Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[cherdano]

Simple question Andrei: If these accusations are true, should Trump be removed from office?

 

Your repeated use of bold face suggests that you are disputing the accuracy of these claims, not the magnitude of the supposed offense.

Still waiting for andrei's response (or any of the other Trump supporting posters here).

If it helps, by "these accusations" you can take the claim that the Trump administration blocked congressionally authorised financial support for Ukraine, and that Trump made clear in a phone call that they'd wish to see investigations into Hunter Biden in exchange for lifting the block.

[y66]

It's really something to see Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria, two Virginia members of Congress who defeated Republican incumbents in hard fought races in 2018, plus five other freshmen Democrats calling all colleagues to "consider the use of all congressional authorities available to us, including the power of inherent contempt and impeachment hearings, to address these new allegations, find the truth and protect our national security".  

[Winstonm]

NYT has finally spilled the beans; why did this take so long to report?

 

The publisher of The New York Times said Monday that the Trump administration would not help one of its reporters who was about to be arrested in Egypt two years ago, saying the episode was just one of many instances of the U.S. retreating from its “historical role as a defender of the free press.”

 

Over the last few years, however, something has dramatically changed. Around the globe, a relentless campaign is targeting journalists because of the fundamental role they play in ensuring a free and informed society. To stop journalists from exposing uncomfortable truths and holding power to account, a growing number of governments have engaged in overt, sometimes violent, efforts to discredit their work and intimidate them into silence.

 

This is a worldwide assault on journalists and journalism. But even more important, it’s an assault on the public’s right to know, on core democratic values, on the concept of truth itself. And perhaps most troubling, the seeds of this campaign were planted right here, in a country that has long prided itself on being the fiercest defender of free expression and a free press.

[Winstonm]

Prior to my switch of careers, I worked for many years in Las Vegas. This whole incident about the new Ukraine president smacks of a classic Mob-style influence attempt.

 

1. Send your personal attorney to "investigate".

2. Withhold something of value.

3. Express a "concern".

4. "Suggest" a "favor" as "the friendly and right thing to do".

 

The entire operation is about creating deniability while ensuring a totally different message gets through.

[y66]

Quote of the day from Ragnar Weilandt:

 

Oh look: A 16-year old girl with Asperger speaking in her 2nd language makes more sense and is more eloquent than the President of the United States, who, in turn, reacts like a spoiled 10-year-old.

[kenberg]

From Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

 

 

Apparently there has been something of a shift in Pelosi:

 

https://www.washingt...340f_story.html

 

A couple of thoughts.

 

For impeachment it is best if there is one act that stands out. For Nixon, it was the Watergate break-in. Everyone could understand that sending burglars to break in to the DNC has to have consequences. And so it is here. And there needs to be proof people can understand. So let's look.

 

$400 million gets put on hold (not denied) and then the president talks to the head of Ukraine and they talk about Joe Biden and corruption, this conversation also acknowledged. No quid pro quo being put forth? Nobody over the age of 12 believes that.

 

This is important. It is not necessary that he said "You get the 400 mil when you dig up dirt on Biden and son". The message was clearly sent. I am not a lawyer, I don't get involved in complicated schemes, so legalistically I am out of my depth. Most people are not lawyers, most people want to have as little to do with lawyers as is possible. But those same people can understand what message was being sent here.

 

Impeachment will be effective when the guy with a job, a family and bills to pay can understand the reason for it in less time than it takes him to read the sports page. I am thinking that point has arrived.

[Winstonm]

Good timeline of events from Greg Sargent at the WaPo:

 

So here’s what we know: As the timeline shows, Trump was thinking hard about Biden and Ukraine well in advance of ordering the aid frozen. At the same time, many officials in Trump’s own administration were deliberately kept in the dark about Trump’s rationale for freezing the aid.

 

Does that prove a connection? No, and we still don’t know whether Trump explicitly threatened to withhold the aid while making his demand of Zelensky, but this sequence makes a connection seem very plausible.

