Why is Mitch McConnell refusing to subpoena any documents and witnesses?

The Constitution makes only two differentiations for impeachment of the President compared to any impeachment of a government official:

• The Chief Justice shall preside
• [The President] shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Otherwise, it is just another impeachment by the House and another trial by the Senate.

When the press, either on the left or the right, says there are only three previous cases of impeachment for precedence, they are taking a narrow view. There have been 19 House impeachments and 18 Senate trials from those impeachments. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Impeachment/Impeachment-List/.

The trials have taken anywhere from one day (with a vote to convict on the morning of the second day) in the case of Thomas Porteous to as long as several months long on a few others. Trials start as soon as a day after impeachment to as long as several months after impeachment.

But, in any case, there are 19 impeachments and 18 trials for precedence and for the Senate to have a one-day trial and a vote is certainly precedented.

 

The leaker did his job, you're correct. The problem is, his primary job was as a spy for Adam Schiff planted, illegally and unconstitutionally, in the Whitehouse to work to overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America. He likely has been providing much of the inside information being leaked out of the Whitehouse but we know for certain that he leaked some information about Trump's call with the President of Ukraine. He used that information to salt a report full of lies in an attempt to add credibility to the lies - the best lies always have a bit of truth for credence.

 

Even when I don't listen to wingnut media for a while, I can always tell what idiotic talking point they've been feeding their flock... because they come here and repeat the same nonsense one after the other.

Here

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...s-and-witnesses.566645/page-5#post-1071332254

 

The impeachment is a joke. Literally. It needs to be laughed at.

McConnell may just dismiss the impeachment without a trial. Hooray for sanity.

 

I'm a conservative, a constitutionalist, and a Trump supporter, after having been a never-Trumper until the day he got the nomination; I was/am more of a never-Hillaryer than I was a never-Trumper.

Even so, I disagree. The Senate isn't just the jury; they're the trial. Even so, though, how they run that trial is completely up to them and no one has any authority to tell them how they must run it. That's why some trials have taken months and some trials have taken just a day. They can take the input from the House and vote on it. They can ignore the input from the House or they can do more investigation - and have in more trials than otherwise, or they can have an immediate vote to convict which, if it fails, ends the trial.

 

Whether he can ignore the trial is an interesting constitutional question. If he took no action, and the Republicans lost the Senate in 2020, could the next Senate take it up? Could dismissal without a vote be counted as actually having a trial? It would probably end up in the Supreme Court because the Court may perceive that they could rule on whether there must be a trial even if they cannot rule on how the trial is executed.

The best thing, I think, would be for McConnell to call for a rule change for this trial to simply have a vote - being the jury (even though it's not a limitation or only expectation of their role) and the vote will fail and that's the end of it.

 

He doesn't have the votes. He admitted as much today:

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/mi...-republican-caucus-for-the-motion-to-dismiss/

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday admitted that there is “little to no sentiment in the Republican caucus” supporting a motion to dismiss articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

At a press conference, McConnell told reporters that the Senate impeachment trial will likely begin next Tuesday.

“There is little to no sentiment in the Republican caucus for the motion to dismiss,” McConnell said.

Moscow Mitch is also facing an ethics complaint due to his blatant foreshadowing of his intent to violate his oath. There's not going to be a significant change in the rules, and with the info provided by Rudy's henchman that was released today, the odds of witnesses being called just went up significantly.



Link to Lev Parnas' info:

https://intelligence.house.gov/uplo...x-iRK1d9Ob-C5nJFFdF6OZjof_N22cF-k21HtXWv_rsec

 

Jurors don't hold investigations and call their own witnesses. The House brings the case upon which the impeachment was based.

This is about separation of powers and the House arguments make no sense. That they couldn't call these witnesses because they would have had to go to court to fight a legitimate claim of executive privilege so let's impeach and remove the President for merely saying he would fight such a subpoena on those constitutional grounds. And that time was of the essence to remove him because he was such a threat and this threat was eminent. Well the subpoena's if issued in the trial will face the same challenge the same executive privilege, there's no difference there. And the Democrats made clear unequivocal statements that their case without further testimony is OVERWHELMING and indisputable. Well bring it on then.

 

Here's has Pelosi been drinking this morning before her announcing the House managers? Is this what their case will be a bunch of rambling nonsense? She even brought in Putin. They are going to trial to "seek the truth". That's what tthe impeachment was supposed to do.

