Your Once and Final Supreme Double Impeachee

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

<snip>
Given the amount of convicted felons* that are associated with him, had he hired her she probably would be in jail by now!


* "I’m going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people."

Not all of Il Duce's appointees have left in handcuffs. I commented on his propensity to fire those he appoints here.

It also brings to mind a scene from the old PBS series I, Claudius. Thanks to the Information Age, the very quote is given in many places.

[regarding Caligula]

Caesonia: Claudius, we must help him, the emperor.
Claudius: He's your husband, you help him.
Caesonia: Claudius, he's sick. He needs good people around him.
Claudius: He's killed them all!

[Dr Sardonicus]

I mentioned China's demand here that Il Duce veto a couple of bills in support of Hong Kong citizens who want to maintain the autonomy promised them in 1999.

As indicated in the AP story linked therein, the House and Senate passed these bills by "veto-proof" majorities. So barring a lot of legislators voting differently on a veto override than they did on the bills, they are going to become law whether Il Duce vetoes them or not.

Meanwhile, Il Duce has been giving textbook examples of someone talking out of both sides of their mouth. The framework "I stand... but" is classic.

Look we have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with President Xi. He’s a friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy. We have to stand.

But I’d like to see them work it out. Okay? We have to see them work it out. But I stand with Hong Kong, I stand with freedom, I stand with all of the things that we want to do.

But we also are in the process of making the largest trade deal in history and if we could do that that would be great ...

[rogue]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I mentioned China's demand here that Il Duce veto a couple of bills in support of Hong Kong citizens who want to maintain the autonomy promised them in 1999.

As indicated in the AP story linked therein, the House and Senate passed these bills by "veto-proof" majorities. So barring a lot of legislators voting differently on a veto override than they did on the bills, they are going to become law whether Il Duce vetoes them or not.

If he vetoes, I'm sure the senate will bow down to him and say "sorry dear leader, we were wrong" while upholding his veto.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by rogue

If he vetoes, I'm sure the senate will bow down to him and say "sorry dear leader, we were wrong" while upholding his veto.

I dunno. One of the bills passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and passed the House with only one dissenting vote.

When Il Duce was faced with the lopsided passage of some sanctions against Russia he really didn't like, he signed the bill into law. Which he then refused to enforce, and the Senate was basically OK with that. Perhaps something similar will happen in this case.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher was convicted at court-martial of posing with the corpse of an ISIS fighter, but acquitted of more serious charges, including murder. The court reduced his rank by one step. Il Duce restored it. Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper has now fired Navy Secretary Richard Spencer for bypassing him and going straight to the President with a proposal to let Gallagher retire with his Trident pin before disciplinary proceedings could begin. From some news accounts I have read, it appears that this is exactly what will happen.

In Spencer's letter to the President acknowledging his termination (text version here, pdf here), he wrote:

The rule of law is what sets us apart from our adversaries. Good order and discipline is what has enabled our victory against foreign tyranny time and again, from Captain Lawrence's famous order "Don't Give up the Ship", to the discipline and determination that propelled our flag to the highest point on lwo Jima. The Constitution. and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, are the shields that set us apart. and the beacons that protect us all. Through my Title Ten Authority, I have strived to ensure our proceedings are fair, transparent and consistent, from the newest recruit to the Flag and General Officer level.

Unfortunately it has become apparent that in this respect I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief who appointed me in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline. I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Now available from the president's re-election campaign: With each made-in-China MAGA hat, a made-in-China four by twelve foot banner proudly proclaiming, WE SUPPORT OUR WAR CRIMINALS!

[ewmayer]

Funny you should mention war criminals ... Nancy Pelosi, in a remarkable bit of truthiness, this week admitted that she and other members of the House Intelligence Committee knew that the Bush administration's claims of Iraqi WMDs were false but considered that the administration lying America into war was OK, because "they won the election" - see the NC link below for the fuller context:

I was Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee even before I became part of the leadership of Gang of Four. So, I knew there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq. It just wasn’t there.

