Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumBeen out of pocket for a week. Pelosi really squelched impeachment?
No "thinking about it " for me.
So trying to quickly catch up. Warrren, Moulton, Buttigieg, and Harris are probably impeachment and all the rest no????
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)at this link:
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Senate_Impeachment_Role.htm
GOOD LUCK!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
elleng
(130,865 posts)facts/investigations necessary first.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Indykatie
(3,695 posts)We can't go straight to impeachment without those steps can we?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)Stand up and stop being mealy mouthed. There's enough to stand up and say YES we will impeach!!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
brush
(53,764 posts)fall where they may. Makes much sense to get the hearings on TV to expose to the nation how trump and the repugs cooperated with the Russians and have tried to, and continue to obstruct justice by now refusing subpoenas.
Misinformation is not helpful
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
brush
(53,764 posts)of Nixon and Clinton. It's in our favor to keep hearings going on for months to educate the public on trump's crimes as we get closer to the election.
Right now most aren't im favor of immediate impeachment. If we time it right we'll get public opinion in our favor for impeachment and/or an election win. We can play the hearing game too as the repugs did with Benghazi and the emails.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)fine with hearings.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)Have the hearings. Make the Republicans go on record supporting this ass and see what happens. I have called all my representatives and told their staffers I support impeachment now.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)Thank you. Resist!
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
mcar
(42,301 posts)A little research would tell you that.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)This is insane. You can still stand up and say it and investigate. JHC Mueller handed it to us with a bow on it
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)Mueller gave them the goods. They have all they need. All they need to do now is act on behalf of the people.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)Impact and connection to Mueller report waned away. Don't ya think? Average voter thinking well...nothing happened..moved on. It is sickening.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)Impeachment hearings should have started immediately. I still have hope that Dems will do the right thing. Rashida Tlaib, AOC and Ilhan Omar are some the few who have the integrity to do what is right.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)New spirit and integrity and unabashed liberalism and people who stand up a scream our values...yet we approve of being wishy washy and political and old thinking (I can't say the L word) when it comes to doing what's right.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,583 posts)I want to get that bastard out of OUR White House as badly as you do, I suspect.
And impeachment seems like the thing to do.
But.
We have the House, no problem there. We can do that in the House.
The Senate is another story as you and I well know. They would not vote for conviction, PERIOD.
And the end result would be that tRump would loudly proclaim victory, no conviction, he is exonerated again.
That would be extremely bad in terms of the 2020 election. It could give him the election.
So we wait and see. I find this extremely difficult but I truly think this is the right path.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)But wouldn't it be a good thing to put the Republicans on the spot as supporting this lying bigot?
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,583 posts)But how?
As I said to Laura, just below, I don't know how to do that.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)and as obvious as we have (or had a week or two ago) and remain silent just because we have a nebulous fear of what the Senate will do. Hold their feet to the fire! You don't think that every single solitary one if those opposed are thrilled we do nothing? And they don't have to stand up before the world and say " no, I don't care that a president of our country tried a dozen times to get people to break the law?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,583 posts)I KNOW they wouldn't convict him and I know he would use this to the maximum, just as he has the Mueller report.
I don't think it means we do nothing. But I'm not political enough to know just what we should do to show our anger and disgust with him.
That path is not clear to me.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)1) impeaching
2) not impeaching
Each give trump the ammo to say "look nothing there"
But, the first:
1) honors our duty and obligation
2) Marks Dipshit egomaniac in the history books as impeached.
3) forces Republicans to go on record that they condone his crimes.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)Just do the right thing.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Kath2
(3,074 posts)She opposes impeachment because it realistically will not happen and the ass in chief will claim victory. I am of the opinion that we should impeach now as a matter of principle. Let the Republicans go on record supporting this criminal. Hold the televised hearings and let the people decide.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)Concise list of crimes and not spread out over time, this diminishing their significance and dillution (Trump's intent).
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Kath2
(3,074 posts)Americans apparently love reality TV. Televise impeachment hearings and let the truth come out.
Trump is doing too much damage to wait, IMHO. The Supreme Court, women's rights, equality, the environment. I could go on and on.
I do not want to wait until 2020 to stop this.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)Two days ago, Hillary put out a brilliant piece on how to respond to the Mueller Report:is calling for formal impeachment investigation hearings:
During Watergate, the House Judiciary Committee also began a formal impeachment inquiry that was led by John Doar, a widely respected former Justice Department official and hero of the civil rights struggle. He was determined to run a process that the public and history would judge as fair and thorough, no matter the outcome. If todays House proceeds to an impeachment inquiry, I hope it will find someone as distinguished and principled as Doar to lead it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-mueller-documented-a-serious-crime-against-all-americans-heres-how-to-respond/2019/04/24/1e8f7e16-66b7-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.108a5648959e
Hillary should know, she was there during the Nixon impeachment process as an impeachment attorney. The process started with a formal House Resolution: "An impeachment process against Richard Nixon was formally initiated on February 6, 1974, when the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution, H.Res. 803, giving its Judiciary Committee authority to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States of high crimes and misdemeanors, primarily related to the Watergate scandal....The Judiciary Committee set up a staff, the Impeachment Inquiry staff, to handle looking into the charges, that was separate from its regular Permanent staff. Based upon the recommendations of many in the legal community, John Doar, a well-known civil rights attorney in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who was a long-time Republican turned Independent, was hired by Rodino in December 1973 to be the lead special counsel for the Impeachment Inquiry staff. Doar shared with Rodino a view that the Senate hearings had gone overboard with leaked revelations and witnesses compelled to testify under immunity grants; they were determined to do things in a more thorough and objective process." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_process_against_Richard_Nixon
That is what we need to do now.
