Yes. You will not hear any objection from me here. However maybe we can agree that there are different levels of corruption just as how there are different levels of crime. Like how stealing in a grocery story is not on the same level as homicide.
Stupid Watergate - or how to impeach Donald Trump.
- Thread starter Crni Vuk
- Start date
A bit of a bombshell I guess. Even if not completely unexpected at this point.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/dc/dc368e07a86a1f14baa5bbe47fa4fbe5a2ad9a9edc6b2413a76705773a1baa20.jpg
Reports that John Bolton has written a firsthand account of the president’s direct involvement in withholding aid to Ukraine has left some Republicans confused and angry over the legal strategy by the president’s defense team — which has devoted much of its arguments in the Senate impeachment trial to arguing that no such firsthand evidence existed.
One Republican operative who advises the White House said he was “flabbergasted at how stupidly they have handled this.”
Trump attorney Mike Purpura argued Saturday that “not a single witness testified that the president himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance, a presidential meeting or anything else.”
Purpura repeated that claim on Monday afternoon, saying that “anyone who spoke to the president” said there was no pressure campaign on Ukraine.
That assertion echoes what the president’s legal team argued in its legal brief filed a week ago: “House Democrats’ claims are built entirely on speculation from witnesses who had no direct knowledge about anything and who never even spoke to the President about this matter.”
The disclosure in the New York Times Sunday night directly contradicts the arguments of the president’s lawyers, who said in their brief that this is “the central fact in this case.” Bolton, Trump’s former security adviser, has written in his forthcoming memoir about having just such a conversation with the president last August.
“This just completely washes away Purpura’s whole argument,” the White House adviser said. “WTF. He misled the Senate.”
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/dc/dc368e07a86a1f14baa5bbe47fa4fbe5a2ad9a9edc6b2413a76705773a1baa20.jpg
Reports that John Bolton has written a firsthand account of the president’s direct involvement in withholding aid to Ukraine has left some Republicans confused and angry over the legal strategy by the president’s defense team — which has devoted much of its arguments in the Senate impeachment trial to arguing that no such firsthand evidence existed.
One Republican operative who advises the White House said he was “flabbergasted at how stupidly they have handled this.”
Trump attorney Mike Purpura argued Saturday that “not a single witness testified that the president himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance, a presidential meeting or anything else.”
Purpura repeated that claim on Monday afternoon, saying that “anyone who spoke to the president” said there was no pressure campaign on Ukraine.
That assertion echoes what the president’s legal team argued in its legal brief filed a week ago: “House Democrats’ claims are built entirely on speculation from witnesses who had no direct knowledge about anything and who never even spoke to the President about this matter.”
The disclosure in the New York Times Sunday night directly contradicts the arguments of the president’s lawyers, who said in their brief that this is “the central fact in this case.” Bolton, Trump’s former security adviser, has written in his forthcoming memoir about having just such a conversation with the president last August.
“This just completely washes away Purpura’s whole argument,” the White House adviser said. “WTF. He misled the Senate.”
MutantScalper
Dogmeat
Maybe try the badger-approach? Apparently Trump has a badger-fixation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...d-trump-obsessed-with-badgers-new-book-claims
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...d-trump-obsessed-with-badgers-new-book-claims
TheGM
The voice of reason
Found it odd that the announcement of acquittal wasn't posted here.
Like OJ Simpson I guess.
TheGM
The voice of reason
Are you saying the OJ jury was wrong?
No I made a stupid joke to illustrate that this is a bit more complex than it seems.
Are you saying the OJ jury was wrong?
The important question here is, what does acquittal in this case mean. That Trump is innocent? Not quite. This was not a criminal case.
Here is the thing. But bear in mind this is all in laymen terms. What happend in the Senate was not a criminal case because this is not possible against a sitting president - duh!. The senators voting have been sometimes described as a Jury, comparable to a criminal case with a judge, but that's not really describing their role accurately. Impeachment is always a process described by the constitution. You have the House and the Senate. The House has "The sole power of impeachment". Afterward, that indictment moves to the Senate, which acts as a jury presiding over the impeachment trial. But it is not a criminal case. A president might be even criminally liable in front of a judge and jury with a possible sentence after the Senate voted to remove him. But not before. Because you can not sue a sitting president. Which was the whole reason for all of this process.
Trump acts in the image like he was exonerated, which is simply plane wrong. He was found guilty so to speak. That's what the House did. That's what many even many republican Senators agreed on, that the House proved the case. Trump did something wrong. He was impeached for it. But it was not so bad that the should be removed from office, one argument by Trumps legal team was even, everything he does is legal per definition because he's doing it to get reelected - the same argument by Nixon defenders by the way, but the supreme court made it absolutely clear that a President is not above the law, except that the Republican Senators right now kind of made him above the law with their vote. So what the Republican Senators did with the exception of Mit Romney was simply to say that what Trump did was not worth to remove him from office. They did not decide that he wasn't guilty of asking a political favour from Ukraine and withholding aid that was approved by Congress with the intention to pressure Ukraine in starting an investigation in to the Bidens. This is what really happend I am afraid.
To make this short. At this point you can either be for The constitution. Or you can be for Trump. But not both. Which is even more obvious when you look at a quote from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) “I would hope that the president would look at this whole proceeding and realize that it’s not appropriate to make a call to the president of another country and ask him to investigate your leading political opponent,”. But did he really learn something? Consider, that the conservative Judge Has lashed out at William Barr because the Trump administration's disregarding separation of powers. And with Rodger Stone there is the suspicion that Trump wanted to influence the jurisdiction. Well, which funnily enough was also one of the points Mueller once made - possible obstruction of justice. Go figure.
TheGM
The voice of reason
T
TorontoReign
Guest
Did you guys watch the most boring impeachment ever? It petered out about like Jeb Bush's career.
The only good thing about it is that it will probably also kill the Bidens.
T
TorontoReign
Guest