 

And it exposed the truth that this is a political smoke screen to disguise their lack of vision for this country.

 

If you have something to say in rebuttal then say it.

 

When we lose, we tend to call folks liars and stupid. Please check your attitude.

 

The HoRs cannot change the rules in the Senate and the Senate cannot change the rules in the HoRs.

It is not the role of the Senate to call witnesses and add to the charges. That was up to the HoRs before they voted on impeachment and brought charges before the Senate.

The Senate may or may not call witnesses. It isn't up to the HoRs, and it isn't unfair, abuse of power or illegal. It is not unconstitutional.

They can open another impeachment inquiry, if they feel they didn't get the evidence they need to convict Trump in the Senate.

 

Exactly. It seems at this point in time that Pelosi wrapped it up prematurely and held the vote on the articles too early -- that's on her. She had plenty of time what with sitting on the pot constipated for 28 or 29 days. She could have used those 29 days if she was smart, or held the house investigations on into June if she needed to in order to complete her job.

She can't expect the senate to compensate for her ineptness.

 

Nothing in the Constitution makes the House the prosecutors and the Senate the jury. Here's impeach from Websters 1828 dictionary.

The House has, by definition, charged the President. They can charge anything they want - technically not limited to bribery, treason, misdemeanors, or high-crimes; those specifics are the requirement on the Senate in order to remove the president at trial. If the President were to be convicted by the Senate, then there would be a serious constitutional question as to whether the crimes charged met the requirements of the Constitution for removal from office. There is nothing at all that says impeachment must meet that standard or that the President is removed from office for all convictions of impeachments. All moot since the President will not be convicted but it should really be part of the discussion because it's important that the Congress and the people understand the words in the Constitution.

Then, the Senate will hold a trial. They can do that in any fashion they choose. But if the House is the prosecutor then, the Senate permitting, they could call witnesses, as could the President. That's the corollary to the prosecutor comparison. But there is no corollary because the Constitution divides the responsibilities absolutely and leaves implementation 100%, up to the two houses with the exception that the Chief Justice of the United States presides if the trial is for the president and that the Senate must be under an unspecified oath during all impeachment trials.

 

Most people understand the press is talking about Presidential impeachments. In fact, the Press generally says so. I guess you missed that part.

 

You just contradicted yourself.

The Constitution says the trial will be in the Senate. The Framers knew that Americans would know the obvious. If the Senators aren't the jury, who is? The hall monitors. Senators conduct the business of the Senate. Duh!

 

President Trump has added some high-profile lawyers to his legal team, including Harvard emeritus law professor Alan Dershowitz.

Dershowitz is a loser. He defended O.J. and we know what happened to him. He destroyed his affluent lifestyle and spent years in prison. Dershowitz also defended the sexual pervert, Jeffrey Epstein, who was in prison when he committed suicide or was murdered. Like I said, a loser.

This guy has defended Trump for three years, which leads me to believe he is a conservative.

Or not, apparently he thought Trump was so bad as a candidate, that Dershowitz voted for Hillary in 2016.

Now he is going to be defending Trump, another loser, a dumbass, paranoid President who got himself impeached.

 

The House has IMPEACHED the President. The Constitution lays out the four reasons for IMPEACHMENT and reading the founding fathers what they feared, an entirely partisan impeachment on political grounds, is what is happening here. He will always be an impeached President and that is the precipice the Democrats have brought us to with this weaponizing of impeachment. We can almost expect future Presidents to be impeached by opposition party controlled Houses.

The impeachment is where the House investigates and builds the case and evidence to impeach and decides whether to do so. They take that impeachment to the Senate for their decision to remove based on the House proceeding. The Senate does not do an investigation or their behalf. They sit in silence and allow the House to present the articles of impeachment and the evidence upon which it was based. They can view the evidence upon which it was based. They can submit questions to the Chief Justice to ask about the evidence upon which it was based.

 

Newt Gingrich | Fox News writes. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seemed giddy Wednesday as she announced the impeachment managers who would go to the Senate and attempt to prosecute a case against President Trump.
“He’s been impeached forever,” Pelosi said. “They can never erase that.”

"However, Pelosi has it exactly backward. The Senate is going to refuse to convict President Trump. He will be exonerated, and she and the Democrats will be condemned by history."