 

Regardless, the timeline shows that this constitutes extraordinarily serious misconduct even if Trump didn’t offer any explicit quid pro quo. Ukraine badly wanted the aid, and Zelensky told Murphy that Trump made him feel like there was a connection.

 

Both Trump and Giuliani have openly flaunted their own efforts to get Ukraine to dig dirt on Biden. Trump did this literally the day after the special counsel’s testimony persuaded him he can operate with impunity.

 

Trump’s top officials then corruptly concealed the “urgent” and “credible” whistleblower complaint from Congress — and we then only learned that Trump’s pressure on Zelensky appeared to be at the center of that complaint through dogged reporting.

 

No matter how you cut this, Trump used the power of the presidency to try to leverage a foreign power into interfering in the election on his behalf. And his top officials appear to be breaking the law to prevent Congress from getting to the bottom of it.

My ehphasis:

 

I think that last bolded paragraph fills the bill for simplicity.

[johnu]

Prior to my switch of careers, I worked for many years in Las Vegas. This whole incident about the new Ukraine president smacks of a classic Mob-style influence attempt.

 

1. Send your personal attorney to "investigate".

2. Withhold something of value.

3. Express a "concern".

4. "Suggest" a "favor" as "the friendly and right thing to do".

 

The entire operation is about creating deniability while ensuring a totally different message gets through.

The Criminal in Chief also said he was going to release transcripts of "a"??? call, but didn't say any thing about all the calls that were made. I have no reason to doubt the Liar in Chief and sincerely believe he will release transcripts of "a" call, right after he voluntarily releases his tax returns and loan documents from foreign banks. :rolleyes:

[Winstonm]

The Criminal in Chief also said he was going to release transcripts of "a"??? call, but didn't say any thing about all the calls that were made. I have no reason to doubt the Liar in Chief and sincerely believe he will release transcripts of "a" call, right after he voluntarily releases his tax returns and loan documents from foreign banks. :rolleyes:

 

The exact words of the transcript are unimportant - it is the entirety of events that leads to the conclusion.

 

1) Guiliani sent to the Ukraine to encourage an investigation into Biden.

2) Trump withholds military funding for Ukraine

3) Trump calls the president of Ukraine while still withholding military funding

4) Trump mentions Biden during the call.

 

There does not have to be any single incident of a quid pro quo. The pattern shows the nature of the actions.

[Winstonm]

It is disheartening, disturbing, and sad that this country elected a person who would say this in front of the United Nations:

 

The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations, who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors and honor the differences that make each country special and unique. It must not attempt to erase them or replace them. Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders causing them to ignore their own national interests. Those days are over.

[barmar]

There does not have to be any single incident of a quid pro quo. The pattern shows the nature of the actions.

Unfortunately, if it's all just implied and reading between the lines, the Republican Senate might be willing to let it go.

 

Like if a mobster says "I wouldn't like to see something bad happen to your family." We all know that this is a veiled threat, but it provides plausible deniability to a jury that's in your favor and chooses to interpret it literally ("he's expressing concern for your family's well-being").

 

Haven't we seen it before in Congressional and Senate hearings? If the Senate is not inclined to convict, and Trump hasn't been caught holding a smoking gun, they'll find a way to let him off.

 

I don't think we can compare now to the Nixon era. The mood in Congress is vastly different.

[johnu]

Haven't we seen it before in Congressional and Senate hearings? If the Senate is not inclined to convict, and Trump hasn't been caught holding a smoking gun, they'll find a way to let him off.

For some Republicans in Congress, a smoking gun, video and audio of the crime, and a public admission of guilt are not enough for them to criticize, let along vote to impeach or convict the Criminal in Chief.

[Winstonm]

Unfortunately, if it's all just implied and reading between the lines, the Republican Senate might be willing to let it go.