They had to show us now – to show the Gang of Four all the Intelligence they had. The Intelligence did not show that that – that was the case. So, I knew it was a – a misrepresentation to the public. But having said that, it was a, in my view, not a ground for impeachment. That was – they won the election. They made a representation. And to this day, people think – people think that that it was the right thing to do.

Uh, Nancy, last time I checked, Trump et al "won the election". I believe the legal term of art applying to your statement is "WTF?"

o Impeachment, the House as Prosecutor, and Justice | naked capitalism

This being NC the reader comments include some good stuff. My favorite is this little Pelosi-worthy gem, in which Rep. Jerrold Nadler asserts the propriety of impeachent based on thoughtcrime:

Nadler’s committee will likely vote to impeach Trump. In a report defining what it considers impeachable offenses, the committee states that even if Trump did not actually break any laws in his supposed “quid pro quo” dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he can still be impeached for his unstated motives.

“The question is not whether the president’s conduct could have resulted from permissible motives. It is whether the president’s real reasons, the ones in his mind at the time, were legitimate,” it stated.

And TAC more or less lays out the case for the defense:

o Ladies And Gentleman Of The Jury, Would You Impeach? | The American Conservative

It is always easy to forget the basics. Quid pro quo is not Latin for bribery. The president conducts foreign policy with extraordinary latitude to say what the national interest is, not the State Department and its ambassadors, no matter how smart they think they are. Foreign aid is a policy tool and is offered in return for something. As an exasperated Mick Mulvaney told us, of course there is always a quid pro quo—vote our way at the UN, let us have a military base, help us negotiate with your neighbor. Presidents often delay aid to get what they want. An investigation is not meddling. Foreign governments work with us on criminal, financial, and other investigations all the time. The Democrats asked Ukraine to investigate Trump in 2018. Providing information is not interfering in our democracy.

The one inaccuracy is in the title - by way of analogy to a more-usual criminal proceeding in court, impeachment is the indictment, and as the old "a good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich" saying goes, the bar there is quite low. The jury comes in when it comes to the question of *conviction* on the charges, whence "the case for the defense". So far what we have in Congress is entirely from the prosecutorial side, and my take is that this particular "prosecutor", in form of the House democratic-party leadership, is so blinded by partisanship and Trump Derangement Syndrome that they have deluded themselves into believing that their theatrical "impeachment inquiry hearings" to date have some resemblance to an actual legal proceeding, which they do not. For example during the House hearings, Adam Schiff more or less blocked any real cross-examination of the various "prosecution witnesses" by the Republicans ... if this circus ever gets to an actual Senate trial, most of those witnesses are gonna get absoutely shredded, their unfounded assumptions and partisan allegiances laid bare. But if Team D is so committed to not beating Trump in the obvious way, that is by nominating an actual non-horrible presidential candidate who promotes policies that actually promise some betterment in the currently-dismal lot of "the 90%", as they could have done in 2016, well, I suppose they feel compelled to making this the Hill They Die On by way of a Plan B.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

<snip>
But if Team D is so committed to not beating Trump in the obvious way, that is by nominating an actual non-horrible presidential candidate who promotes policies that actually promise some betterment in the currently-dismal lot of "the 90%", as they could have done in 2016, well, I suppose they feel compelled to making this the Hill They Die On by way of a Plan B.

I like this! As I said when the July call and the official complaint about it first became known, it was taking the D's eye off the objective of getting him voted out of office.

It has occurred to me to wonder why -- why in the world -- there isn't an article of impeachment about Il Duce's plan to have the G7 summit at his resort.

Not the proposal itself, mind you. It was what he said after his plan went south, complaining about the "phony emoluments clause." That's disparaging the Constitution he is bound by his oath of office to "preserve, protect, and defend." If that's not an impeachable offense, I don't know what is. I'd like to see his toadies try to explain it away.

