Pelosi lodging threats?

I used to live in Portland.

They made me lave because I refused to wear Birkenstocks...

 

I cited my evidence to prove you wrong, with quoted testimony. You just don't like it because it blows apart your false assumptions. Stop watching CNN and MSNBC and believing everything those bitter, TDS afflicted fools say, they are making you post some really silly comments.

By the way, you still have not cited one shred of evidence to back up your false assumptions, and wrong conclusions, that Trump was "soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations against Joe Biden that would benefit his reelection."

 

And why not, it's not like the dems have any proof of any wrong doing by Trump. All they have are their biased opinions arrived thru conjecture and presumption.

We have never sen such a partisan House before. The repubs didn't like Clinton's policies, but they liked him on a personal level. But the dems hate Trump with a visceral hatred that I have never seen before.

As I have said, just because the House decides to start an impeachment inquiry does not mean the Executive Branch is now subservient to House Democrats. An inquiry does not obligate the president to open all his documents and his closest advisors and legal counsel to undergo hours of testimony under oath, by House Democrats, many of whom who have been calling to impeach him before he was even sworn into office.

 

You must have missed the GAO opinion. Maybe those direct witnesses will come forward to exonerate the President during the Senate trial? What do you think?

 

I think every president before Trump has done exactly what Trump did, place a temporary delay on Congressional aid, and no one in Congress cared. Just because Trump is president, we are all supposed to think about impeaching the president for placing a temporary hold on Congressional aid?

Five Times Obama Put Conditions on Foreign Aid and Democrats Didn’t Care

Trump placed a temporary hold on all US foreign aid, not just aid to Ukraine.

Foreign aid funds put on hold for review

August 5, 2019 at 4:57 p.m. CDT
The Trump administration has temporarily frozen and ordered a review of several key foreign aid funds that Congress has already approved, in a move that critics fear could lead to another attempted rollback of foreign aid.

The Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development on Saturday, notifying them of the action, which took effect one minute before midnight that day.

 

Not doubting you, but where was that published? Also, it say ALL foreign aid, only "several key foreign aid funds." What were the other funds? And, I believe, the law requires him to officially notify Congress first. This says the OMB is simply informing other Executive Branch organizations.

 

I am trying to piece some of this together. It all stems from my memory of the testimony, where witnesses acknowledged that aid was being withheld across the board during the August-Sept time frame.

Here's another article discussing this:

Impeachment Inquiry Witness: Aid to Lebanon Withheld at Same Time, and Same Way, as Ukraine

The transcript of Hale’s closed-door deposition was released Monday evening, on the eve of a slew of new hearings.

Hale, a career diplomat, testified that the suspension of aid to various countries was part of a context in which the Trump administration had “embarked on a foreign assistance review in which we are trying to reestablish the norms that guide the assistance that we provide overseas.” Hale called the review of U.S. foreign aid “long overdue.”

He added, however, that the hold on Lebanon aid had been handled in the same way as the hold on Ukraine aid: “‘[N]o one explained to us in either case, Ukraine or Lebanon, the reasoning behind the hold, or the freeze really.”

 

It's possible for the President to legally withhold aid already passed by Congress and signed by him, IF to reports his intention and the causes to Congress. The Congress is responsible for ALL budgetary expenditures. It's called the "power of the purse." It infuriates Trump and he's constantly looking for ways around it (e.g. transferring funds appropriated to DoD for specific purposes to building his Wall). For that, he used an emergency declaration, covered by law. It was challenged and the Court sides with him allowing the transfer. But, on this occasion, he doesn't seem to have offered ANY official reason or notice to Congress in advance. That may have been simply incompetence on the part of advisers and staff, or done purposely, in the vein of "let's see if I can turn that inch the Court gave me on the Wall fund transfer into a mile in the expansion of Presidential powers?"
I understand his desire to review all foreign aid...but he needed the approval of Congress to do so. He's overstepped his powers.

 

In regards to presidents placing holds on foreign aid that was passed by Congress, Trump is not doing anything different than past presidents did. At least Trump appeals to the SCOTUS when he sees an impasse with Congress, and then obeys their ruling. Congress could not wait for the court's ruling on witnesses, so they just impeached him for appealing. What a sad joke Pelosi and her crew have become.

When it came to his Obamacare legislation, Obama violated the law, and then went against the court after they ruled he couldn't do that. Even with immigration, Obama himself spent months telling us he was not a dictator and could not change the law all on his own, then he did just that, in violation of the court.

 

And, if those who believed Obama had broken the law, they could have impeached him as well. Why didn't they? The powers of impeachment are the sole prerogative of the current House at the time of impeachment...just as the trial upon impeachment is the sole prerogative of the Senate and those in attendance at the time of trial. IOW, there was no constitutional reason to wait for Court rulings. But, I'd be happy to debate the Court's authority. You could begin by quoting the part of the U.S. Constitution that gives the Court the power of judicial review. [OK...it's a leading question...there is no such Constitutional authority...it was assumed in Madison v. Marbury, in 1803.]
On the issue of "witnesses," I would argue that the Senate powers of advice and consent give the Senate the implied power to subpoena any Executive Branch employee confirmed by the Senate (or employee thereof). That might not apply to Bolten, although Bolten has offered to respond to any such subpoena. IMO, Bolten could exercise "executive privilege" as a non-confirmed Presidential advisor, within the WH staff, as National Security Director. However, I also believe that Bolten and any other cabinet members claiming "executive privilege" would have to exercise that right, much as the 5th amendment protection, on a question by question basis, rather than any blanket claim of immunity.
IMO, the administration's position on "executive privilege," as well as withholding Congressional approved funding - even temporarily w/o notifying Congress - are attempts to expand Presidential powers and to act outside the Constitutionally provided powers.

 

At the time that was politically impossible and you know that, imagine what the media would have done with that. Ironically it was Obama's smug Gotti persona that delivered the White House to Donald Trump. Obama also pretty much screwed the chances for a black or a woman to ever be elected president. That is of course unless they are Republican, I could see Allen West in the White House or Nikki Haley. 2024 will be exciting you can bet on it.

 

Impossible? The Democrats just did it. The Republicans held the House for six of Obama's 8 years.

 

They certainly could have, if the repubs were as obsessed with Obama as the dems are with Trump.

The SCOTUS ruled that Obama violated the Constitution when he made recess appointments, while the Senate was still in session. Obama himself said over and over that the Constitution did not allow him to wave his pen and enact an EO to keep illegal aliens here, but a year later he did exactly that.

Impeachment is for treason, high crimes, and high misdemeanors, and as bad as Obama's actions were, they were not that, and neither was Trump's appeal to House overreach.

The hurdles to impeach are right there in the Constitution, and nowhere is it written that a president must lay down like a floor mat to House inquiry subpoenas, or he'll be impeached. If simply appealing House overreach to the SCOTUS was ground for impeachment, then any president can be impeached, for no reason at all.

 

The Constitution gives the House the "sole power on impeachment." It gives the Senate the "sole power to try impeachment." What's to ask the Supreme Court to decide?

 

Yes but Trump isn't black and Obama had the media in his pocket. The fallout from impeaching the first black president would have been the cementing the false racist brand to conservatives and it would be part of every other leftist scheme forever. No, the GOP were wise to wait it out and now they can go after Obama with impunity. The Trump impeachment is just a delaying tactic by those that know their day of reckoning is not far off.

 

Have a nice evening.