 

Like if a mobster says "I wouldn't like to see something bad happen to your family." We all know that this is a veiled threat, but it provides plausible deniability to a jury that's in your favor and chooses to interpret it literally ("he's expressing concern for your family's well-being").

 

Haven't we seen it before in Congressional and Senate hearings? If the Senate is not inclined to convict, and Trump hasn't been caught holding a smoking gun, they'll find a way to let him off.

 

I don't think we can compare now to the Nixon era. The mood in Congress is vastly different.

 

It doesn't matter about the Senate. The House has a duty to impeach. That forces the Senate to vote on approving corruption.

[Winstonm]

All I can say is that it's about time.

[kenberg]

Unfortunately, if it's all just implied and reading between the lines, the Republican Senate might be willing to let it go.

 

Like if a mobster says "I wouldn't like to see something bad happen to your family." We all know that this is a veiled threat, but it provides plausible deniability to a jury that's in your favor and chooses to interpret it literally ("he's expressing concern for your family's well-being").

 

Haven't we seen it before in Congressional and Senate hearings? If the Senate is not inclined to convict, and Trump hasn't been caught holding a smoking gun, they'll find a way to let him off.

 

I don't think we can compare now to the Nixon era. The mood in Congress is vastly different.

 

Comparisons are tricky, I emphatically agree. I mentioned the butterfly effect earlier when I brought up Watergate, with the idea that even without vast differences in the beginning, the endings can be different. But there can still be useful thoughts from history, and I think that a very useful point here is that, like your Mafia example, everyone can understand what is being said when someone puts a hold on 40mil and then calls to talk about corruption and Joe Biden and how it's really important to get at corruption. Confession time: I have not read all of the Mueller report. And I'm retired. And I have been at least somewhat following politics since 1952, when Pogo Possum was my first choice, Adlai Stevenson my second. It's important to present the case so that I and others see that it is right.

I would much prefer that we never need to impeach a president. It's not an opportunity, it's a tragedy. So if it happens, the ordinary guy has to be able to look at it as necessary. Democrats, some of them, have been far too gleeful. Or self-righteous. So it needs to be seen as right and necessary. Not seen as such by everyone, that never happens with anything. But broadly, I think it can.

[cherdano]

What a day in politics. This morning, a guardian headline prompted me to listen in to Lady Hale's announcement of the UK supreme court ruling. I immediately sensed where this was going, each sentence full of gravity, leading step-by-step yet inevitably within a few minutes to the conclusion that Johnson's prorogation of parliament was unlawful. My jaw dropped. No matter how logical the conclusion, this was a huge step for a court that's only existed 10 years.

 

Tonight, with less suspense, I watched Pelosi announcing a formal impeachment inquiry.

[hrothgar]

Not to detract from the ongoing cluster ***** in Washington and London, but from my perspective the really interesting thing that happened in the last few days was the release of the new poll numbers from Iowa and California.

 

Warren is consolidating a bunch of support, largely drawing from Harris, Buttageig, and Sanders.

Biden and Sanders are both showing pretty obvious ceilings.

Warren is not...

[Winstonm]

 

Comparisons are tricky, I emphatically agree. I mentioned the butterfly effect earlier when I brought up Watergate, with the idea that even without vast differences in the beginning, the endings can be different. But there can still be useful thoughts from history, and I think that a very useful point here is that, like your Mafia example, everyone can understand what is being said when someone puts a hold on 40mil and then calls to talk about corruption and Joe Biden and how it's really important to get at corruption. Confession time: I have not read all of the Mueller report. And I'm retired. And I have been at least somewhat following politics since 1952, when Pogo Possum was my first choice, Adlai Stevenson my second. It's important to present the case so that I and others see that it is right.

I would much prefer that we never need to impeach a president. It's not an opportunity, it's a tragedy. So if it happens, the ordinary guy has to be able to look at it as necessary. Democrats, some of them, have been far too gleeful. Or self-righteous. So it needs to be seen as right and necessary. Not seen as such by everyone, that never happens with anything. But broadly, I think it can.

