The Defense Rests: GOP Leaders Reportedly Considering Not Calling a Single Witness

You mean they want a do-over on Schiff for brains charade.

 

Yup, if congress can't investigate the EB w/out waiting for the LB, then I shudder to think of all the abuse some truly terrible presidents will commit.

 

Well, I don't know that Trump ever invoked immunity. He uses language carelessly, but I'd be surprised if he instructs anyone representing him to seek dismissal on the grounds of immunity.

On edit, I am only talking about immunity from impeachment. Trump did claim immunity from criminal prosecution to fight release if taxreturns, but that's a different case.

 

No, that's your strawman.

Going to the court does not make the executive immune.

 

(emphasis added)

Where did he say he was absolutely immune to congressional investigation?

"Judge Marrero's decision was not unexpected to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the law. In essence, Judge Marrero summarized Trump's argument as demanding "blanket presidential and derivative immunity (in) all stages of federal and state criminal law enforcement proceedings and judicial process: investigations, grand jury proceedings, indictments, arrest, prosecution, trial, conviction, and punishment."

(CNN)


I don't see any reference to congressional investigation there.

 

Ok......old news.

 

He also asserted absolute immunity as the justification for why witnesses, like Don McGahn, do not need to appear for a congressional investigation.

 

You're probably right. Guess we'll find out for sure shortly.

 

He is being sued in court BECAUSE he claimed absolute immunity.

 

Not sure I understand what you are saying. I remember this:

The White House has also asserted immunity over the testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn, and the committee has sued in order to compel his appearance, which is still being litigated.

"The Department of Justice has advised me that Mr. Dearborn and Mr. Porter are absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to their services as senior adviser to the President," Cipollone wrote in a separate letter

Saying he "asserted absolute immunity" without clarification sounds like Trump is claiming Congress can't investigate him at all. I think that's a mischaracterization. Every proceeding involves potential "no go" zones, like priest-penitents, spousal privileges, etc.

Anyway I don't see how it would matter what Trump's lawyers said unless McConnell aborted the trial on a supposed claim of absolute immunity.

 

Exceptionally difficult to track down the original poll done by Upshot/Sienna College but I did locate a more informative article in the Washington Examiner.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ers-returning-to-trump-clinton-supporters-too

So they quoted just 7 voters and that represented 7 PERCENT of Clinton supporters? WTF?

This is either seriously bad reporting or the sample size was so small that the MoE will negate this result as having any relevance.

The description of that "sliver of the electorate" makes those "baked in" BLOTUS supporters in those swing states. The question becomes will this sliver seriously deplete the Progressive margins in swing states. Taking a look at 2018 gives us some potential answers.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...ike-2012-and-that-got-me-thinking-about-2020/

If we subtract 2% from the Dem margin and add it to the GOP margin that is a 4 point swing.
It is really only Iowa and Florida where that sliver might make a difference but all the rest were outside that margin.

While there are a large number of variables, including the economy, that will play a factor in 2020 sticking with just the math and the BLOTUS's primary support bloc we have to take into account that it is going to be significantly smaller than it was in 2016.

https://www.americanprogress.org/is...ions/reports/2019/10/24/476315/path-270-2020/



While the BLOTUS enjoyed a 2:1 margin in White, noncollege voters (and nothing indicates that will change) that bloc will shrink from 44% in 2016 to 41.7% in 2020. That works out to a net loss of 1.5% of the electorate that represent his core base. Per the Census bureau there are 153 million registered voters which means a loss of 3.5 million White, noncollege voters. Overall that comes to net loss of 1.2 million BLOTUS supporters for 2020. When you do the math that wipes out the 2 percent in those swing states who will go back to voting for him.

So overall I don't think that poll is significant this far out from the election. If anything it was just a straw to grasp in a torrent of negative news.

 

So you don't agree with the BS theory of the Rule of Law.

 

That is what your BLOTUS wants!

 

Now, who the fk is so dimwitted they don’t know the fix is in?

Its all politics, both sides—-and neither side would recognize a moral principle if it bite their nose.

 

Super impressive, thanks for doing such a deep dive into the data. I will take some more time later to review it further, but I agree with your headline conclusion.

The likelihood that studying swing voters from swing districts this far out will yield substantive or predictive information is extremely low. And this survey was also taken before any news of the Ukraine scandal broke, right?

 

Not as far as I know. The NYT article is dated 11/26/19 and I don't have the date of the original survey.

 

Negative news like the IG report confirming everything Rep. Nunes has been saying and impeachment support dropping?

You want to talk about swing voters, independents are clearly against impeachment. On a recent poll among them of 11 issues impeachment was dead last. More independents want the wall built than Trump impeached.

 

Nunes had a SERIOUS conflict of interest and the IG reported DEBUNKED all of the BLOTUS's conspiracy theories.

 

LOL, what conflict? Telling the truth as the IG report proved?

 

As usual, you have it exactly backwards, it was Schiff that the IG report discredited, not Nunes. I'll let the liberal Rolling Stone magazine explain it to you: https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...t-steele-dossier-collusion-news-media-924944/

"Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report ratifies the major claims of the infamous “Nunes memo.”

As noted, Horowitz establishes that the Steele report was crucial to the FISA process, even using the same language Nunes used (“essential”). He also confirms the Nunes assertion that the FBI double-dipped in citing both Steele and a September 23, 2016 Yahoo! news story using Steele as an unnamed source. Horowitz listed the idea that Steele did not directly provide information to the press as one of seven significant “inaccuracies or omissions” in the first FISA application.

Horowitz also verifies the claim that Steele was “closed for cause” for talking to the media, i.e. officially cut off as a confidential human source to the FBI. He shows that Steele continued to talk to Justice Official Bruce Ohr before and after Steele’s formal relationship with the FBI ended. His report confirms that the Steele information had not been corroborated when the FISA application was submitted, another key Nunes point.

There was gnashing of teeth when Nunes first released his memo in January, 2018. The press universally crapped on his letter, with a Washington Post piece calling it a “joke” and a “sham.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Nunes for the release of a “bogus” document, while New York Senator Chuck Schumer said the memo was intended to “sow conspiracy theories and attack the integrity of federal law enforcement.” Many called for his removal as Committee chair.

The Horowitz report says all of that caterwauling was off-base. It also undercuts many of the assertions made in a ballyhooed response letter by Nunes counterpart Adam Schiff, who described the FBI’s “reasonable basis” for deeming Steele credible. The report is especially hostile to Schiff’s claim that the FBI “provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele’s reporting.”

 

I can see how someone could determine that, if they thought with their amygdala instead of their prefrontal cortex.

 

Then clearly Congress is obstructing by going to the courts.

They should be impeached too.

 

This is a purely political activity. Proof or guilt have nothing to do with anything. It is all about the perceived effect on future votes.

 

Good people use innocent until proven guilty regardless of the scenario.
Bad people don't

 

When Trump is acquited by the Senate, he will be 'clothed in the mantle of innocence', as Trey Gowdy puts it.