide the Senate any kind of authority to compel testimony at all – at least unless its prepared to exercise its powers of inherent contempt, at which point precedent has been established allowing the courts to intervene to prevent enforcement through a Habeas petition.)
except that no court has found that Trump has abused the courts. Just because the courts rule against Trump doesn’t mean the courts have found Trump guilty of abuse of the system. Indeed, the very fact that it takes so long for these cases to get decided is evidence that the courts find the issues raised by Trump to be worthy of serious consideration.
nope. The GOP only forced nixon to resign when Nixon lost his court case releasing his tapes for review to Judge Sirica – and in an effort to head off impeachment, Nixon stupidly released damning transcripts of the conversations before complying with the court order.
That within an impeachment process, claims of executive privilege are subject to the strictest scrutiny possible – that regardless of whether the issues involved are related to foreign policy, or national security, or actions taken as commander in chief, the House should have access to any information it needs to determine whether a President’s conduct rises to the level of an impeachable offense.
The court will have to find a means of providing some limits on the House’s power, however, because if it finds that executive privilege is completely inapplicable when impeachment powers are invoked, it could result in the House abusing that power simply to override legitimate executive privilege concerns. (I would suggest something akin to the Sirica compromise, in which a court appointed master would participate in depositions and witness testimony to decide whether answers that would otherwise be privileged are relevant and necessary to a determination of a “high crime or misdemeanor” offense.)
obviously, it has not stopped the House from passing articles of impeachment – nor stopped the House from threatening to delay an impeachment trial on its own by refusing to convey passed articles to the Senate.
The Courts have zero independent control over the process – the only control it would have would be that ceded to it by the House for as long as it sees fit. But the very existence of outstanding articles of impeachment waiting for a court decision that would result in providing additional damning evidence of impeachable conduct would incentivize the courts to act as quickly as possible. But regardless - - the House would maintain control over when the articles of impeachment are sent to the Senate, and (given current Senate rules) when a Senate trial would take place.
Here’s the real deal- no atter what the House did, McConnell is committed to a process that relieves Senate Republicans from having to vote to impeach tRump.
the issue for Dems is how to make that as difficult and costly for McConnell to achieve that.
Donald Trump should be removed from office. The House had a constitutional duty to impeach him and the Senate has a constitutional duty to remove him. The framers arranged it so that failure to do their constitutional duty should have political consequences for the officeholders who failed.
And the role of the House Democrats, at this point, is to do whatever it takes to ensure that the political price is paid. And if that means using the courts to get testimony that Mitch McConnell will otherwise withhold from a Senate Trial, then that is what should be done before any trial is allowed to commence.