 

My oldest daughter - now a lawyer - used to be the general manager of an Italian restaurant and she earned the nickname "the velvet hammer" from her employees that she had to fire. As she told me and them - I didn't fire them; they fire themselves.

 

So it is with impeachment.

[y66]

From Peter Baker at NYT:

 

He knew it was coming. It almost felt inevitable. No other president in American history has been seriously threatened with impeachment since before his inauguration. So when the announcement came on Tuesday that the House would consider charging him with high crimes and misdemeanors, President Trump made clear he was ready for a fight.

 

He lashed out at the opposition Democrats, denouncing them for “crazy” partisanship. He denounced the allegations against him as “more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage.” And he proclaimed that even if the impeachment battle to come will be bad for the country, it will be “a positive for me” by bolstering his chances to win a second term in next year’s election.

 

The beginning of the long-anticipated showdown arrived when Mr. Trump was in New York for the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, creating a surreal split-screen spectacle as the president sought to play global statesman while fending off his enemies back in Washington. One moment, he talked of war and peace and trade with premiers and potentates. The next, he engaged in a rear-guard struggle to save his presidency.

 

Mr. Trump gave a desultory speech and shuffled between meetings with leaders from Britain, India and Iraq while privately consulting with aides about his next move against the House. Shortly before heading into a lunch with the United Nations secretary general, he decided to release a transcript of his July telephone call with the president of Ukraine that is central to the allegations against him. In effect, he was pushing his chips into the middle of the table, gambling that the document would prove ambiguous enough to undercut the Democratic case against him.

 

By afternoon, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepared to announce the impeachment inquiry, the president retreated to Trump Tower, his longtime home and base of operations, to contemplate his path forward. A telephone call between the president and speaker failed to head off the clash, and now the two are poised for an epic struggle that will test the limits of the Constitution and the balance of power in the American system.

 

“We have been headed here inexorably,” said Michael J. Gerhardt, an impeachment scholar at the University of North Carolina. “The president has pushed and pushed his powers up to and beyond the normal boundaries. He’s been going too far for some time, but even for him this most recent misconduct is beyond what most of us, or most scholars, thought was possible for a president to do.”

 

Long reluctant, Ms. Pelosi finally moved after reports that Mr. Trump pressed Ukraine’s president to investigate unsubstantiated corruption allegations against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading Democratic candidate for president, while holding up $391 million in American aid to Ukraine. Democrats said leaning on a foreign power for dirt on an opponent crossed the line. Mr. Trump said he was only concerned about corruption in Ukraine.

 

Mr. Trump now joins only Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton in facing a serious threat of impeachment, the constitutional equivalent of an indictment.

 

Mr. Nixon resigned when fellow Republicans abandoned him over Watergate, but Mr. Johnson and Mr. Clinton were each acquitted in a Senate trial, the result that seems most likely at the moment given that conviction requires a two-thirds vote, meaning at least 20 Republican senators would have to break with Mr. Trump.

 

Mr. Nixon and Mr. Clinton both were privately distraught over facing impeachment even as they waged vigorous public battles to defend themselves. Undaunted, Mr. Trump appeared energized by the confrontation, eager for battle. Confident of his position in the Republican-controlled Senate, he seemed almost to assume that the Democrat-controlled House would probably vote to impeach and that he would take his case to the public in next year’s election.

 

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, an ally of the president’s, said Mr. Trump could afford to feel secure. He predicted the same thing would happen to Ms. Pelosi that happened to him in 1998, when he led a party-line impeachment inquiry of Mr. Clinton and paid the price in midterm elections, costing him the speakership.

 

Just as the public recoiled at the Republican impeachment then, Mr. Gingrich said, it will reject a Democratic impeachment now. Instead, he said, it will give Mr. Trump and the Republicans a chance to focus attention on Mr. Biden.