As I have also been saying for days (although Hillary does not mention it in her piece, BUT I AM SURE SHE KNOWS), regular oversight hearings do not give authority to Congress to obtain Mueller's grand jury info, only formal impeachment proceedings can do that.
As Lawrence Tribe stated in the Washington Post:
In a 2-to-1 decision in McKeever v. Barr, the court reaffirmed the principle of grand jury secrecy and concluded that a court has no inherent power to release grand jury information. This decision will give Barr a plausible basis to resist the Judiciary Committees subpoena of the entire Mueller report, even if the committee goes to court to enforce it. But both the House and the attorney general have ways to cope with this obstacle, if they have the political will and the professional judgment to do so.
In McKeever, two Republican appointees, including President Trumps former deputy White House counsel, concluded that grand jury information must remain confidential unless a request for disclosure falls within one of the narrow exceptions listed in the federal rules of criminal procedure. The court refused to allow the disclosure of grand jury proceedings relating to the 1957 indictment of an FBI agent suspected of conspiring with the regime of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo to kidnap and murder an outspoken critic. Even though all the witnesses and principals died long ago, the court concluded that a historian writing a book about the incident could not get access to the grand jury proceedings.
In the face of Barrs decision not to disclose any of the Mueller report to the public or even to the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D- N.Y.) until Barr and his team have scrubbed the report of grand jury information (and other material), Nadler and committee Democrats have authorized a subpoena for the full report, setting the stage for a court fight over the committees right to see grand jury information. Although the public need underlying the request for disclosure in McKeever was much less pressing, the decision in that case undermines the position of Nadlers committee, because the controlling federal rule contains no exception allowing congressional oversight committees to demand access to otherwise secret grand jury proceedings.
One of the exceptions to grand jury secrecy is disclosure preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding. To authorize disclosure of the Watergate grand jury information, the special prosecutors office argued that the House had authorized its Judiciary Committee to conduct a formal impeachment inquiry and that such an inquiry could be fairly analogized to a grand jury investigation and thus a judicial proceeding. Both the district court and the court of appeals agreed, and the Judiciary Committee obtained both the report and the underlying evidence.
Significantly, the appeals court decision several days ago reaffirmed that exception. All three judges agreed that an impeachment inquiry falls within the exception for judicial proceedings and coheres with other rulings about the proper scope of grand jury secrecy.
But Pelosi has declined to allow the Judiciary Committee to open even a preliminary impeachment inquiry, asserting rather bizarrely that Trump is not worth it. That decision may hamstring Nadlers quest for the complete Mueller report. Nothing in the federal rules creates an explicit exception allowing congressional committees exercising general powers of government oversight to demand access to secret grand jury material. So, Pelosi and Nadler are confronting a dilemma of their own making: either revisit the politically fraught impeachment question or concede that the House is at the mercy of whatever judgment the attorney general makes in excising grand jury information, which may include the most salient material about possible collusion and obstruction of justice.
For his part, Barr also has delicate judgments to make. If he is so inclined, the attorney general could properly opt to exclude only the names and actual testimony of grand jury witnesses while nevertheless informing the Judiciary Committee and the public about the substance of the information developed during the proceedings. Unfortunately, Barr has given every indication that he intends to make needlessly sweeping redactions, especially having ruled that, in his judgment, the evidence of obstruction of justice did not rise to the level of a prosecutable crime. Trumps selection of his new attorney general may prove to be his best line of defense unless Pelosi revisits her stance and directs the House Judiciary Committee to include impeachment within its investigatory ambit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-full-mueller-report-could-be-released--if-the-house-opens-impeachment-hearings/2019/04/08/e47fff42-5a14-11e9-a00e-050dc7b82693_story.html
Not only would trying to recreate the grand jury testimony be time-consuming and wasteful in a regular oversight hearing, now that the White House has ordered all Trump aides, including McGahn, to not respond to Congressional subpoenas, it will be next to impossible to do it in light of case law. But not if it is a formal impeachment investigation hearing. That is why we must go this route, and do it immediately.
So, you have Hillary Clinton and our nation's top constitutional law professor, Lawrence Tribe, calling for immediate formal impeachment proceedings. So far, Pelosi has only indicated she will do regular oversight hearings, but she does not appear to have ruled out a formal impeachment inquiry.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden