Post by Deleted on May 6, 2019 13:06:31 GMT -5
If the House does not have impeachment hearings, does not vote for impeachment, they'll be saying that the president is above the law, and that political expediency takes precedence over the rule of law. That's unacceptable to me. One party must stand for the principle that the president is NOT above the law, and that political expediency does NOT matter more than the rule of law and the constitution. Otherwise, Democrats are uncomfortably like the Trump apologists and enablers who know perfectly well Trump is a liar and a crook but whistle along because they get tax policies that benefit them. Otherwise, all the Trump apologists will say "see, even the Democrats know that what Trump did was perfectly fine and not nearly as bad as the Clintons." And none of that is okay. That will never be okay with me. Once we decide that we only impeach a president if we think it will be politically expedient, once we decide he's above the law, I don't see how we ever come back from it, as a nation.
I meant it when I said I'd vote for a decent, honest Republican even if it meant some policies I didn't like over a Democratic Trump. I meant it when I said I'd be excoriating, daily, a Democratic Trump.
For my part, there's no fucking way I can read the Mueller report and do anything other than call for impeachment. No policy in the world could make me say otherwise.
By the way, I'm not sure at all that impeaching Trump will backfire on Dems. Indeed, I think it might be the opposite. Most people didn't think Nixon should be impeached until after impeachment hearings. Most people have not yet read the Mueller report and are woefully uninformed. Hearings could--and I think would-- change that. Seriously, the report is really fucking bad. Yes, the diehard Trumpers are his no matter what -- but the independents and the better sort of Republicans...I'm not so sure. I think it would help, not hurt, the 2020 election. It will help Weld (and whoever) in the primaries (no, he won't win, but it will weaken Trump). And IMO it will help Dems.
And taking all of that aside, see my first three paragraphs. Whatever the effect, somebody has to stand for the rule of law or we are just fucking lost as a nation.
I don't like saying all this. I don't like thinking it. But I think, unfortunately, it's where we are. I am really fucking scared for us. Truly.
On a related note:
Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not president, hundreds of former federal prosecutors assert
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-would-have-been-charged-with-obstruction-were-he-not-president-hundreds-of-former-federal-prosecutors-assert/2019/05/06/e4946a1a-7006-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0a002091c403
I meant it when I said I'd vote for a decent, honest Republican even if it meant some policies I didn't like over a Democratic Trump. I meant it when I said I'd be excoriating, daily, a Democratic Trump.
For my part, there's no fucking way I can read the Mueller report and do anything other than call for impeachment. No policy in the world could make me say otherwise.
By the way, I'm not sure at all that impeaching Trump will backfire on Dems. Indeed, I think it might be the opposite. Most people didn't think Nixon should be impeached until after impeachment hearings. Most people have not yet read the Mueller report and are woefully uninformed. Hearings could--and I think would-- change that. Seriously, the report is really fucking bad. Yes, the diehard Trumpers are his no matter what -- but the independents and the better sort of Republicans...I'm not so sure. I think it would help, not hurt, the 2020 election. It will help Weld (and whoever) in the primaries (no, he won't win, but it will weaken Trump). And IMO it will help Dems.
And taking all of that aside, see my first three paragraphs. Whatever the effect, somebody has to stand for the rule of law or we are just fucking lost as a nation.
I don't like saying all this. I don't like thinking it. But I think, unfortunately, it's where we are. I am really fucking scared for us. Truly.
On a related note:
Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not president, hundreds of former federal prosecutors assert
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-would-have-been-charged-with-obstruction-were-he-not-president-hundreds-of-former-federal-prosecutors-assert/2019/05/06/e4946a1a-7006-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0a002091c403
More than 370 former federal prosecutors who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations have signed on to a statement asserting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump — if not for the office he held.
The statement — signed by myriad former career government employees as well as high-profile political appointees — offers a rebuttal to Attorney General William P. Barr’s determination that the evidence Mueller uncovered was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed a crime.
Mueller had declined to say one way or the other whether Trump should have been charged, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, as well as concerns about the fairness of accusing someone for whom there can be no court proceeding.
“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” the former federal prosecutors wrote.
....
Among the high-profile signers are Bill Weld, a former U.S. attorney and Justice Department official in the Reagan administration who is running against Trump as a Republican; Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush Administration; John S. Martin, a former U.S. attorney and federal judge appointed to his posts by two Republican presidents; Paul Rosenzweig, who served as senior counsel to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr; and Jeffrey Harris, who worked as the principal assistant to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.
The statement — signed by myriad former career government employees as well as high-profile political appointees — offers a rebuttal to Attorney General William P. Barr’s determination that the evidence Mueller uncovered was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed a crime.
Mueller had declined to say one way or the other whether Trump should have been charged, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, as well as concerns about the fairness of accusing someone for whom there can be no court proceeding.
“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” the former federal prosecutors wrote.
....
Among the high-profile signers are Bill Weld, a former U.S. attorney and Justice Department official in the Reagan administration who is running against Trump as a Republican; Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush Administration; John S. Martin, a former U.S. attorney and federal judge appointed to his posts by two Republican presidents; Paul Rosenzweig, who served as senior counsel to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr; and Jeffrey Harris, who worked as the principal assistant to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.