 

“This is the fight that traps the Democrats into an increasingly unpopular position — I lived through this in 1998 — while elevating the Biden case, which involves big money,” Mr. Gingrich said. “It is a win-win for Trump.”

 

His point on the popularity of impeachment was a critical one. Until now, at least, polls have shown that most Americans do not support impeaching Mr. Trump, just as they never embraced impeaching Mr. Clinton. Whether the latest allegations involving Ukraine will change public opinion the way they galvanized previously resistant House Democrats remained unclear.

 

Mr. Trump, though, has never been as popular as Mr. Clinton. During the 13-month battle that stretched from 1998 into 1999 over whether Mr. Clinton committed high crimes by lying under oath about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton’s approval rating was generally in the mid-60s and even surged to 73 percent in the days after he was impeached.

 

Mr. Trump does not have the same reservoir of good will, never having had the support of a majority of Americans in Gallup polling for even a single day of his presidency. His approval rating currently stands at 43 percent. But he has the support of 91 percent of Republicans, giving him reason to assume the party’s senators will stick with him.

 

Brenda Wineapple, author of “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation,” said there were times when a stand on principle was worth it even with a short-term cost. “Some defeats can ultimately be victories — but often only in the long or historical view,” she said. “The Johnson impeachment ultimately failed,” she said, but in the end, she added, the system worked.

 

At this turning point in his presidency, Mr. Trump began the day in New York toggling between world affairs and political survival. Even before he took the rostrum at the United Nations to deliver a subdued, boilerplate speech, he sought out reporters to push back on the suggestion that he used American aid to leverage Ukrainian cooperation with his investigation demand.

 

Mr. Trump asserted that he blocked the aid to Ukraine because European countries have not paid their fair share. He pointed to the fact that the money was eventually released as evidence that he did nothing wrong. What he did not mention was that European countries have chipped in $15 billion for Ukraine in the last few years and that he released the American aid only after senators from both parties threatened punitive legislation if he did not.

 

What he also did not say was that he had changed his explanation for withholding the money from just a day before. On Monday, he linked his decision to block the aid to his concerns about corruption in Ukraine, citing Mr. Biden as an example. By emphasizing instead his overall concern about foreign aid, he was advancing a rationale less tied to his demand for an investigation.

 

“I’m leading in the polls and they have no idea how to stop me,” Mr. Trump said. “The only way they can try is through impeachment.”

 

In fact, Mr. Trump is trailing Mr. Biden and other Democrats seeking their party’s nomination in most polls, which is why Democrats assert he was so intent on obtaining dirt from Ukraine on the former vice president.

 

Either way, as stunning as the day’s developments were, the only real surprise was how long it took to get here. Mr. Trump’s critics began discussing impeachment within days of his election because of various ethical issues and Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign. By last year’s midterm election, Mr. Trump repeatedly raised impeachment on the campaign trail, warning that Democrats would come after him if they won the House.

 

They did win, but the drive to impeachment stalled when the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, produced a report that established no criminal conspiracy between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia while refusing to take a position on whether the president obstructed justice during the investigation.

 

As it turned out, Ukraine, not Russia, proved to be rocket fuel for the semi-dormant effort. Now, more than two and a half years later, the battle is on.

[y66]

From Why I Changed My Mind About Impeachment by David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

Impeachment is an inherently political process. The framers designed it that way. It is the ultimate way that one branch of the federal government can hold another branch accountable.

 

Impeachment is not like a criminal trial, in which a jury or judge is supposed to base a verdict only on what happens inside the courtroom. The Constitution’s standard for impeachment — “high crimes and misdemeanors” — is deliberately vague. The decisions about whether the House should impeach and whether the Senate should convict have always involved a mixture of law, politics and public opinion.

 

For this reason, I have long thought Democrats would be making a mistake by starting impeachment proceedings against President Trump, even though I also believed Trump was manifestly unfit for office.