I suppose he could mount a defense to the effect that the oath only requires him to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution "to the best of my ability," and, as a narcissist, his ability is nonexistent.

[ewmayer]

The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media | Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

If it does not bother you to learn that the FBI repeatedly and deliberately deceived the FISA court into granting it permission to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign, then it is virtually certain that you are either someone with no principles, someone who cares only about partisan advantage and nothing about basic civil liberties and the rule of law, or both. There is simply no way for anyone of good faith to read this IG Report and reach any conclusion other than that this is yet another instance of the FBI abusing its power in severe ways to subvert and undermine U.S. democracy. If you don’t care about that, what do you care about?

But the revelations of the IG Report are not merely a massive FBI scandal. They are also a massive media scandal, because they reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely false.

Horowitz Report Reveals the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke | Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone

The Guardian headline reads: “DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser.”

If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a “clearing” of the FBI, never clear me of anything. Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was ... Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump’s Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had “authorized purpose” to conduct.

Horowitz uses phrases like “serious performance failures,” describing his 416-page catalogue of errors and manipulations as incompetence rather than corruption. This throws water on the notion that the Trump investigation was a vast frame-up.

However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose “serious” procedural problems and omissions of “significant information” in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president).

Officials on the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia investigators went to extraordinary, almost comical lengths to seek surveillance authority of figures like Trump aide Carter Page. In one episode, an FBI attorney inserted the words “not a source” in an email he’d received from another government agency. This disguised the fact that Page had been an informant for that agency, and had dutifully told the government in real time about being approached by Russian intelligence. The attorney then passed on the email to an FBI supervisory special agent, who signed a FISA warrant application on Page that held those Russian contacts against Page, without disclosing his informant role.

Likewise, the use of reports by ex-spy/campaign researcher Christopher Steele in pursuit of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authority had far-reaching ramifications.

Not only did obtaining a FISA warrant allow authorities a window into other Trump figures with whom Page communicated, they led to a slew of leaked “bombshell” news stories that advanced many public misconceptions, including that a court had ruled there was “probable cause” that a Trump figure was an “agent of a foreign power.”

There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report show years of breathless headlines were wrong...

As to the last sentence in the above excerpt, "were wrong" - as the saying goes, it's funny how the "mistakes" all went in the same direction.

[ewmayer]

House of Representatives voted along party lines to impeach President Trump - for non-U.S. readers, to impeach is the Capitol Hill equivalent of a prosecutor convincing a grand jury that a crime has been committed and getting it to issue an indictment. I.e. it's a formal accusation. [Some might describe it in the context of the timing as "one more thing to help ruin your family's holiday dinner party".] So, let's get to some links and commentary:

o The Impending Ruling Class Mental Breakdown and Riot | Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

...it is absolutely clear – both here in the belly of the global superpower beast, and in the old empire on the Thames – that every bourgeois liberty is “on the table” for elimination when the oligarchs feel existentially threatened. If you think they went crazy over the election of Trump, an impulsive and undependable member of their own class, imagine what they will countenance when an austerity buster threatens to take leadership of the other half of the electoral duopoly, and then contest for the presidency.

Reader comment: "I think this is right. Impeachment is just the latest manifestation of a ruling class nervous breakdown. Trump may be a phony working class champion but even the notion of such a champion is verboten. Now they want to delay impeachment and hold their breath and turn blue until we are all equally crazy with [Trump Derangement Syndrome]. May we all survive it."

o ‘Let Them Impeach And Be Damned’: History Repeats Itself With A Vengeance As The House Impeaches Donald Trump” | Jonathan Turley

The Trump impeachment is even weaker than the Johnson impeachment, which had an accepted criminal act as its foundation. This will be the first presidential impeachment to go forward without such a recognized crime… The Trump impeachment also marks the fastest impeachment of all time, depending on how you count the days in the Johnson case.