Newt drones on. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/newt-gingrich-trump-impeachment-will-bring-pelosi-and-house-democrats-condemnation-by-history

Similar to Republicans lawmakers, past and present, similar to Trump's supporters here, Newt completely avoids the mounting evidence against Trump and speaks theoretically and empirically.

In other words, because he did not deal with the mounting evidence against Trump, his opinion means squat.

 

No, that is false. The House merely impeaches. Like a grand jury, the House merely determines if there is enough evidence for an impeachment. The House indicts. It does not try. According to our Constitution, the trial takes place in the Senate. Like a grand jury, the House does not determine guilt or innocence. The Senate does that with the presentation of all relevant evidence, including witness testimony.

You are supporting a trial without witnesses. That is ludicrous. A trial without witnesses is a cover-up.

You are suggesting that the opening statements in your trial is evidence. Opening statements are not evidence. Are you suggesting a trial without evidence?

If the Senate maintains this moronic position, the American people will become the judge and jury on November 3. You best think about that.

 

Impeachment was over and completely done with when the articles were delivered to the senate.

 

Devin Nunes should be expelled from the House of Representatives.

A month ago, when phone records showed contact between Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Lev Parnas, Nunes said he didn’t recall Parnas’s name and couldn’t confirm the call. On Wednesday, with Parnas about to appear on TV for the first time, Nunes suddenly offered a (very conveniently timed) confirmation, but he downplayed the call as being about “random things.”

Now, Nunes’s claims about his ties to Parnas are even more questionable.

Newly released documents Friday night showed Parnas in repeated contact with a Nunes aide, Derek Harvey. He appeared to be looping Harvey into the Ukraine effort led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, and the messages show the three of them met at the Trump hotel in Washington. Parnas also set up calls for Harvey with the same Ukrainian prosecutors who were working with Giuliani.

And in one exchange, there is an indication Harvey may have known this was all about Joe Biden:

“Also do you want to interview the general prosecutor who got [ditched] by Biden? Also the anti corruption prosecutor? Let me know,” Parnas wrote on April 19.

“Does tomorrow work?” Harvey responded.

Harvey even apparently became angry that Parnas and Giuliani were sharing documents with conservative journalist John Solomon, rather than Nunes’s office.

The combined picture is a Nunes aide who was pretty abreast of what Giuliani and Parnas were up to — to the point where he was meeting with them and expressing frustration at not being the recipient of their information.

And that isn’t easy to square with the picture painted by Nunes. Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has suggested Parnas was just a person he didn’t know who was spouting a bunch of stuff that he [did not know about].

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/18/new-text-messages-put-devin-nunes-hot-seat/

Nunes has been lying his way all through this. He and Trump make excellent partners. Trump makes things up as he goes along, too, and both have been caught with their lies.

 

Same old B.S. we have heard all this before. Trump's lawyers avoid all the evidence and concentrate their attention on making false accusations without substantiation.

President Trump's legal team on Saturday issued a full-throttled defense to the articles of impeachment, refuting the substance and process of the charges while accusing House Democrats of engaging in a "dangerous attack" on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.

"This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election -- now just months away," the legal filing said. "The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the president began the day he was inaugurated and continues to this day."

"The articles of impeachment are constitutionally invalid on their face," the seven-page filing continued.

The legal paperwork is the first formal response to the two articles of impeachment read in the Senate on Thursday for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Trump's lawyers argued that the articles of impeachment "violate the Constitution" and are "defective in their entirety" because they were the product of invalid House proceedings that "flagrantly denied the President any due process rights."

At the crux of Trump's defense is that he did nothing wrong in his July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine when he asked for investigations into Democrats. The White House argues that military aid to Ukraine was ultimately released without any announcement of investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-lawyers-respond-impeachment-articles

 

Hard to believe these highly paid lawyers have a stomach for this?

I hope Trump is paying them a lot of money because they are losing every bit of their self-respect as an American.

The reason Trump's fans know so little about the impeachment and trial is that they don't read posts like these on the various threads concerning Trump's impeachment.. They don't want to know. Their blind loyalty to Trump is based entirely on ignorance.

Currently, nearly every Trump fan is avoiding all the threads dealing with Trump's impeachment. It is impossible to defend Trump, and they know they screwed up.

They just won't admit it.