 

The Mueller report was too much of a letdown. True, that was in part because of the artful deception by Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, in releasing the report — but only in part. Over all, the report was anticlimactic. It persuaded virtually no one who wasn’t already persuaded of Trump’s unfitness.

 

If the Democrats had impeached him after the report’s release — after specifically saying that they would make their decision based on the report — they would not have persuaded many swing voters (or virtually any Republicans). I understand that many progressives wanted House Democrats to impeach Trump anyway, as a matter of principle. But I think that view overlooks the history and purpose of impeachment: It is, again, a political process.

 

If you impeach a president and fail to damage his political standing — if you’re just as likely to shore up his standing, as I think a post-Mueller impeachment would have — you’re doing it wrong. You are going to political war with the Constitution you want rather than the one the country has.

 

Many House Democrats understood this. They’ve certainly made mistakes since retaking House control this year — namely, failing to hold investigative hearings that might have shifted public opinion. But Democrats were right to reject calls for impeachment. Most House members who represent swing districts were right about this, and so was Nancy Pelosi.

 

And they are right to be changing their minds now.

 

Starting an impeachment inquiry is the proper move because of both what’s changed and what hasn’t. What has changed? In his dealings with Ukraine, the president committed a new and clearly understandable constitutional high crime: He put his own interests above the national interest by pressuring a foreign country to damage a political rival. He evidently misused taxpayer money in the process. He has shown he’s willing to do almost anything to win re-election.

 

What hasn’t changed? Trump is unfit for office. He has repeatedly violated his oath of office, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He has weakened America’s national security. He has used the presidency for personal enrichment. He has broken the law more than once. He has tried to undermine American democracy.

 

Trump has handed Democrats a new opportunity to persuade the country that his presidency needs to end, on Jan. 20, 2021, if not sooner. Democrats should seize that opportunity. Even if they can’t persuade Republican senators to remove him from office, they can focus voters’ attention on his egregious misbehavior.

 

It’s time to start an impeachment inquiry and see where it leads.

[Winstonm]

Trump may have really stepped in it, this time. He has left a long set of footprints leading from the scene of the crime.

 

The WaPo reports:

 

President Trump’s attempt to pressure the leader of Ukraine followed a months-long fight inside the administration that sidelined national security officials and empowered political loyalists — including the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani — to exploit the U.S. relationship with Kiev, current and former U.S. officials said.

 

The sequence, which began early this year, involved the abrupt removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the circumvention of senior officials on the National Security Council, and the suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars of aid administered by the Defense and State departments — all as key officials from these agencies struggled to piece together Giuliani’s activities from news reports.

 

Several officials described tense meetings on Ukraine among national security officials at the White House leading up to the president’s phone call on July 25, sessions that led some participants to fear that Trump and those close to him appeared prepared to use U.S. leverage with the new leader of Ukraine for Trump’s political gain.

[Winstonm]

“We can’t believe his statements, nor should we,” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and spokesman for the National Security Council under former President Barack Obama. “That’s why many of us who otherwise don’t like the precedent of releasing a presidential transcript are encouraging it in this case. Because there’s no other option than documentary evidence. His constant deception is pushing us towards new and dangerous territory.”

 

Gee, I wonder why that is?

 

Trump’s subsequent descriptions of what happened during and around that phone call have varied with the date and time of day he has been asked.

 

Oh.

[Winstonm]

The incredible irony here is that the criminal enterprise that occupies the White House should be impeached for a non-criminal action.

[hrothgar]

Transcripts are out...

 

Wow...

[cherdano]

Transcripts are out...

 

Wow...

When you play hide-and-seek with a toddler, and they cover their eyes, you pretend not to see them. That's what will happen here - the Trump administration will cover their eyes with a "see no explicit quid-pro-quo discussed!" shout, and most of Republicans in congress will pretend not to see the corruption standing in front of them.