Take the obstruction of Congress article. I have strongly encouraged the House to abandon the arbitrary deadline of impeaching Trump before Christmas and to take a couple more months to build a more complete record and to allow judicial review of the underlying objections of the Trump administration. But Democrats have set a virtual rocket docket schedule and will impeach Trump for not turning over witnesses and documents in that short period even though he is in court challenging congressional demands. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton both were able to go to court to challenge demands for testimony and documents. The resulting judicial opinions proved critical to the outcome of the cases….

The same is true with the abuse of power article. I testified that the House had a legitimate reason to investigate this allegation and, if there was a showing of a quid pro quo, could impeach Trump for it. Democrats called highly compelling witnesses who said they believed such a quid pro quo existed, but the record is conflicted. There is no statement of a quid pro quo in the conversations between Trump and the Ukrainians, and White House aides have denied being given such a demand. Trump declared during two direct conversations, with Republican Senator Ron Johnson and Ambassador Gordon Sondland, that there was no quid pro quo.

One can question the veracity of his statement, as he likely knew of the whistleblower at the time of the calls. But there is no direct statement in the record by Trump to the contrary. Democrats and their witnesses have instead insisted that the impeachment can be proven by inferences or presumptions. The problem is that there still are a significant number of witnesses who likely have direct evidence, but the House has refused to go to court to compel their appearance. The House will therefore move forward with an impeachment that seems designed to fail in the Senate, as if that is a better option than taking the time to build a complete case.

Re. "recognized crime", a reader clarifies: "Johnson was impeached in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act which was passed in 1867. It was an act specifically passed over Johnson’s veto to deny Johnson the right to remove Secretary of War Stanton without the Senate’s approval – which they were not about to give. It was generally accepted that a President had the right to dismiss his cabinet members without the Senate’s approval in the past and if this law had gone to the Supreme Court, it most likely would have been declared unconstitutional. It was just a partisan trap that they knew Johnson would fall into."

And w.r.to "fastest", note that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that she had not set a time for sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. From the Naked Capitalism Impeachment Semi-Open Thread:

The Democrats appear to be trying to put a completely different face on the delay, that they are tussling with the openly partisan Mitch McConnell over the rules for the hearing. Note that with the Clinton impeachment, this process took place behind closed doors and was approved with a 100-0 vote. This outcome appears implausible now.

The Democrats want a full-blown trial, including calling witnesses like John Bolton, whom the White House directed to turn down House invitations to testify. The Republicans want a fast trial to declare victory and move on.

The Democrats to be hanging their hopes on a longer process to keep Trump under the hot lights and secure Republican defections in a Senate vote from the likes of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney. However, there are also Democrats who may cross the aisle like Doug Jones of Alabama, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. However, even the Financial Times points out that a long trial could result in the Republicans producing evidence that bolsters Trump. And let us not forget that having Warren and Sanders hostage to the Senate trial means they can’t campaign.

As Politico describes it, the Democrats are trying to pin the partisan tail on the Senate Republicans, and are threatening to keep investigating Trump in the House in the meantime. Again, this has the potential to come off as “Fire, aim, ready,” confirming the point the Republican constitutional expert Jonathan Turley made in his testimony, that the Democrats might well have a case for impeachment, but the evidence in hand didn’t add up to one.

Final thoughts. Noam Chomsky made a critically important point I managed to miss as to why the Democrats focused on the Ukraine hairball of all things. Apparently illegal wars that cost the US trillions in treasure and ruin what was left of our good name are fine, but crossing certain lines in party blood sport are not.

[kladner]

Noam Chomsky made a critically important point

Sheesh, that's some depressing reading! I generally consider myself pretty inured to the grim realities and possibilities of this moment, but Chomsky hits on one of my sore spots. None of the glaring HC&Ms are addressed. No Emoluments inquiries, for example.

[retina]

I doubt Trump will be convicted. The voters will simply follow their party affiliations, regardless of any actual facts or what they personally believe.

It's all just a big waste of time, and probably done to distract the little people from some other controversial thing(s) they want to do.